Pennywhistle for your thoughts

[catmandu2]

Another brief thought re: winds. This summer, I spent quite a bit of time transposing music--from saxophone. I'm very used to transposing from strings--as I've been doing it for ~40 years--but this was the first time I did this with horns (mostly Sonny Rollins). I found that it took me quite a bit more effort to hear--and discern--articulation and convert to phrasing on horn. The reason: the breath is so much more subtle than even the fingers on a string.

[catmandu2]

cat' - mate! - do people look like that when you play?!?!

Well, yes and no. But, I don't play the pipes.

But, I think if people looked that attentive while I played, I would be most grateful! I think I look like that while watching people play.

Albeit, the audience appears to be comprised largely of girls from some type of academy...and who knows?...maybe they are thinking of their mates. I believe this was filmed before droids, iphones and the like were disseminated. If this were a US audience of schoolgirls, I'm thinking their attention would be easily elsewhere...

[Randi Gormley]

Speaking of articulation, we were very disappointed in our whistles yesterday when we swung into Dingle Regatta and not a single one of them sang out "hey ho!" at the appropriate parts... I play (or used to) various voices of recorder which I picked up way before they were taught in grade school as an outgrowth of both SCA and playing flute. I noticed the recorder fingerings were pretty similar to the flute fingerings, in the same way the whistle fingerings are similar to Irish flute fingerings.

I was at a session in Cape Cop last week where one of the leaders used the recorder instead of the whistle, and a woman was quietly blowing on a recorder behind me instead of using a whistle. Me, I've been too nervous to drag a recorder to any of the sessions out here, afraid I'd be lynched.

I've heard Mary Bergen play whistle in a house concert. Wow. And I had a chance to speak with and play with John Sindt, who makes whistles out of his house/shop in Nyack. My youngest plays (or used to) whistle, too, but I've never moved over to it because I don't want to confuse my brain, which is already wired for the recorder stuff.

[Jill McAuley]

that was great - poor liam indeed - what a bunch o' dead-beat listeners. when we lived in london, our shop (hippie-veggie stuff) was located just down the street from the battersea art center.

Just looks like a bunch of school girls to me - are school kids (particularly older ones) ever emotive when experiencing anything "cultural"? Not in my day we weren't. They're at least not being overtly rude (which many of my fellow students back in the day would've been - gum throwing, loud remarks, tormenting other students etc) and some of them seem to be watching in interest too.

Cheers,
Jill

[Eddie Sheehy]

That was how pupils on detention got punished in those days - note the 'bruisers' by the door to keep the kids under control... It was eventually stopped because of 'cruel and unusual' punishment... they went back to beating them with cat-o'nine-tails...

BTW, Jill, how can East Galway be forgotten when you keep reminding us?

[Sandy Beckler]

A little known fact....long before the "Eagles" there was a duo called "Longbranch Pennywhistle" the two gentlemen that were that duo were Glenn Frey and John David Souther and they were awesome...I know cause I seen em' at Doug Weston's Troubadour (Santa Monica and Doheny in West Hollywood) November of 1968

Sandy

[Loretta Callahan]

Looks like I'm just the opposite. The mandolin brought me to the whistle. The backwards tone raising/lowering is definitely a challenge. Seems like morning is for the mandolin, and after a hard day of working, I cozy up to the whistle. I think I just played one of the most painful Kesh jigs ever.

Don't reckon I'll play anything but the D for what I like: ITM which doesn't stand for Indifferent to Music.

As to uilleann pipes, there's a gentleman who shows up to the session with them and plays them so soulfully. The sound melts my heart, or inspires me to pick up something heavy and sharp.

Funny, the tin whistle (penny whistle) is the first thing I worked at playing. Now I've started on the mandolin some 20 years later. The tin whistle is a lot of fun. I only really ever played a key of D whistle, which is the most common in Irish music.

On mandolin, it took me a little while to get used to moving in the opposite direction of the whistle to raise or lower the tone.

[Bertram Henze]

Thought I might throw in this older idea - this is a guy who turns up sometimes at our sessions (he is a box player in real life) and also hosts a 3-day ITM festival at his country mansion every year.



Note how some of the holes need to be taped to make it work. So, you might call this a "tape recorder"

[Dagger Gordon]

You say 'this older idea', but I've never seen that before! Terrific. Who would have thought it?

[Tim2723]

I think it's an 'older idea' if you consider walking stick flutes that were popular in the 1700s and 1800s. While those were gentlemen's canes, turning a crutch into a flute is along those lines. Ralph Sweet of the Sweetheart Flute Company still produces them:

http://www.sweetheartflute.com/walkingflutes.html

NFI, of course, but those folks make wonderful whistles as well. I've used one of Ralph's rosewood D whistles for over twenty years on stage and it's my primary whistle.

