thing you've ever done with your instrument? Here's my confession: several times in public I have demonstrated the art of playing the whistle with my nose (2 at once is interesting). Also a few times, when I used to smoke, I inserted a lit ciggie into the 5th hole of the Bb whistle, put the whole fipple in my mouth, covered all the other holes and leaned down so the end hole was pressed against my upper leg, and smoked the ciggie.
Ho ho!
I have 2 accordions that I regularly play, and they both sit on the floor by my seat in the studio where I teach. Now a piano accordion is an extremely strongly constructed piece of hardwood furniture underneath it's coating of celluloid (the stuff that looks like a 50's toilet seat if it's not black) so I don't think this is wierd at all. Just comfy. But new pupils often have to pick their jaws up off the floor when I put my feet up on one accordion while playing the other - which I do totally without thinking.
Critics will be disappointed to learn that the accordions have suffered no ill effects from this treatment over the years. I apologise, max, if this thread is now hijacked by accordion jokes.
Anna, please don't tell me you took my advice at bandcamp.
I don't use my whistle to smoke ciggies. I smoke a pipe while playing whistle. Let's see, I also used a flute as a leader when threading flexible plumbing hose through the cabinetry. My guitar has a Florentine cutaway, I've been known to hold it by proping my leg up in it. I've also been known to store my lunch in my banjo head.
The weirdest thing I've ever done with a fiddle is play it.
Not really weird, but convenient! I stick whistles inside other whistles. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who does this. Very handy -_- Especially when you have a low whistle =]
Hmmm... Actually, I've used my whistle to brush/pet my cat. She does enjoy a nice petting with the whistle once in a while!
I've turned the foot of my (keyless) flute sideways. Now, whenever I need a low C, I press the low end against the inside of my thigh, covering the holes.
I'm trying to picture worm's flute thing with the low C on the thigh, but with very little success. Mairi, if you're reading this and I'm staring at you on the pub on Thursday, you'll know what I'm thinking
When I was entertaining my extended family, the little children were playing catch with bean bags. I had them pitch the bean bag at me, and I bounced it back to them off my bodhran like it was a trampoline. The sound made them giggle each time.
Anglo concertinas are most useful as you can play one side with one hand whilst wielding a pint pot in the other.
Accordions are even better for playing one handed.
It is a standard trick to stick a bow under your chin and play fiddle using it as a bow. I saw someone with a longer-haired bow so he could put the stick under the fiddle and the horse-hair over the top
(who was it? Ian Campbell band, Jug O'Punch folk club, Birmingham UK, 1971).
low-level open somersault (mid reel) with the plugged in semi-acoustic during a gig at the infamous 'Kilkenny Tavern' _i was lucky enough to get away with only a smashed in (still working) jack connection and bruised side and back, escaping two broken necks
i think a combination of the ''drink & music'' may of had something to do with it and not the boot laces, although it was 'round about the time John Bowe actually swept one of them up
incidentally, we had a ''great big little'' 'session' there last night with Alan O'Leary, Foxy and 21 others (including pipes & 5-string fiddle) with songs from 8 heads, and the 3-5 guitars and 4 bodhrans not all in the pot at once
Whistles can make good slides to play the guitar with. And I have seen guitar strings played with a bow (usually just the low or the high one, unless you want to play double stops, I mean sextuple stops). And as discussed in previous threads, instruments can be used as weapons, or as prods to good behavior (as my wife uses her fiddle bow on me, whack).
What about covering all the holes, then blocking the end with your leg, blowing very gently to try and get the octave note below? I've done this a few times, I can tell you.
The low-C thing on the flute works best if yer outside sitting down on a slight incline, legs foward (Not indian style, though that's possible too.) Shorts are best for a good seal on the holes. You still have to torque yer neck pretty drastically to pull it off.
Showaddydadito: I suppose a bodhran would also make a good ninja frizbee at the back of someone 's head that has gone over the quota of bodhran jokes. 0^:
Just joking. Its a custom of mine to always respond to a ribbing by giving a ribbing back.
However, I hope I'm not giving Bliss any ideas. He wouldn't use his Eamon McGuire drum, but watch out if he brings a few spare pizza box type bodhrans to have on hand.
