Forum Activity for @strumelia

Brad, no matter what key the sheet music is in or a YT video is in, it's most important that you know for sure what key your choir is singing it in. You must be in the same key and picking your whistle depends on knowing the key for sure.

Since you experiencing 'missing' lower notes on your D whistle, you have two choices: 1) play the melody in the higher D octave on that d whistle so you'll have the lower notes, or 2) use a lower key whistle and play in the key of D on it.

The trouble with solution 1) is that you'll be playing really high up and it may sound shrill and annoying to others unless you are a skilled and nuanced player.

Solution 2) may work well, if the choir is singing in key of D. Get a key of A whistle and play it in the key of D. (This is just like when people so often play in the key of G on their D whistle.) You would base your tonic key note on the D note you get with your top three fingers down. That way, by putting down more fingers you also have available the A, B, and C# notes that are lower in pitch than your 'home'/key note of D. That should cover most lower notes in the tune that you might be 'lacking' if your tonic note is with all fingers down as on a high D whistle.

Another thought is to play it on a LOW D big whistle but in the higher octave on it. But that seems more fussy than to simply play in key of D on an A whistle.

Hope I'm getting this right in my head!

I believe that your official 'signature' can be anything really- as long as it's consistent on all various documents, so that it can be confirmed as your particular 'mark'.

I have heard about this myself over some years now, in NY state. Heard they are no longer teaching cursive (script) or 'penmanship' at all in school. Seems hard to believe. Cursive writing used to be so beautiful to see long ago. Guess we're just hopeless old farts now.  lol

Funny how grains can smell so wonderful when you toast them a bit.
My husband orders special organic corn tortillas. He toasts them very lightly in a skillet before he adds his filling for lunch. The aroma of those damn tortillas toasting drives me crazy. Oddly, they smell like some divine Japanese incense wafting through the house... unbelievably lovely smell. I try not to eat them because they don't fit in my eating plan very well. D'oh! 

Is the rice or barley already cooked when you pan toast it? Or raw grain?

I like toasting raw pine nuts (pignoli) lightly in a pan before adding them to pesto pasta or salads. It really brings out the wonderful aroma and flavor.

I do love Gen-mai Cha as well.

Golden milk recipes can vary, but most involve both some hot milk and some turmeric... plus a few other spices like cinnamon, cardomom, pepper, etc...and perhaps a sweetener.
I eat some turmeric in one form or another every day, for its anti-inflammatory properties. It seems to work well and agrees with me.

Lapsang- i guess I am not as much into it these days, not sure why.

Dreams- I regularly have all kinds of wild adventurous vivid dreams.. a little more than I'd even like to have, so no 'dream tea' for me! 

If you could only drink one kind of tea, what would it be?
A hard choice, but I guess mine might be Kukicha.

I used to love Lapsang Souchong tea. I would sometimes visit Chinatown in NYC and get teas, or order from a Japanese site online.

When my daughters were in middle school, sometimes when they got home from school they take a sniff in the kitchen and say "Mommy are you making that ham tea again?" (meaning the lapsang s. which kinda smells like smoked ham if you think about it)

There's a nice traditional spice chai tea powder I like, made by Blue Lotus. I make it with half hot milk, and I also add some turmeric and ground black pepper, so it's a bit like 'golden milk'. Really warms me up on cold evenings.

For every day I like either Tazo's lotus blossom green tea, or Harney's black Ceylon decaf.

One of my grown daughters is addicted to rooibos tea and drinks it at least twice a day for years now. I can dig it. Rooisbos reminds me of root beer or sassafras. 

Michael did you have a 2022 NewYear resolution you are working towards?

Lots of people 'slip up' but then get back on track again. 
Many people do adopt crazy diets and then give it up because the diet was hard to stick with. 
What's the point?

Everyone's different. I've been having good success in changing my lifestyle so that I eat smarter and do more physical activities that i enjoy. Most 'diets' have an end and give only temporary success, but lifestyle changes are way more sustainable.

I've been trying to get healthier and hope to continue that into the new year. Losing weight and exercising more. 

There will always be people who do weird things like borrowing icky used masks from strangers.

It takes me a minute to properly adjust my mask, my hat, my hair, and my eyeglasses in sequence. So if I just went to the drugstore and am then driving a few blocks to go into the supermarket, I'm not going to take all that off and put it back on again just because I'm in my car for 2 minutes. So yeah you might see me driving alone in my car with my mask on... I'm in the middle of doing multiple stops and errands where I'll need my mask on.

Well I imagine Arizona has a way lower infection rate right now than for example NY, CA, or MA. When infection rates were way lower here where i live during the late Summer, masks were optional in various stores. However hospitals are now overflowing (children's hospitals too) so we can't just pretend everything's fine anymore and ignore safety precautions.

I went to the supermarket today. 99% of everyone was wearing a mask. Signs at the door said "No mask No entry"... but there seemed to be no one enforcing anything at the door. I did see 3 people wandering around without masks on like they were privileged and didn't care if they infected others, but happily almost everyone had masks on.

These days I'm wearing a KN95 with a 3-fold cloth mask over it. The KN95 and N95 masks i have are actually comfy because they keep a bit of space between the mask material and my mouth. Cloth masks and surgical masks often touch your mouth on the front, which can be annoying.

My husband (we're both seniors) went to the hardware store two days ago and all the customers were wearing masks but the young man at the register wasn't bothering to wear anything. Hell of a thing!

