Forum Activity for @terry-wilson

"A fond kiss." (by Eddi Reader) Smitten by the whistle, the very first time I heard this song. I don't know if it's a penny whistle or tin

Strumelia, I think you should combine the penny whistle site with this one .  Just a thought.

Very informative post Ariane, and I love the photo!

Hey I have the same Bb Dixon!  

Thinking of y'all playing makes me smile.  

A friend and I played on her screened in porch overlooking her lovely flower garden.  But  we were soon overpowered by the neighbor's weed eater.  No problem, though.  We had a great time and lots of laughs.  Music heals the soul.  Dulcinina

here comes the picture...

 DSC00224.JPG - 190KB

When I was at a concert of an Irish band (Geraldine McGowan and band) in 2004 I was so fascinated by the whistle player and the beautiful sound of especially the low whistle that I immediately had the wish to buy a whistle.

Since I have learned to play the recorder when I was a child and kept playing it all my life in recorder ensembles it was not difficult for me to learn how to play the whistle. 

What was different compared to the recorder playing was the typical Irish ornamentation like cuts, strikes, rolls, crans and slides and to not tonguing every tone.

I started with a Clare high D and "worked" myself down to an Overton (Colin Goldie) low D.

Please find attached a picture with my whistle collection (from left to right):

high D: Overton (Colin Goldie), Mac Nic, Susato

high C: Mac Nic

high Bb: Tony Dixon

low A: Mac Nic

low G: Ian Lambe

low F: Tony Dixon

low D: Overton (Colin Goldie)

I love all of them and every one has its specific sound and need of breath.

The Mac Nics are very easy to play regarding breath and getting into the next octave - the Overtons need more pressure.

Since I have relatively long fingers I can play the low A, G and F still with my fingertips and need no piper's grip. This is in fact necessary for the low D from Colin Goldie and I had to get used to it for a little while.

I so much enjoy playing the whistles and it is nice to hear that there are a lot of other whistle players here on the forum.

Count me in on Playing On the Porch Day '18

I had a friend over and we played as the sun went down and the stars came out, north of Houston in Spring, TX

Richard Farina's "A Swallow Song" whose melody is from a Ladino song "Los Bilbilicos".  Need a chromatic dulcimer to play it, though. (Sometimes misspelled as "Los Bibilicos) Truly haunting melody with words to match.

Terry, I love it!   A year ago I brought my tabor drum to a children's parade celebration in our village.  The kids had big paper mache carnival heads they made and wore, and various noise makers and tambourines etc.  The tabor drum fit right in!!  

Lisa, I always smile when you write about your whistles, if I may. Especially today. You will appreciate this: Our senior group at our church hosted a noon dinner for all church members and guests. Afterwards, I directed bingo games with prizes. Speed bingo. Through in 45 minutes. Guess what? Okay, here it is. I used my Tabor Drum as part of the entertainment. When someone won, they had to agree to talk like a pirate, as in "Arrrrr r." And then walk around wearing and beating the tabor drum, all the while saying "Arrrrrr", for 10 seconds. Fyn. Ayeee, the ole tabor drum.  I still have my tabor whistle.   The one with two holess on top and one under.   Made of wood.  Me thinks you have one.

Cad E Sin Don Te Sin  has always seemed spooky to me   Link to tab

Tom Dooley?  

Well I'm still at it.  I can't seem to get very good ...doubtless due to my very limited available practice time.    But I do love to play at it!  It's very relaxing for some reason- I think because of the pure simplicity of the instrument.

However, I must say there is nothing easier than to just grab a penny whistle from my can of them on the desk, and quickly play a simple tune whenever the mood strikes to play a tune without having to fuss or tune anything .  I don't even have to clear a space on the desk!  lol

If the tune is really simple, I can usually figure out how to play it by ear.  Hearing whether the tune is major (cheerful) or minor (mournful) helps in locating where the tonic/key note can be located on the whistle.  That's much like the mtn dulcimer, and knowing where the four common modes would lie on the diatonic fretboard... 'cheerful' (ionian, mixolydian) or 'mournful' (aeolian or dorian). 
The holes on the whistle even echo the fretboard in that way- for example to play ionian you base the key note on fret three on dulcimer...and on whistle you'd base the ionian key note with the bottom three holes uncovered.  If playing dulcimer in Aeolian, the key note is when fretting fret 1... on whistle the aeolian key note would be when the 1 hole at the bottom is left open.  That was so cool when I came to that realization!  It kind of opened up my head to be able to access a lot of simple traditional folk tunes.  