If you take the whistle to the beach, or somewhere else where it's windy, and hold it at the right angle to the wind, it will eerily play itself in an aeolian kind of way. All you have to do then is finger it. This is quite handy because it allows you to converse, drink, etc., whilst simultaneously treating passers-by to a display of virtuosity. I know I have.
Ah, MaxF, I remember all the hurdles doing this at a windy school sports day.
But I have an Aeolian harp, and no-one ever believes me when I say it is amphibious - that is because they just think amphibious means it goes on land and water - it actually means belonging to two classes - not a lot of people know that.
But I'ld never take it to a session.
What was the original question ?
I've attempted to play fiddle while hanging upside down off the edge of my bed... Didn't work to well. Also, when I first started violin and had a rental instrument (I would NEVER to this with the one I have now, I love it to much!) I can remember jumping on the trampoline and playing at the same time. I'm very surprised I didn't break it or poke myself in the eye with the bow or something like that...
I once accidently smashed myself in the face with an octave mandola.
My young daughter had been playing "post the plectrum", and I was holding the mando upside down and shaking when I guess I just lost control.
I'm not joking when I say "smashed", I I had a 1.5cm gash along one eyebrow. My wife, who was busy watching tv when she heard the hollow BONG (presumably from my head, not the mando), turned round and saw my stunned, stupified expression I thought she'd have a heart attack laughing.
My daughter spent the rest of the evening coming over to me every few minutes to say "poor daddy" and pat my head.
Extract plectra withcare, this could happen to you.
My now grown up kids used to ride the top of my fiddle case down the stairs. They'd sit in the wide part with their feet in the narrow, push off at the top and slide down giggling to the landing at the bottom. Worked a treat.
My daughter also liked to sit in my banjo case, no stairs to slide down though. She spend quite a lot of time dancing or just standing on top of the case too., sometimes lining various cases up as a kind of assualt course for toddlers.
maxF raises a good point about wind instruments in the outdoors. I saw a performance at a hillside festival once where the flute player couldn't play at all because of the crosswind blowing over his flute! I guess, in keeping with the theme of this thread, he should have developed some alternate use for it on the fly, like using it as a bodhran beater or something.
Tell me, have any of the assorted box players ever done that thing where you turn the box through 90 degrees, holding the "top" half, and make the lower half go up and down like a sort of vent dummy (speaking at the same time)? It is particularly effective if you stick a pair of comedy eyes on the top half and a comedy mouth on the lower half. And have they done it in public?
It's very dangerous for children to play in banjo cases. There have been countless tragedies where the lid has fallen down and the catch snapped shut, trapping the innocent wain in the airless interior. The plush padding absorbs the frantic cries for help, and when the banjo awakes from his drunken stupor, five hours later, it is invariably too late.
i did do a whole gig once in a rough ol' pub in Tooting Broadway (sw london) with Sean Casey playing fiddle with a hairless bow ( _just the pure wood) and it was grand enough, no big deal . . .
Will, Emily, Su and I were at a festival that was very windy; Lunasa was playing, and Kevin Crawford had to put his mic stand behind him and play with his back to the audience. There was a great deal of giggling from the audience once Radio Crawford discovered he could get a laugh by working his nether regions a bit. (But it was that kind of night. I think it was just before that that the local stepdancers tried to dance The Fairy Reel -- even after Kevin warned them -- to one of those tunes they play in weirdo time signatures.)
"Su and I were at a festival that was very windy; Lunasa was playing, and Kevin Crawford had to put his mic stand behind him and play with his back to the audience."
That happened to me when we played the *Dublin St. Patrick's Day Festiva oe windy year. I'm glad to see I'm not alone.
What's the weirdest..
What's the weirdest..
thing you've ever done with your instrument? Here's my confession: several times in public I have demonstrated the art of playing the whistle with my nose (2 at once is interesting). Also a few times, when I used to smoke, I inserted a lit ciggie into the 5th hole of the Bb whistle, put the whole fipple in my mouth, covered all the other holes and leaned down so the end hole was pressed against my upper leg, and smoked the ciggie.
Ho ho!
# Posted on May 24th 2005 by maxF
Re: What's the weirdest..
