Burke Wide Bore Brass Black Tip

Try saying that title ten times quickly. :-)

Thanks to those who responded to my LJ plea for advice re: which Burke whistle to get. To those not on LJ: For Christmas, my mom-in-law has offered to fund the purchase of a high-end penny whistle that I would not be able to afford to get on my own. My whistle teacher suggested a Burke whistle, so I've been doing some researching.


Photo by Allison. Session at an FKO.

I love Internet communities. I posted my inquiry on the Chiff and Fipple Forums and got some helpful replies from experienced whistle players who have Burkes, including links to more info about Burkes and sound samples. Chiff & Fipple is a fantastic resource for whistle players of all levels, by the way.

Right now I'm leaning toward a Wide Bore Brass Black Tip. I would have liked a Low D whistle but I've tried a few, and the finger stretch needed would definitely aggravate my tendinitis. Ah well.

From public replies and some private e-mail, I get the impression that no matter which Burke I choose, I can't go wrong.

Having a basement office that is relatively isolated from the rest of the house gives me much more flexibility in terms of practising music than I had in the condo. FYI, here are the instruments I play:

Photo by Beckett.

Piano:
This used to be my main instrument, though I'm way out of practice now. I started taking piano lessons when I was around 7 years old, stopped after Grade X Royal Conservatory of Music, picked it up again when I studied for my ARCT teaching degree. Quit because of life upheaval (my mom died, my piano teacher died). I taught piano, off and on, over about 20 years. Unfortunately our baby grand wouldn't properly fit into our house, so we couldn't keep it when we moved. :-(

Flute:
More transportable than piano, hence my main instrument with Urban Tapestry. I never took private lessons in flute, just studied it during school music classes. I taught flute lessons for a bit. My current flute was a group gift from Jeff and a bunch of my friends from university. I've played flute on a number of recording projects.

Guitar:
I took a summer guitar course during high school and my parents gave me a classical guitar. For Urban Tapestry, I use a steel-string acoustic that belongs to Jeff; I don't have my own steel-string. Tendinitis makes guitar-playing an iffy thing for me these days; strumming is usually ok for a song or two, but fingerpicking is still too much of a strain, as is lugging a guitar and case around. Unfortunately this means a chunk of Urban Tapestry's repertoire is now inaccessible, but Allison has been gradually learning the guitar parts for some of these songs.

Assorted bangy percussion things:
Over the years with Urban Tapestry, I've accumulated quite a collection of percussion instruments. I would have learned bodhran along the way except for the fact that I'd never be able to carry it with me on the plane along with my other gear. Instead, I focus on smaller noise-making instruments like tambourine, shaky-egg, cowbell (I wrote "It Said What" so I could use the cowbell), claves, triangle, cabasa, etc. For luggage space reasons, I only take a small selection with me when Urban Tapestry goes to filk conventions; choosing is always hard. Hey, and my big bag of percussion instruments was borrowed by Ookla the Mok for their "Oh OK LA" CD! Rand isn't sure if any of the instruments were used or not, but I'd like to spread the rumour that they were so I can gloat properly. :-)

From the UT archives.

Celtic harp:
When I sold Inkspot, I took part of the cash and bought a custom-made harp from Larry Fisher. You can see how my harp was made here. I had one harp lesson from Sharlene Wallace before moving to Philadelphia for six months during the whole Inkspot/Xlibris stint, where I took weekly lessons from Kimberly Rowe. I had to stop playing harp for a couple of years because of tendinitis but have recently started playing again (yay!).

Penny whistle:
I started playing penny whistle when my tendinitis was so bad that I couldn't play piano, flute, harp or guitar, and I had to PLAY SOMETHING or MY BRAIN WOULD EXPLODE. Even though my tendinitis is much improved, I'm still playing whistle...I find it a wonderfully portable instrument, and I'm very much enjoying Irish music sessions at the Tranzac. I take monthly lessons from Karen Light, who studied with Mary Bergin.

Jeff teases me because I'm always wanting to learn how to play new instruments. Instruments I've attempted to learn but failed:

Violin: I rented this for a summer while in high school, but my parents made me return it. :-)

Clarinet: hurt my mouth too much.

Trumpet: I couldn't get past the wheezing anemic moose call phase.

Saxophone: Too heavy to lug around; I'd been spoiled by my flute. Had pretty much the same fingering as the flute, though, which is why I was tempted.

I've always loved making music. For me, there's something incredibly satisfying and compelling about losing oneself in the creation of music, especially creating music with other people. In university, I remember nagging friends who used to take music in school, trying to get together some kind of music group. My feeble attempts never did pan out.

Then, of course, I discovered filking and hooked up with Allison and Jodi to form Urban Tapestry.

:-)

Speaking of filking, only eight days until I leave for GAfilk!

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