You know it's been too long since you last played, when...

[aderyn_du]

... you go to pick up two of your whistles, and you can't even remember the makers. Doh!

I may have to post pictures for identification.


Squeaks and squawks abound,

Ad

[Gabriel]

The longest time my flute remained unplayed was in summer last year when I was in Ireland for a backpacking holiday and didn't want to take my expensive flute with me. I was away for a week and took a whistle instead.

[anniemcu]

Why looky there... she is...

I went about 20 years. Stupid, really.

[emmline]

I know...Aderyn...who????

(just kidding, just kidding...)
nice to see you 'round these parts.

[dubhlinn]

... you go to pick up two of your whistles, and you can't even remember the makers. Doh!

I may have to post pictures for identification.


Squeaks and squawks abound,

Ad

Good to hear from ye again,me dear one.

I spent ten years playings with myself..

There's a few players passing through town now and I'm enjoying every note.

It is soooo nice to play with another musician..sooo nice.

Slan,
D.

[peeplj]

Before I found myself with an old German 8-key and started playing Irish tunes on it that I found on the Web...

But after college where once upon a time I was a music major for a couple of years...

I spent nearly ten years, pretty much without playing anything. Every blue moon I'd break out an instrument, noodle for ten minutes, and tell myself that was enough for this year.

Playing Irish traditional music, as bad as I was at it at first, when I barely even had an idea of what it really was, brought music back into my life...and that's been a wonderful thing.

--James

[chrisoff]

I spent nearly ten years, pretty much without playing anything. Every blue moon I'd break out an instrument, noodle for ten minutes, and tell myself that was enough for this year.

^This

That's me and my whistles.

[Joseph E. Smith]

I just spent a little under a year without playing my pipes, due chiefly to a difficult time getting used to being single again, and losing my mother over the winter. While I played at her funeral, it wasn't really playing as much as it was saying goodbye and absent mindedly fingering my way through Amazing Grace.

This past Labor Day Weekend I finally sat down and played the begeezus out of them... the first 1/2 hour was a painful exercise in muscle memory recall... but it got better and better after that. I played roughly 24 hours worth over the past three days, and my shoulders feel it very much.

[Denny]

good fer you!!

[Innocent Bystander]

Took my whistles to University, and didn't get to play them much. It was more than ten years before I picked them up again, and by that time I was married with children. Saw Guido Gonzato's site and wanted to have a go. Now I'm even getting to grips with the low D.

[Doug_Tipple]

I wanted to learn a band instrument when I was in middle school. We had a silver flute and a cornet in the attic. My brother chose the cornet, and I chose the flute and started taking lessons. However, I began to experience a common problem with beginners on the flute: I became dizzy when I played. Without having the encouragement from an understanding teacher or parent, I gave up the flute as a lost cause. Also, in the little town where I grew up there weren't any other boys that were learning flute; it was considered a girl's instrument. So I missed out on being in the school band.

For years I pretty much stuck with stringed instruments, like the guitar. I remember when I became interested again in wind instruments. I bought a soprano recorder and learned to read recorder music. The soprano and alto recorders pretty much held my attention for a number of years until I got the idea that I wanted to try a flute again. This time, as an adult with some wind experience, I didn't have a problem blowing a silver flute.

I will be 65 in a couple of months, and now my music room is full of intruments. I have tin whistles, plastic whistles, pvc flutes, silver flutes (concert and alto), shakuhachis, bamboo flutes, a guitar, two mandolins, a violin, viola and cello, two frame drums, a djembe drum from Ghana, kalimbas from South Africa, two keyboards, and many other smnaller wind and percussion instruments. I think of them as friends, and I like to have them out of their cases and visible in my life space. Every day I pick one of them up and play something. Yesterday I played the cello, and "Midnight on the Water", a Texas fiddle tune, came to mind. I have two pvc flute embouchures to cut this morning, so I know that I will be playing the flute later on today.

[Joseph E. Smith]

Yesterday I played the cello, and "Midnight on the Water", a Texas fiddle tune, came to mind.

One of my faves to fiddle.

[crookedtune]

Over 40 years of playing, I've taken on guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, whistle, and now flute. I've probably never gone more than a couple of days without playing something, but may not touch one particular instrument for a long stretch. e.g. I probably haven't played the fiddle in a few months now. (This makes my family happy).

[Flogging Jason]

I've been learning to play the guitar and it's been about 2 months since I've played my whistles. A week ago Il Friscaletto came to visit St Augustine and we met up for a little jam. (lots of fun by the way...thank you) After an hour and a half of switching from whistle to guitar to low whistle and back again my arms were jello!

[Flyingcursor]

I haven't played whistles in at least a year. I haven't played harmonica in about six months. I haven't played flute in 2 years. It's all about the mountain dulcimer now. I've played steadily for over 2 years.