I have 2 accordions that I regularly play, and they both sit on the floor by my seat in the studio where I teach. Now a piano accordion is an extremely strongly constructed piece of hardwood furniture underneath it's coating of celluloid (the stuff that looks like a 50's toilet seat if it's not black) so I don't think this is wierd at all. Just comfy. But new pupils often have to pick their jaws up off the floor when I put my feet up on one accordion while playing the other - which I do totally without thinking.
Critics will be disappointed to learn that the accordions have suffered no ill effects from this treatment over the years. I apologise, max, if this thread is now hijacked by accordion jokes.
# Posted on May 24th 2005 by kris
Re: What's the weirdest..
this one time at band camp . . .
# Posted on May 24th 2005 by banana512
Re: What's the weirdest..
Anna, please don't tell me you took my advice at bandcamp.
I don't use my whistle to smoke ciggies. I smoke a pipe while playing whistle. Let's see, I also used a flute as a leader when threading flexible plumbing hose through the cabinetry. My guitar has a Florentine cutaway, I've been known to hold it by proping my leg up in it. I've also been known to store my lunch in my banjo head.
The weirdest thing I've ever done with a fiddle is play it.
KFG
# Posted on May 24th 2005 by KFG
Re: What's the weirdest..
Another thing I do sometimes is to slide a D whistle up and down inside the good old Bb whilst blowing down the Bb to make a comedy trombone.
# Posted on May 24th 2005 by maxF
Re: What's the weirdest..
Not really weird, but convenient! I stick whistles inside other whistles. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who does this. Very handy -_- Especially when you have a low whistle =]
Hmmm... Actually, I've used my whistle to brush/pet my cat. She does enjoy a nice petting with the whistle once in a while!
Cheers,
Armand
# Posted on May 24th 2005 by fiddlinviolinin
Re: What's the weirdest..
I've turned the foot of my (keyless) flute sideways. Now, whenever I need a low C, I press the low end against the inside of my thigh, covering the holes.
And yes, I did learn it at camp.
# Posted on May 24th 2005 by wormdiet
Re: What's the weirdest..
You are very strange people!
But then so am I.
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by curlew
Re: What's the weirdest..
I'm trying to picture worm's flute thing with the low C on the thigh, but with very little success. Mairi, if you're reading this and I'm staring at you on the pub on Thursday, you'll know what I'm thinking
- Chris
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: What's the weirdest..
sorry, that's "wormdiet's", thing, not "worm's thing"
apologies - Chris
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: What's the weirdest..
When I was entertaining my extended family, the little children were playing catch with bean bags. I had them pitch the bean bag at me, and I bounced it back to them off my bodhran like it was a trampoline. The sound made them giggle each time.
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by CeolCairdeas
Re: What's the weirdest..
Anglo concertinas are most useful as you can play one side with one hand whilst wielding a pint pot in the other.
Accordions are even better for playing one handed.
It is a standard trick to stick a bow under your chin and play fiddle using it as a bow. I saw someone with a longer-haired bow so he could put the stick under the fiddle and the horse-hair over the top
(who was it? Ian Campbell band, Jug O'Punch folk club, Birmingham UK, 1971).
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by geoffwright
Re: What's the weirdest..
low-level open somersault (mid reel) with the plugged in semi-acoustic during a gig at the infamous 'Kilkenny Tavern' _i was lucky enough to get away with only a smashed in (still working) jack connection and bruised side and back, escaping two broken necks
i think a combination of the ''drink & music'' may of had something to do with it and not the boot laces, although it was 'round about the time John Bowe actually swept one of them up
incidentally, we had a ''great big little'' 'session' there last night with Alan O'Leary, Foxy and 21 others (including pipes & 5-string fiddle) with songs from 8 heads, and the 3-5 guitars and 4 bodhrans not all in the pot at once
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by lisaniska
Re: What's the weirdest..
i have cleaned ears out with my fiddle bow...
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by snowyowl
Re: What's the weirdest..
At last CeolCairdeas, a sensible use for a bodhran.
(look . . . someone was going to say it, so let's get it over with)
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: What's the weirdest..