Croí Cróga by Clannad or Loreena McKennitt's version of The Highwayman

Omie Wise is such a mournful and haunting song. 

The air was still smokey from all the fires in Cali, and we even had ash falling onto our dulcimers, but a few of us from my local music group, River City Dulcimers, moved to the sidewalk in front of the Strum Shop where we meet monthly.  We tried to get video, but the noise from the street overpowered the dulcimers. I decided to play one of my octave dulcimers, just to expand the tonal range of our little band of dulciholics. We played five tunes: The Ash Grove, Holy Manna, Simple Gifts, Skye Boat Song, and Southwind.

So far we have enjoyed three friends from church, a visitor from China, and a neighbor doing Native drumming, guitar, accordion, mountain dulcimer, a little kid piano, show tunes, and opera. OH my day has already been made, and I don't even think it's over yet...

This pic was taken before it all kicked off.  The table filled with food~sweet tea, muffins, veggie tray, fruit, summer sausage, cheese, and cranberry bars.  

Well, new players just showed up...

So that  was a bit ago, my post didn't send, but I had a very talented, classical guitarist with his very talented, singing wife playing uke.  They are AMAZING, and they were here for about four, glorious songs....

 sam porch pic.jpg - 132KB

This year I'm delegating to the next generation.  Our son's band is playing an outdoor festival this evening and we'll go to cheer him on (the fact that it is a Food Truck Festival and I'm getting hungry has absolutely nothing to do with this). 

Unfortunately, this means we're missing the block party here at home.  There's too much stuff happening in August!!  Last year the uke club declared our hangout's beer garden to be a "porch" and we played all afternoon.  But this year we played a gig Wednesday and there's a uke festival tomorrow so we were too overwhelmed to try anything today.

I may declare a local Play Music On The Porch Day in September.  I'll claim it has something to do with daylight savings time.  Come to think of it, maybe I should declare a Porch Music day every month as penance for abandoning the block party.  I feel guilty but I gotta run.  I'm gunning for a caprese grilled cheese with fresh basil, tomatoes, mozzarella and pesto mayo.  But Tamale Spaceship has confit-style duck with dried fruit mole and cranberries.  Too many events and too much food!!!  Did I mention I love August?

I hope everybody has a great Saturday night.  On the porch or elsewhere. :-)

I'm a weird (or lucky) duck on this topic.  I'm an instrumental music education major, so I can technically play any orchestral brass, woodwind, or percussion instrument.  Honesty compels me to report that I would only consider myself competent enough to perform in public on seven or possibly eight of the brass and woodwind instruments (but any of the  percussion instruments...let's go) lol.  I also do penny whistle and Native American flute.  The cool thing is that new and wonderful challenges are still lurking around every corner.  I've been blessed to do okay as a tuba major/percussion minor.  Learning musical instruments is fun!  

I began playing clarinet at age 11, then studied it all the way through university.  After moving overseas, I began playing the diatonic harmonica.  That got me into Old Time music.  Now I've started playing the dulcimer, too.

Well, no one else showed up, so I played solo. I did a few tunes on mountain dulcimer and then a few on banjo. No videos.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

I recorded six videos. I posted the first 3, and I'll post the last 3 tomorrow.

We played and posted video evidence here on FOTMD!  :)

Happy strumming', friends!

 I'm not sure yet if'n I'll be on my porch or someone else's. I'll keep you poated.

Sittin' on the dock of the bay.  In the shade on Bay street just half  block from my boat on the river.  Lotsa folk walk that way crossing the bridge as part of an exercise plan.  