Oh, I meant to say that New York state has a new law requiring all indoor businesses open to the public have a mask required policy. It's because infections and hospitalizations are going through the roof right now in our state. Hopefully infections will go down soon.

Larry I have only bought whistles online. I don't think a music shop is likely to let you try out whistles anyway, especially with the pandemic going on. It's not safe.
My experience is good in buying online. I usually look for several youtube videos first that show someone playing the whistle i'm interested in. That gives a general idea of the tone before I buy.

Just wanted to wish folks everywhere a merry Christmas happy Hanukkuh happy holidays and festive Festivus! May your week be cozy, safe, and lovely. 🎄

I find I've gotten more used to wearing masks. Of course I think though it must be hard to wear one for many hours. A well fitting one does make a difference in comfort. I bet as more and more folks get vaccinated and protected, the risk and numbers of sick will continue to drop until we can all be relatively safe again. Here's hoping!

My favorite whistle brand to play is probably the Jerry Freeman-tweaked 'Blackbird'. It does not require a lot of huffing and puffing to play, and has a very sweet sound to it.

I can say my favorite key is probably Bb, it seems the best of both worlds and is easier on my ears than high D.

Michael, that's checked yes by default, though you can uncheck it before posting something. It makes it so the post or comment you make will appear in the activity feed on the site's main/home page, visible to all who go to the home page. Having comments appear there makes it easy to see what been happening lately on the site when you just go check the main home page. :)

If the harp is chromatic (it can play in any key), then if the harpist plays one tune in G and then plays the next tune in Bb... you will have to change whistles even though they don't need to change harps. (I don't know anything about harps specifically, but this would apply to all chromatic instruments)

Well, don't you have to just play in the same key as whatever other musician you are playing with?

What materials and/or brands are you looking for in a low G?

Good resource for tunes from interesting regions- thanks!

That sounds pretty!  Looks like you can use one side for a drone note while playing the melody on the other side- but you can switch those back and forth sometimes. Cool.

I have one of these wooden double ocarinas from New Zealand... they are beautiful and not cheap. Sadly, I have not gotten beyond playing a few unstructured spooky note pairings on mine. It sounds lovely, but requires more breath force than I am good at:
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZylfsDGOOo&ab_channel=StefanDollak"

Tell us what whistles that are higher pitched than the usual D.

Even better- why did you get them and do you find them useful for what situations?

You must go to the particular Group, and on the particular Group's main page you will see a Join button. 
Once you have joined a certain group, you can post in it and see all the replies to any threads there. If you want to 'unjoin' a group, you just click the same button again, it will say "leave group" if you are a group member.
Let me know if that works for you!   :)

You can start a new thread/discussion in an existing forum, but you can't start a new forum. There can be many separate discussions/threads in any forum. Hope that clarifies?

Hmmm, well you responded to my last post ok.

Do you want to create a new forum thread?  

I'm wondering if you are looking in one of the GROUPS here- each Group has its own forum too. But you must JOIN a group before you can post in it or create any threads in it.  Go to the group's home page and look for the JOIN button. Once joined you can read other people's replies there and also post yourself in the group.

Keith- The garden end-of-season cleanup is taking my attention this month. Still doing a trampoline session every couple of days though. I sure miss not being able to go to contra dances!

That Kickbike- it really is a scooter, isn't it? I mean not electric?  Looks really cool! Did you get the white one? Is is somewhat flat where you live?  Coooool!

This happens to me a lot too. Moving through phases of enjoying different types of instruments that I have at home. I think certain people are just more naturally prone to doing this. Variety can keep us motivated, that's how i see it. 

That is a sweet little simple tune with a bit of added interest in the second part. Thanks for sharing it with us!

@ltwhistle , I'm particularly liking that "Empty Wallet Waltz" on that site you recommended. I saw a couple of Youtube videos of musicians who play it, so it's cool to hear the tune before working it out in the whistle tab. What a lovely tune!  I like it on my Bb polymer whistle right now. Thank you for linking us to that site- lots to explore!

Just wondering if folks have been finding online ways to join jams or workshops etc...

Hey @ltwhistle , that's a really nice site!  I'm looking through the waltzes right now. Thanks!

Good for you Keith!  It's hard to get exercise during these trying times. I got a mini indoor trampoline, and I've been starting out real slow on it ..but it gets my aerobic activity up!

Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, so maybe you only own one inexpensive  beat-up whistle ...but it's the apple of your eye!
Regardless of what others might think and regardless of how it plays or sounds, post a picture here (use the 'embed local media' button OR the 'attach files' button to upload a pic, OR else just post a link to a picture) of the whistle you own that is beautiful to you.     :)   We could all use a little shared beauty in our lives these days! 

My neighbor sits on his deck and quietly plays O'Carolan tunes on his mandolin sometimes. It's kind of peaceful to listen to.  I'm sure glad he doesn't blast rock from some boombox!

I've finished week 6 of the virus lockdown. Only leaving the house to either go for a quick fitness walk in a lonely location, and once a week to pick up a few fresh food items like milk/eggs/bread/produce (using no-contact store pickup, yay!)

I thought when this started that I'd have lots of time to play music. But as it's turning out, I'm keeping plenty busy with work (we work at home on computer), cooking, gardening, and paperwork.  In the evenings I just want to veg out and watch a movie to get away from the bad news.