Whistles can make good slides to play the guitar with. And I have seen guitar strings played with a bow (usually just the low or the high one, unless you want to play double stops, I mean sextuple stops). And as discussed in previous threads, instruments can be used as weapons, or as prods to good behavior (as my wife uses her fiddle bow on me, whack).
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: What's the weirdest..
You can also stick whistles on to the ends of your fingers and wave them at people (in a good way).
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by maxF
Re: What's the weirdest..
And, of couse, playing 2 or more whistles at the same time allows you to play chords, or in unison with yourself.
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by maxF
Re: What's the weirdest..
What about covering all the holes, then blocking the end with your leg, blowing very gently to try and get the octave note below? I've done this a few times, I can tell you.
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by maxF
Re: What's the weirdest..
Trapshooting a Bastari C/G concertina that had been hurled airborne by a lacrosse stick.
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by joesmith
Re: What's the weirdest..
The low-C thing on the flute works best if yer outside sitting down on a slight incline, legs foward (Not indian style, though that's possible too.) Shorts are best for a good seal on the holes. You still have to torque yer neck pretty drastically to pull it off.
Never tried it in a session. Probably never will.
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by wormdiet
Re: What's the weirdest..
Doesn't anyone round here use their instrument to PLAY???
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by Folkie Junkie
Re: What's the weirdest..
There is a guy online somewhere who makes *bagwhistles*.
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by wormdiet
Re: What's the weirdest..
Showaddydadito: I suppose a bodhran would also make a good ninja frizbee at the back of someone 's head that has gone over the quota of bodhran jokes. 0^:
Just joking. Its a custom of mine to always respond to a ribbing by giving a ribbing back.
However, I hope I'm not giving Bliss any ideas. He wouldn't use his Eamon McGuire drum, but watch out if he brings a few spare pizza box type bodhrans to have on hand.
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by CeolCairdeas
Re: What's the weirdest..
If you take the whistle to the beach, or somewhere else where it's windy, and hold it at the right angle to the wind, it will eerily play itself in an aeolian kind of way. All you have to do then is finger it. This is quite handy because it allows you to converse, drink, etc., whilst simultaneously treating passers-by to a display of virtuosity. I know I have.
# Posted on May 25th 2005 by maxF
Re: What's the weirdest..
I could always send Eamon to invade Cheshire, although that's a bit one sided, but then, one sided wars all all the rage.
# Posted on May 26th 2005 by bodhran bliss
Re: What's the weirdest..
same as laitch, but it was a tuning slide from a flute, and I was passing it with the stick
Also a friend of mine once sellotaped a whistle to the end of a snorkel and played through that.
Anders
# Posted on May 26th 2005 by weefreefidler
Re: What's the weirdest..
"There is a guy online somewhere who makes *bagwhistles*. "
Oh, that's easy. You just hook it up to a small, battery powered vacuum cleaner. Doesn't everybody do this?
KFG
# Posted on May 26th 2005 by KFG
Re: What's the weirdest..
Ah, MaxF, I remember all the hurdles doing this at a windy school sports day.
But I have an Aeolian harp, and no-one ever believes me when I say it is amphibious - that is because they just think amphibious means it goes on land and water - it actually means belonging to two classes - not a lot of people know that.
But I'ld never take it to a session.
What was the original question ?
# Posted on May 26th 2005 by Guernsey Pete
Re: What's the weirdest..
Does that mean I should go fish my Aeolian harp out of the bream pond?
KFG
# Posted on May 26th 2005 by KFG
Re: What's the weirdest..
The weirdest is play it.
# Posted on May 26th 2005 by Unseen122
Re: What's the weirdest..
The fiddle bow makes a good back scratcher.
# Posted on May 27th 2005 by Cath
Re: What's the weirdest..
my bow is too narcissistic to let me use it as a back scratcher, however do you get yours to behave?
# Posted on May 27th 2005 by banana512
Re: What's the weirdest..
I've attempted to play fiddle while hanging upside down off the edge of my bed... Didn't work to well. Also, when I first started violin and had a rental instrument (I would NEVER to this with the one I have now, I love it to much!) I can remember jumping on the trampoline and playing at the same time. I'm very surprised I didn't break it or poke myself in the eye with the bow or something like that...