[Sandy Beckler]

Tim2723...thanks for the link to Ralph Sweet's site....I just hope it doesn't become another obsession

Sandy

[Pez D. Spencer]

If tin whistles are made of tin, what do they make fog horns out of?

[Randi Gormley]

.... and if vegetarians eat only vegetables, what do humanitarians eat? ... sorry. not an original joke, but somehow it came into my mind after reading pez's post ...

[JeffD]

You don't suppose the onlookers were captivated? I don't know--you may be right. But to me it appears they are highly engaged. Maybe I'm projecting..

I can't listen to great piping without some movement.

I heard Liam O'Flynn in Scotland in the 80s. His playing of Limericks Lament can bring me to my knees.

[JeffD]

A lot of my whistle playing friends like this site: http://www.chiffandfipple.com/

[Pez D. Spencer]

Vegetarian is the Indian word for lousy hunter.

[Tim2723]

A lot of my whistle playing friends like this site: http://www.chiffandfipple.com/

+1 for Chiff and Fipple. It's the Mandolin Cafe of the tin whistle world.

[allenhopkins]

If tin whistles are made of tin, what do they make fog horns out of?

Lonnie Donegan, Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight?

[billkilpatrick]

Lonnie Donegan, Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight?

"fog horns!" ... (refrain)

[Sandy Beckler]

I wish I hadn't run across this thread...I have a "Feadog Teo D" that my mother brought back from Ireland 10 or 15 years ago (my wife had been using it as a back scratcher). I dug it out and (after sanitizing it)have learned a number of tunes (Danny Boy, Saint Annes Reel..) and have even acquired a matching "Feadog Teo C"... Can a Paul Busman custom Cocobolo D be far off?

Happy Thanksgiving to all
Sandy

[citeog]

I actually have one of Paul Busman's D whistles, an early model of his. His whistles are a lot similar to the yokes that the late lamented Glenn Schultz used to make. Paul's a talented chap.

I started making music on guitar as a teenager and took up the whistle just after that, after a night spent listening to Ciaran Bourke (of the Dubliners) playing in Slattery's in Dublin. Today I was trying to play Bill Hart's/Ward's jigs on the National mando and, when my fingers stopped cooperating, I switched to the whistle and played for another hour. Out of all the instruments I play/have played, the whistle is still my favourite. Easy to learn, a lifetime to master.

Paul

[catmandu2]

I'm getting nto Irish/Scottish music late in life myself--but I'm becoming somewhat immersed, considering it's what I'm working on about 90% of the time recently. I've been playng Irish fiddle for a good five or six years, and I also play the tunes on hammered dulcimer, concertina, and melodeon. But having a natural affinity with woodwinds since it being my first instrument as a child, the ornamentation is natural on flute. I think everyone should play a wind instrument, and it's certainly not that difficult to learn.

=oops, i see i've already said as much on his thread -- my memory must be growing short

[Loretta Callahan]

Hahaha!

I wish I hadn't run across this thread...I have a "Feadog Teo D" that my mother brought back from Ireland 10 or 15 years ago (my wife had been using it as a back scratcher). I dug it out and (after sanitizing it)have learned a number of tunes (Danny Boy, Saint Annes Reel..) and have even acquired a matching "Feadog Teo C"... Can a Paul Busman custom Cocobolo D be far off?

Happy Thanksgiving to all
Sandy

Doesn't seem easy for me to learn, but then I've never played a wind instrument before. The first Irish musician (even though she was born in New York) that I listened to obsessively was Joanie Madden. Something about that whistle.

Out of all the instruments I play/have played, the whistle is still my favourite. Easy to learn, a lifetime to master.
Paul

[Paul Busman]

I wish I hadn't run across this thread...I have a "Feadog Teo D" that my mother brought back from Ireland 10 or 15 years ago (my wife had been using it as a back scratcher). I dug it out and (after sanitizing it)have learned a number of tunes (Danny Boy, Saint Annes Reel..) and have even acquired a matching "Feadog Teo C"... Can a Paul Busman custom Cocobolo D be far off?

Happy Thanksgiving to all
Sandy

I hope not!

[Paul Cowham]

I've never played the penny whistle but have had the pleasure of playing with some great players like Grace Kelly:



As you can see, in the right hands it is a great instrument, very portable and relatively cheap (at least for an instrument), so go for it and enjoy