JimAman

Retired college prof (computer science) living in the Chicago suburb of Joliet and whistling with The Dirty Wellies. (You can follow us on Facebook and at www.thedirtywellies.com.) Playing with accomplished musicians has taught me a lot. How I wish I had started this whistling journey earlier. I’ve also been fortunate to make the (digital) acquaintance of Linda Rae from Canada. A practitioner of the whistle, the bodhran (and probably, others I don’t know about), she has pointed me to some excellent tunes as well as to this site.

Linda also convinced me to attend the Goderich Celtic Roots Festival and College in Ontario and the O‘Flaherty Irish Music Retreat in north Texas. What great events! If you haven’t ever spent the week at Goderich, you should put it on your bucket list and get there next August. You won’t be sorry, believe me! The same can be said about the O’Flaherty experience. The retreat site is very pretty, the food is excellent, the housing is very good and very diverse, the students are avid, the instructors are excellent, and the retreat staff is simply amazing.

My traveling companion is a Parks Walkabout (PVC), but my whistle of choice for almost everything else is a Milligan D whistle in blackwood with a session mouthpiece. His C, Bb, and A blackwoods are also excellent instruments.