Lately, I've been teaching myself how to play the tin-whistle. Because I have nothing better to do.
Honestly, I just miss making music. I played xylophone and bells from fourth grade right up until my senior year of high school, but I stopped playing after I graduated and went off to college. I guess I sort of enjoyed playing it, although in actuality it was sort of boring. There wasn't enough parts in a small K-12 school for an instrument like a xylophone in the high school band, so I learned how to count...I did a lot of counting. I had always wished that I played something else that had bigger parts and sounded prettier, like the clarinet or flute. I settled with the xylophone though.
It's been a while since I've been in high school, though. So I bought myself a tin-whistle and a tin-whistle handbook, The Clarke Tin Whistle book. The handbook even came with a CD (it better, it cost fifteen bucks from Amazon). CD's helpful and I've been trying to practice a little bit every day. I think I need to get a cloth to clean it out though – even when I rinse the whistle out after I play the thing, it doesn't really “air-dry” like it says it will. Hmmph.
Anyway, I'm excited to actually play some complicated music eventually, even though I know that won't happen for months probably (especially if I get out of practice, which is liable to happen once the spring semester starts up again at the end of January). I'm glad I got the handbook though. It helpfully goes through all of the notes and even the different types of notes; half-notes, whole-notes, etc. I do remember that from playing mallet percussion at least, but still.
Here's a picture of it (blurry as heck again, I know, but I can't help it). It's a Clarke D Tinwhistle. Apparently there's some kind of differentiation between it and the C whistle; I think the C whistle is higher in pitch. So I got the D whistle just because it's the most common type of whistle. I'm still not very good at it; squeaking and squealing occasionally...but I want to get better. Was going to include a picture of the handbook too but it was way too blurry, even more than this.
Well, that's all I think I have to say in this post. I'm especially happy today because one of my friends from school called...it was very good to catch up with her. I'm itching to go back to college and classes again. That time will be here before I know it, though. :)
