I just got a handful of new whistles myself, and it struck me how utterly different my first actions were to what Phil describes here.PhilO wrote:Anyway, I just got it - used the tuner, went up and down the scales, did rolls in both octaves up and down, played various tunes (airs, reels, jigs) with ornamentation, blew the notes into both octaves up and down the scales, and tested the high B on that section in the Londenderry Air, messed with the tuning slide, etc.
Basically, I danced with glee, randomly grabbed a whistle head and body, put them together, blew a few notes to make sure the thing worked, and dived in playing tunes, mostly reels and jigs. Then I switched to the next whistle and repeated. None of them has come anywhere near a tuner yet (though they have been tuned to other instruments I wanted to play with), nor have they played scales, etc.
What do other people do to try out new whistles?