The Big D February 9/19








I have been trying to play this low D whistle for three years and finally managed ‘The Water Is Wide’. It seems the size of a drainpipe. Too much of a stretch for my short fingers. If there is any air leakage at all, if all the holes are not completely covered then you get skraaawk skreeeek. Finally realized it was the ring fingers on both hands that weren’t completely covering the holes and so worked at that. Also I run out of air. It takes a lot of breath to move a large column of air down the bore. But, at any rate, the sound is wonderful. It sounds like an oboe.

Have been working on ‘Margaret’s Waltz’ on the G, which is also a large whistle but not as big as the low D. I finally found somebody on YouTube who played Margaret’s Waltz  in G, his name is Lester, and Lester plays it nice and slow on the melodeon, which I listened to repeatedly and picked it out on my little three-octave keyboard along with him, from thence to the G whistle. Lester had about twenty hits on his YouTube video until I came along and upped his numbers enormously.

So Lester and I have been merrily tootling and squeezing away. Tom our fiddler and Diane and Chuck play it in G, so the G whistle it is. I don’t know why they decided on G but I am a latecomer to this piece and will do it in any key they choose.

Myself and June and Sherry and Evelyn and Nancy (all horse people) watched The Rider which CD was sent to me by the producer on this upcoming film of News of the World.