where to practice?

BrassBlower · Post by **BrassBlower** » Wed Jan 16, 2002 8:54 am

If it's after my wife goes to sleep, I tear out a sliver of paper and slip it down in the fipple. That way, you can still hear the notes, but it doesn't really "play". This is a great way to make sure your fingerings are dead-on without disturbing your family, the neighbors, or any nearby dogs! Otherwise, I'm banished to a small back room at work!

Hail hail rock & reel!
BB

LeeMarsh · Post by **LeeMarsh** » Wed Jan 16, 2002 1:41 pm

Practice?
First I practice - not enough.
Second as much as my wife doesn't really care for IRTrad, she's glad I'm not practicing my daughter's style. She's a singer in a Punk Rock Band.

Location, location, location ...

In the car while waiting for daughter who needed a ride.
At the commuter train parking lot after everyone else has left while waiting for my wife to be "on time" (her definition, not mine) to pick me up, this is usually good for 15-30 minutes.
On the back patio, weather permitting, where I compete with 4-6 dogs who bark all the time, weather I'm playing or not.
Various outside locations like the local state forest, empty playing fields, etc. All weather permitting.
As I get a little bolder, as the weather turns, I plan to practice over lunch hours on the long grassy Mall in DC (about a block from where I work). I did this a couple of times in the fall before it turned to cold.
Garage, unheated but nice when it's not too cold out. Its where the other daughter (not the punk rocker) keeps her upright piano she inherited from her grandmother.
Most used place : My bedroom, least house-disturbing room in the house; but, still heard throughout.

Not having a good regular place to practice, and continuing to slightly disturb the wife occasionally, is part of my long term plan. I have 2 daughters, who have graduated and should be out on their own soon. Now for the plan... At some point in a year or so, when both of them are out on their own, I redo their two bedrooms into a 'guest' bedroom and a music room, complete with sound proofing. I even found a home sound proofing deal (<a href=http://www2.marsmusic.com/store/product ... =0>Auralex Home Studio Package - $99 at Mars Music</a>). I will always want to encourage my kids to visit, and with only one bedroom, I can continue to encourage VISITS. I'll always love them to death, but I plan to love my empty nest and fill it with my music. AAAhhhh a Rap and Punk free zone

)

I included the above link, to MarsMusic.Com, if you're interested in adding some inexpensive sound proofing to a potential practice or home entertainment room. Its the best deal I've been able to find. <a href=www.auralex.com>WWW.Auralex.com</a> is also a good sight to pick up information, especially their related <a href=http://www.acoustics101.com/>Acoustic 101</a> site.

Reserving your practice music for yourself, and not the whole neighborhood, can help you and the rest to ...

_________________

Enjoy Your Music, Lee Marsh 

[ This Message was edited by: LeeMarsh on 2002-01-16 14:53 ]

[ This Message was edited by: LeeMarsh on 2002-01-16 14:55 ]

RosieJ · Post by **RosieJ** » Wed Jan 16, 2002 4:13 pm

Y'know, somewhere I read that if you save up all your egg carton boxes and staple them onto the walls and ceiling of a room, it will soundproof it! Course living here in the 'Deep South', we have cement slab floors, so the sound can't go through the floor. But then again, we don't have basements, either! Guess I'm lucky; my husband has no musical ability, so anything I play sounds amazing to him;but then, he's also very patient. Guess the whistle sounds good after I'm finished practising the pipe chanter; I don't know what he'll do when I actually get a set of pipes to play! And the cat and the dog neither complain nor appreciate; they just ignore me while I'm playing.

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Wed Jan 16, 2002 9:46 pm

Rosie, your husband sounds just like mine.
And, I can tell you what mine does when I get the pipes out- gotta go outside. The cows give me some funny looks for a few minutes but then they are a most appreciative audience.

Arcaic Lemons · Post by **Arcaic Lemons** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 9:18 am

I must admit that we are lucky; We both (my husband and I) play whistles. What we find annoying is our children begin to hum along with us. So we broke down and bought them whistles as well. We are now patiently waiting for the UPS person to deliver them tomorrow. Our problem is waiting for the children to wake up so we can begin playing. We wake them up an hour or so earlier so we can begin; I don't know why we just don't start playing and wake them up that way....wait...I just remembered what we sound like, and that we are doing the poor urchins a great favor!

RainDrop · Post by **RainDrop** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 5:51 pm

I played a few tunes for the horses today, with interesting results. When I first started playing the horses all looked at me, but the two older mares couldn't be bothered to come look. Robin, my 17 hand two year old, couldn't resist, of course. He's more curious than a whole pack of cats. Do cats come in packs? Or is it prides? Herds? Whatever.
He came walking over and sniffed gingerly at the whistle, I moved though and he jumped away. I went and sat on the ground (I had been sitting on the horse trailer), and then he came back over and stood there with his nose next to the whistle while I played another tune. Then one of the mares got interested and looked, but she's too shy to come over. My TB mare ran away from me when I blew a few notes. So mixed results from the horses.
My dog was howling along with my playing this morning. My mother was talking on the phone, she and her friend on the phone had a good laugh. She howls in different notes, depending on what I'm playing.
An interesting discovery today, playing the whistle inside a horse trailer sounds pretty good. Just don't ask why I was in the horse trailer playing the whistle.

