Whistling..

[hobbitblue]

I've not done as much music these past months as is usually the norm, stringed things are just too challenging for some reason, though I've been playing my recorder most days as its friendly (been playing since I was 6 years old after all (and boy am I out of breath... *g*)). For some reason the other night my brain remembered the existence of a

Comments

[ganimede]

How do you find the time for all this stuff? :P But you know, I would never have thought of learning to play a whistle like that, although I did learn to play the recorder when I was a small person. You would have liked my recorder, it had a gold sparkly shimmer to it. I possibly still have it somewhere!

[hobbitblue]

i don't do any of it for very long, sadly, but 15 minutes tootling makes me happy nonetheless :) And me either on the whistle, in that i had a tin whistle as a kid and it sounded *dreadful* (they still make that brand, I recognised it and ran away rapidly!). Ooh, sparkly gold shimmer! Recorders are fun, you should have a tootle, see if you still enjoy it after all this time.. my current recorder of choice has a blue head joint with sparkly gold bits in it, its the one in the icon.

[ganimede]

It can't be bad if only 15 minutes is enough to make you happy! I know I enjoyed playing my recorder when I was younger and I was sure it was in the attic so I had a look when I was up there the other day but I couldn't find it. It's hiding in a corner somewhere, I know it, I just can't remember which corner. Mine isn't as posh as yours, that looks very classy. I really wanted to learn the flute and when I went to high school, those of us who wanted to learn an instrument went along one lunchtime to get one. There were only two flutes though so I ended up with a trumpet. Not entirely happy with that substitution!

[hobbitblue]

I am, luckily, quite easily pleased (my boyfriend says its one of my charms... :) That recorder is quite a posh one, I do admit, I have an even posher expensive german one, went all the way to the early music centre recorder shop in London to get it (well we were in London for something else and I made sure we went there also...) and I got to playtest lots of really pricey ones, in the up to £100 range to find the one that a) sounded best and b) I could hit the high notes on fairly easily. Am very pleased to find how easy it is to get the high notes on the whistle, there's a folk song I play on the recorder that has bum note in cos I can't get a clear high A but its fine on the whistle (where its not a high A its a high something else with similar fingering but still

[ganimede]

Wow, £100 sounds like ridiculous prices for a recorder when you think that the majority of time it's just considered an introductory instrument for small children

[hobbitblue]

I know, its daft though that the recorder is relegated to "for kids" and most people just think about squeaking and bum notes from 6 year olds (I played mine perfectly from the first note, which I'm chuffed about...) and don't consider its had a long history as a "proper" woodwind instrument, differtent sizes, the choice of woods affecting tone.. I was in an early music group for one year at uni and we played recorder pieces from the renaissance and later as well as early instruments - crumhorns are fab! which really opened my eyes to the potential of the instrument

[ganimede]

Considering children also get to play the piano and the guitar, it's odd how they're not seen as instruments 'for kids' in the same way. I don't think I did too badly with my recorder lessons, I remember getting into more advanced fingering but the curse of the army brat meant that my lessons stopped. I've never heard of crumhorns so I had to go and find out what they were. But that lead me to this fantastic piece which I think you might enjoy very much. Although you're probably already aware of it :P

[hobbitblue]

I suppose its because recorders are cheap, plastic and disposapble at that level, which can hardly apply to pianos (tho if you want a second hand piano Ebay's always full of them, folk desperate to get rid!). Oh that's a cool piece, had forgotten about Dead Can Dance, there's lots of authentic renaissance music that's all bouncy like that with harsh crumhorns and stuff, especially the Spanish stuff I think (I've lost my fave cassette of same, wah

[ganimede]

I think the reason for pianos being foisted upon children (not literally) is because they tend to be readily available in schools.

The guitar I was learning on was a classical guitar which is probably why it was such a stretch for my tiny hands. I actually exchanged it several years later for a smaller acoustic with a lovely red cherry wood back, but it still wasn't the electric guitar I really wanted! I actually saw a Hofner bass, like Paul McCartney's in the music shop in town last year and it was a really reasonable price too (between £1-200 as I recall). I was so tempted! I thought I could exchange my acoustic for it but never did anything about it. I wouldn't have thought bass players needed big hands, surely the necks are only narrow what with just the four strings.

Jedi mind-tricks do not work on Jedis :P

[hobbitblue]

Ok, why is lj opening the comment box *above* what I'm replying to? *scratches head*..

Um hard to foist pianos on more than one kid tho, don't remember it being an option at our school..

The nylon strings are easier on little hands but the stretch is not good at all.. yay smaller pretty acoustic, though if its not what you're yearning for that's no good. The bass neck is narrow indeed but its the stretches between frets rather than across the neck I was thinking of..

Since when did Jedi come from Gallifrey? *g*

[ganimede]

Weird, LJ opened the comment box above the comment I was replying to as well. Unless it's something to do with their new layout thing, maybe it broke yours somehow?

It is hard to foist pianos on more than one child at a time but aren't all music lessons one on one anyway so it wouldn't matter? I only had piano lessons at primary school, which was in Germany, so I didn't really think if it was a common occurrence or not!

I found nylon and steel strings equally as painful. I didn't think of stretching between frets, probably because I never had problems that way. I have short fingers but I guess my reach is quite good.

Well, Jedi mind tricks certainly don't work on Time Lords :P

[hobbitblue]

Flipping lj, dunno how ot fix the style so I'll just ignore it..

At primary school our recorder lessons were for the whole class, my flute lessons were one on one tho..i see your point on the piano tho

Nylon's usually ok after a shorter period of time, unless the guitar has really high action, another reason i like the littler guitars, tend to be "looser" on the strings.

Ah, good point :>