dubhlinn wrote:Outofbreath said
" Learning the guitar is orders of magnitude more difficult than learning whistle. If I had a dollar for every youngster who became discouraged and gave up solely because their first guitar was a piece of cr@p I'd retire today." ,
D.
My point exactly!!! Since the so called "high end" whistles are such a relative bargain, everyone should have at least one of them to learn on right from the start. Several would be even better!
just kidding-- I've actually steered several newbie players AWAY from buying one of my own whistles until they've learned to play at least a bit and were therefore in a better position to judge just what qualities they really want in a whistle.
Well said, Paul.
Of course, unlike with cheap guitars, many of the cheap whistles are (or can be tweaked to be) extremely good instruments. The problem is the variability, but a teacher can easily supply their students with decent instruments - even with 100% markup to cover their time and minimal tweaks, a good hand-selected entry-level whistle can be ridiculously cheap.
That being said, your whistles are solidly on my "to buy" list.
Thank you all for the advice re: guitars for my daughter. I think that it's probably wise to get a better one for her, that way if she IS serious, she won't be chased away from her pursuit by a bad instrument. It really is a unique thing in whistledom that you can buy one for a very inexpensive price, and yet still have a quality instrument. But admittedly it does make it more difficult to NOT buy more and more of them. I can easily rationalize spending $100 on a whistle when I look at the prices of other instruments.
Someday, everything is gonna be diff'rent
When I paint my masterpiece.
Guitars and stuff: look for high quality used instruments. You can often get a very good used instrument for about the same that a bad new instrument would cost you. Shop around. Check the Internet bulletin boards.
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog!
--Wellsprings--
glauber wrote:Guitars and stuff: look for high quality used instruments. You can often get a very good used instrument for about the same that a bad new instrument would cost you. Shop around. Check the Internet bulletin boards.
and if you decide to sell it, you can recoup most if not all of what you paid for it (assuming it wasn't damaged while you had it). with most new instruments you can expect to take a depreciation hit of 30-40% if you resell it.
dubhlinn wrote:If anyone needs a kidney (or two), I need a pre-1960 Martin.
A The Martin? bari, alto, tenor, melody? I have a 1926 one--that should meet pre-1960 all right. Don't need no kidneys, but would gladly trade it for an extra arm--keep the leg...
-Comparing cheap guitars by personal trial is best, as some cheapos are good instruments and some are not. Published specs of construction, wood type and the like will not ensure your particular guitar has a sound you like-only your ear can make this distinction. Many cheap guitars have a very limited sweet spot as to which style of play is rewarding and which chords will sound rich and nice. Better ones can support many styles of play well. Top-end instruments like Collings, Martins, etc. can be nearly all sweet spot when set up correctly.
The late,great Fred Morgan tops that list,and you may note that Michael Grinter,YES, THAT Michael Grinter,who's flutes and whistles are spoken of in awe on this very board is also listed.
I saw Paddy Keenan the other week,playing his Grinter low 'F',and the whistle head looked distinctly 'Recorderlike' to me,nowt wrong with that,if you intend playing anything as wierd(sic)as a wooden whistle.
I'd always wondered how much Grinter charged for his recorders. Since the prices are not listed on his website, I figured it was one of those If you have to ask how much, you can't afford it things. I was right.
For reference, Michael's keyless flute is about half the cost of the alto recorder, an 8-key, about 1.6 times the cost.
Charlie Whorfin Woods
"Our work puts heavy metal where it belongs -- as a music genre and not a pollutant in drinking water." -- Prof Ali Miserez.