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 7:23 pm

RosieJ, egg cartons are a good way to change the inside acoustics of a room but they do little to stop sound from passing thru the walls. In music class they used 1/2" thick ceiling tiles over 2 layers of drywall and fiberglass insulation between the wood studs of the walls (or partitions) This may be overkill for a practice room but is probably enough to seperate a vocalist from a band instrument in a home recording studio.
A friend of mine used thick pile carpet glued to the walls and ceiling of his music room (den) to block the sound of an acoustic guitar from being heard in an adjacent (kids) bedroom.

RainDrop, there's a mystique about playing an instrument or singing within an enclosed space as many of the 50's and 60's singing quartets used to practice harmony in the stairways of tenament buildings.

Champ · Post by **Champ** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 11:59 pm

Most of the serious suggestions wouldn't work for me. I find the embouchure required to make any given whistle sound sweet differs significantly from other whistles. Further more, the embouchure varies as one moves from low D to the highest notes. Only through lots of practice on just one whistle can I get that embouchure change happening automatically and consistently. Hence, if I got a Hoover it might solve my practice problem, but when I picked up my Copeland and trotted of to a session I'd find I couldn't make it sound the way I know it should.

I haven't tried the muffler, but I suspect it would have the same drawback in that it wouldn't force you to help you gain the correct embouchure.

StevieJ · Post by **StevieJ** » Fri Jan 18, 2002 7:33 am

On 2002-01-16 22:46, cowtime wrote:
The cows give me some funny looks for a few minutes but then they are a most appreciative audience.

Appreciative, yes, but they do appear to have very good taste. A few years ago I was at a party in the country where people were doing Breton line dancing in the yard to fiddles and accordions, and a huge drum.

In the field across the road was a herd of about 20 cows - actually bullocks. They seemed to be attracted by the sound of the drum and came across the field to put their heads over the gate, where they remained, apparently enjoying the music for half and hour or more.

At which point a musician emerged from the house playing a Breton biniou. Instantly the animals all turned tail and ran for their lives. It was hilarious! Good judgment, I thought, actually.

If you've ever heard a biniou, you'll understand. It's a very high-pitched bagpipe, extremely loud and piercing. If uillean pipe drones sound like a hive of bees, the biniou is a swampful of mosquitoes.

RainDrop · Post by **RainDrop** » Fri Jan 18, 2002 10:47 am

Tony wrote:
RainDrop, there's a mystique about playing an instrument or singing within an enclosed space as many of the 50's and 60's singing quartets used to practice harmony in the stairways of tenament buildings.

Hmm, that would explain why I have occasionally found myself playing in my bathroom, which is really tiny. It's the best room in the house to play in. I don't play there often though, lest my family should think I've gone completely insane. Second best place in my house to play is the kitchen, I play there sometimes when I'm cooking or baking.

brianormond · Post by **brianormond** » Thu Jul 04, 2002 8:03 pm

The living room. (It helps to live over a neighbor whose loud rock music has been making my floor thump for years-
-this has eliminated my reticence about making noise! -Liberating!) My whistle is the "Equalizer".

_________________
Whistlito ergo ...

[ This Message was edited by: brianormond on 2002-07-04 22:05 ]

[ This Message was edited by: brianormond on 2002-07-04 22:06 ]

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Fri Jul 05, 2002 1:36 am

Bathroom players unite! I love playing slow airs in the shower (when it's off). My family thinks I'm crazy, but that's ok. We have just recently been adding on to our house, and we have a room that hasn't been carpeted yet. The bare drywall and concrete floor make for a lovely tone...

John Allison · Post by **John Allison** » Fri Jul 05, 2002 1:42 am

My two favourite places...

The local cemetery is about 2 blocks away. I go there at night and have never heard a complaint from anyone!

It may take you a week or two to work up to my second favourite place. First, every time you go to the bathroom make lots of loud grunting noises. Follow this with some good fake gaseous sounds. Finally, throw in a few good "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH"s for good measure. After doing this for a while take your whistles into the bathroom and leave them there. In the future, bathroom time becomes practice time (with excellent acoustics) and nobody will ever complain about your NEW noises (as compared to the old ones)!

drdagmar · Post by **drdagmar** » Fri Jul 05, 2002 1:51 am

well...seems I am very lucky....my husband tells me he likes my whistling and my two year old daughter only complaines if she gets bored and wants someone to play with. My husband even does the cooking or walks to the playground with our daughter to give me time to practice undisturbed. Both like the flute and the low whistle better than the tin whistle (I have an Alba and it is pretty loud !!)...anyway I do that red traffic light whistling as well and during the last two weeks I played at camping-sites all over Switzerland...
Dagmar

DazedinLA · Post by **DazedinLA** » Fri Jul 05, 2002 5:39 am

Strange, compared to everyone else... I do most of my practicing outdoors.

There are several nice parks that are regular spots...most of the regular powerwalkers now know me, as do the homeless people, but it all works. Also, I go to the beach, and walk along a 1.5 mile stretch of beautiful white sand and blue-green ocean. Its an intresting breathing exercise to play while walking in the Florida heat. Also, relative to another recent thread, I do find that for some reason very young children tend to drop whatever important thing they were doing and flock to the whistle.

Anway, outdoors is the most prevalent venue for me, though I also practice in the back room of my local pub.