What position do you play in?

[DrPhill]

Personally, I play better standing up, but what about the rest of you?

(You can change your mind on this poll)

[jemtheflute]

???????? Whichever......! I don't think it matters. At a sesh, I invariably play seated. At home - I often play my flute standing up, don't tend to play whistle much at home....keep one by 'puter where am invariably seated.......otherwise, depends what I'm doing when I pick one up..... If I'm practising specifically for something it will likely be a whistle piece in between flute pieces and I do tend to do that standing up - but I think all my demo clips on either instrument are done seated. In gigs I'm usually standing, at least to play, but I'm quite happy sitting (and maybe more likely to be if playing for dancing, say)......

Sorry DrPhill, but I think this one's a bit daft! Your poll doesn't allow for circumstantials. And provided one's posture isn't horrible, neither is better or worse than the other ergonomically (sure, lolling in a deck chair won't make for good breathing.....).

I haven't voted as I can't meaningfully.

[FJohnSharp]

I have creaky knees so I only play whistle sitting down. Unfortunately I have to play percussion standing up much of the time.

[mutepointe]

As a pollmeister who regular is criticized, allow me to slam your poll. There are probably at least 20 choices not listed that people will require.

The variations on sitting need to include: the floor (carpeting and hardwood), grass, hard seat with back, soft seat with back, soft stool, hard stool, recliner, wicker chair, bicycle seat, buggy seat (that Denny!), someone's lap, couch, canoe seat or kayak, and haunches. There may be others.

Standing needs to include: leaning, akimbo, two feet firm, still, swaying, foot tapping, gyrating. There may be more, I've never been to a session.

Other needs to include floating on a rafting or innertube. I just got back from the pool.

Maybe you should just scrap this poll and try again.

[Denny]

While I do whistle sometimes when I drive, it is not the tin whistle type of whistling.

[MTGuru]

Ask Hoopy Mike:

[Denny]

that's never a good idea....

[awildman]

Perhaps you should be more specific. Just what type of playing are you asking about?


[Must get mind out of gutter!]

[DrPhill]

Hmmmmm......

I do seem to have hit a bad note here.

I was thinking of an essay I found on the web entitled

Six Ways to Break Out of Being a Beginning Whistle Player
~ OR ~
How I Became L.E. McCullough


In this piece the author suggests that you take the whistle seriously whenever you play it, and do your best to extract the most musicality from it. The specific passage that got me thinking was:

"Dream that you are standing in the middle of the UN General Assembly and the fate of world peace hangs on your ability to play “Si Bheag Si Mhor” so beautifully that every delegate will weep and vote to suspend all war for all time. "

Under those circumstances I would want to be standing up. I play better that way, and feel cramped and constricted sitting down.

I had thought of including all the above justification, but decided that this level of detail might discourage some C&F'ers or provide too many opportunities for an unfocussed thread. Perhaps I misjudged the 'humours' of the forum a bit here.....

Still, it is not that important, just a bit of fun on a passing thought.

[hoopy mike]

As well as the celebrated Australian position, I find whistling whilst lying on the bed is quite good. Maybe there's a whole sub-genre out there, to find the most unlikely position to play a whistle in, a bit like extreme ironing, but without the steam. See:
http://www.extremeironing.com/

[jemtheflute]

DrPhill, fun-poking ( ) aside there is, as you say, a serious side to your point (though it just doesn't work as a poll), and I think in that kind of solo performance, display circumstance in your quote above, most of us who are not disqualified from doing so would expect to play standing..... but it wouldn't be because we thought we'd play better that way so much as that that would be the expectation for that situation and, being conditioned to it, we would probably feel more comfortable displaying ourselves thus. It is, as I said in my previous contribution, a circumstantial matter (in that case to do with formal presentation), not directly connected with how to optimise our actual musical performance. Sure, generally it is easier to optimise physical, ergonomic factors in playing a wind (and many other types of) instrument when standing rather than sitting, but given a suitable seat and attention to posture thereon (just as when standing), there are no serious inherent disadvantages in sitting to play and if one needs to perform to one's best sitting it shouldn't be problematic.

The Recumbent Whistler would be a good title for a (laid back) tune, or a painting......

I want to see the next pic in the putative sequence of Hoopy Mike where the flute is half swallowed.......

[Pammy]

akimbo?

How can you play akimbo? That is when your hands are on your hips.
Are you using your toes with a specially developed whistle mutepoint?
This could be the new instrument of the future, but you would have to be rather supple to blow into it.


Theres another pic for someone to pose for

[pancelticpiper]

What position do you play in?

First chair.

[lixnaw]

i need my MBT's to play standing http://us.mbt.com/

[mutepointe]

akimbo?

How can you play akimbo? That is when your hands are on your hips.
Are you using your toes with a specially developed whistle mutepoint?
This could be the new instrument of the future, but you would have to be rather supple to blow into it.


Theres another pic for someone to pose for

Pammy busted me. I didn't bother fact checking my post. I'm not bothering to fact check Pammy's bust either. I thought akimbo might be where you stand on one foot and place the other foot into the space behind behind the other leg's knee. What's that called?