# Posted on May 27th 2005 by Fiddlekit
Re: What's the weirdest..
I once accidently smashed myself in the face with an octave mandola.
My young daughter had been playing "post the plectrum", and I was holding the mando upside down and shaking when I guess I just lost control.
I'm not joking when I say "smashed", I I had a 1.5cm gash along one eyebrow. My wife, who was busy watching tv when she heard the hollow BONG (presumably from my head, not the mando), turned round and saw my stunned, stupified expression I thought she'd have a heart attack laughing.
My daughter spent the rest of the evening coming over to me every few minutes to say "poor daddy" and pat my head.
Extract plectra withcare, this could happen to you.
- Chris w
# Posted on May 27th 2005 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: What's the weirdest..
My now grown up kids used to ride the top of my fiddle case down the stairs. They'd sit in the wide part with their feet in the narrow, push off at the top and slide down giggling to the landing at the bottom. Worked a treat.
# Posted on May 27th 2005 by Clear Drops
Re: What's the weirdest..
That was 25-30 odd years ago and the case is still functional and houses a fiddle, now the lid is re-attached.
# Posted on May 27th 2005 by Clear Drops
Re: What's the weirdest..
My daughter also liked to sit in my banjo case, no stairs to slide down though. She spend quite a lot of time dancing or just standing on top of the case too., sometimes lining various cases up as a kind of assualt course for toddlers.
- Chris
# Posted on May 27th 2005 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: What's the weirdest..
maxF raises a good point about wind instruments in the outdoors. I saw a performance at a hillside festival once where the flute player couldn't play at all because of the crosswind blowing over his flute! I guess, in keeping with the theme of this thread, he should have developed some alternate use for it on the fly, like using it as a bodhran beater or something.
# Posted on May 27th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: What's the weirdest..
Tell me, have any of the assorted box players ever done that thing where you turn the box through 90 degrees, holding the "top" half, and make the lower half go up and down like a sort of vent dummy (speaking at the same time)? It is particularly effective if you stick a pair of comedy eyes on the top half and a comedy mouth on the lower half. And have they done it in public?
# Posted on May 27th 2005 by maxF
Re: What's the weirdest..
It's very dangerous for children to play in banjo cases. There have been countless tragedies where the lid has fallen down and the catch snapped shut, trapping the innocent wain in the airless interior. The plush padding absorbs the frantic cries for help, and when the banjo awakes from his drunken stupor, five hours later, it is invariably too late.
# Posted on May 27th 2005 by Ottery
Re: What's the weirdest..
'the banjo player' that is, of course ....
# Posted on May 27th 2005 by Ottery
Re: What's the weirdest..
I dunno, Ottery, I think the first way is funnier. ;)
# Posted on May 27th 2005 by sara g
Re: What's the weirdest..
i did do a whole gig once in a rough ol' pub in Tooting Broadway (sw london) with Sean Casey playing fiddle with a hairless bow ( _just the pure wood) and it was grand enough, no big deal . . .
# Posted on June 5th 2005 by lisaniska
Re: What's the weirdest..
Will, Emily, Su and I were at a festival that was very windy; Lunasa was playing, and Kevin Crawford had to put his mic stand behind him and play with his back to the audience. There was a great deal of giggling from the audience once Radio Crawford discovered he could get a laugh by working his nether regions a bit. (But it was that kind of night. I think it was just before that that the local stepdancers tried to dance The Fairy Reel -- even after Kevin warned them -- to one of those tunes they play in weirdo time signatures.)
# Posted on June 5th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: What's the weirdest..
"Su and I were at a festival that was very windy; Lunasa was playing, and Kevin Crawford had to put his mic stand behind him and play with his back to the audience."
That happened to me when we played the *Dublin St. Patrick's Day Festiva oe windy year. I'm glad to see I'm not alone.
*Dublin, CA
# Posted on June 5th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: What's the weirdest..
_believe me, the real 'weirdest' is yet to come . . .
# Posted on June 15th 2005 by lisaniska
Re: What's the weirdest..
... but not yet
Used to play the fiddle while riding a bicycle. Got in a wreck, busted the bicycle.
# Posted on June 15th 2005 by Owell Mabee