Thank you for "resurrecting" these songs.  (Zombie Jamboree by the Kingston Trio just popped into my mind as I said that, but that is definitely NOT mournful, spooky, or lonesome.)  I, too, enjoy "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" as Wanda Degan taught an Ionian version.  The reason for my thanks is I was wanting something spooky for dulcimer and wasn't happy with what I found among my own music.

The mention of "She Moved Through the Fair" is perfect for me.  I've loved & been haunted by it for a long time.  The same was true about the baritone dulcimer, so, now that I have one, this is going to be my first real work for it.  Tried to figure it out with SMN and what I came up with seemed flat.  Went online and found an experimental way to tab it at Digital Tradition.  I chose AbEbAb tuning and am dying to play it . . . well maybe I'll just hold a seance by playing it.  The October meeting of my local folklore society has Ghost Stories as the theme.  I could tell tons, but the group is really geared towards music and I like to challenge myself musically monthly, so I really want to chill everybody out with this piece.

BTW I know a few here play bowed psaltery and ages ago I played Tom Lehrer's "The Irish Ballad" on mine.  If you know Tom Lehrer's work, you can appreciate it's satirical.  On guitar I like to sing an old song, "The Legend of the Red Mill" from the Rudolf Friml operetta, The Red Mill.  It has a great spooky refrain and, like "She Moved Through the Fair", it doesn't answer all the mysteries it raises.

My local dulcimer group meets tomorrow. Our plan is to practice a little bit and then move our chairs to the sidewalk in front of the music store where we meet and play 5 or 6 tunes.  I'll try to get a video or at least a still photo or two.

Once I get home I hope to play on my front lawn with neighbors who play fiddle and banjo.  I fear they're out of town and I'll be there all by my lonesome.

I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch and playing a tune or two. If any friends stop by they are welcome to play as well. I left the invitation opened ended so anyone can show up between 1 and 4 p.m. After that we are heading to a baseball game. We will see what happens. Have a good day everyone.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Please come tell me about your plans for tomorrow, and follow up with pics later!  

I love this day.  This will be our third year participating.  We are still making a poster to hang from the porch, I have a few chalkboards to draw on, we will put out a table with iced tea and cups and whatever instruments we can find around the house, and I've invited all kinds of musical folk to show up!  Usually it's just us and our neighbor, but ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN!  

I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!

That's hilarious!

Thanks Dan & John for the responses. I did get a little more info, you guys are correct it was made by Bill Davis, the person that has it is the original owner and it came with a "Fun With The Dulcimer" Book, and a pamphlet "Davis Dulcimers" That has his picture on the front. I am going to look at it tomorrow. Would you guys have any idea of its value? 

William Barney Davis (1926-1995) was Navy veteran, plumber, folk musician and dulcimer luthier from Benton County, TN. He apparently started building dulcimers in the late 1950s. He was the proprietor of the Bill Davis Dulcimer Shop in Gatlinburg, TN, which opened in 1963. He ran the store with his fourth wife, Jean, a folk musician with a fascination for the dulcimer. Bill and Jean organized a number of dulcimer-related festivals in Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and elsewhere in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains through the late 1960s and 1970s. These included the annual Southern Highland Handicraft Guild gathering, the Folk Festival of the Smokies and the Dulcimer and Harp Convention.

Is the piece signed?

DAN

www.dulcimore.com

John, that would be Bill Davis of Davis Dulcimers, who was actively building in the 1960s and 1970s.  That is his trademark "violin" design, which was also used by Chet Hines of Ohio (he wrote a book about it) and has been perpetuated by Mike Clemmer in Townsend, TN.  The late Jean Schilling of Cosby, TN was married to Bill Davis at one point, and their photo appeared in a National Geographic magazine years ago.

Good one, Ken. I think I have that on an old Doc Watson album.

Long Black Veil's a good one, Dusty.  Check out the lyrics to Mattie Groves -- the predecessor tune for Shady Grove.

I missed this thread too, Ken.   

The book I had 40 years ago was Jean Ritchie's Dulcimer book.  I suspect my first tune was Go Tell Aunt Rhodie as well, since it would have been one of the few tunes in that book which I knew.  The other would have been Barbara Allen.