Would this instrument be welcomed at your local session? It’s called the Whistler’s Hornpipe. The version of Rolling Wave that’s linked to the page is excellent, beautiful once I got used to hearing a jig played by something that sounds like a clarinet. I’m tempted to get one but I barely have time enough to keep up my fluting.
Your thoughts?
https://www.irishflutestore.com/newsite/products.php?c1=56&c2=77
I play clarinet, but I wouldn’t go near that thing - nor would I ever
bring a clarinet to a Irish session - or want to be in a session with
someone else doing it
Use it in a contra dance band or something …
This has probably been covered before on the mustard board,
but ….
Here’s the real thing - you play it like a digeridoo - no reed
http://homepage.eircom.net/~bronzeagehorns/originalinstruments.html
http://homepage.eircom.net/~bronzeagehorns/learningtoplay.html
In fact the word digeridoo may originate in gaelic --
http://www.anu.edu.au/andc/ozwords/Nov%202002/Didgeridoo.html
If I had a local session I wouldn’t kick you out of it for bringing that thing, but on the other hand I have played with someone who played a jaw-harp (among other things). It has a nice enough sound on the airs, not so sure about faster tunes, but make sure you bring some other instrument too.
Seem a bit pricey for a souped-up tin whistle that looks like a blunderbuss.
I know there is some flexibility even in a traditional music form, but that instrument just doesn’t sound traditional at all. I don’t think it fits, and I even like bodhrans. ;)
“The Whistle Player’s Hornpipe also opens up new possibilities of playing ‘riffs’, bass lines, and counter melodies - the kinds of things being heard more and more from low whistle and flute masters like Michael McGoldrick, Tom Doorley of Danú , Rory Campbell of Deaf Shepherd and Old Blind Dogs and Brian Finnegan and Sarah Allen of Flook.”
ouch. thats a pretty cheap way of saying no one uses these things.
I think it’s great. I’d love one, and would learn how to play it and take it to every session I go to if I had one. You have been warned!
What sessions do you go to, Joe?
;.)
This thing has been around for years and given that pretty much none of you have seen it at a session tells me that you don’t have to start worrying now.
Relax….frankie says so. :p
We have a whistle player in our area who also plays clarinet…and very well, professionally…. and brings it out at sessions sometimes. It’s different…. but nothing new. Paddy Sweeney’ s band had one way back maybe the 40s or 50’s in NYC, not sure of the dates, it was a dance band, sure, not the usual session fare, but they were used historically. I gave him a picture of Sweeney’s Band for proof to carry in his case.
I know some of the pretty great musicians in the Catskills last summer loved it and went on about it for days.
It seems like a sleeker modern version of an instrument that got dropped out of history because it was simply primitive and uncouth - used maybe by crew members to play dance tunes on sailing ships, etc., but not really musical. The shawm family of instruments to which it belongs continued to develop as the clarinet and oboe. Sue Harris brought the oboe into English trad a long time ago, and I dare say this hornpipe thingy will find a niche there, as ETM is quite accepting of a large range of instruments.
I have an album by Greg Stephens & Crookfinger Jack and while it’s not technically Irish (English they say) a few tunes have clarinet in them and I think it sounds good. It kind of gives the music an American sound, actually. At least to my untrained ear.
When I was young and single minded, I might have been aghast. At this point, I would rather consider the musician.
the good ones can do great things with a pocket comb, celophane tape and dental floss if they needed to.
Lunasa used clarinet on “Merry Sisters of Fate” for backup in Inion ní Scanlainn.
That being said, i think clarinets sound much nicer…this thing sounds a bit like when you play a woodwind and don’t assemble it all the way, like playing just on the neck of a sax or the bocal on a bassoon.
samiam, that’s funny. you’re right--it does sound like an instrument played on keyed saxaphone neck. you nailed it. hilarious.
This has turned up previously, InSearchofCraic:
https://thesession.org/discussions/7926#comment169896