especially if it's your own. It was lying on my bed, I sat down on it; it bent and now has a crooked G hole. I'm terribly sad about this - all the more so because I'm not musical enough to tell how out of tune my whistle is (I don't even know how in tune it was in the first place). I think it's just the high A that is even more difficult to hit sweetly now.
Anyway, I realise that, at worst, it's about 15 swiss francs to get a new one, but this is my baby: my first whistle, the one I learnt to play on. I need consoling. Tell me of when you broke whistles, flutes, fiddles or - heaven forbid- uillean pipes
I sympathise. The closest I came is nearly sitting on my wife's new violin when she put it on a chair for a second. So I guess there's a lesson in that - put it anywhere you'd sit...and it'll get sat on!
(or learn a bigger instrument that you can't possibly put on a chair or bed!).
When I was once in a session with my sister a few years ago, she went to the toilet and left her flute with me. When she came back, i slid it along the chair to give her, but she didn't see it. All I remember from there is CRACK!
A few years beforethat, I was playing on a gig rig. I play the harp and put it down and then bent down to pick something up. Anyone else here seen a harp bounce on a concrete floor?? Needless to say, not a pretty sight! However, a chunk came off the top with the bottom string, but the rest of it miraculously stayed in tune!
A friend of mine had her cello knocked down a flight of stairs about an hour before a wedding that she was playing. Not a pretty sight. My mom has had her hammer dulcimer knocked off of it's stand and bounced (bridge down) onto concrete. My sis has come really close to sitting on my fiddle before - just about gave me a heart-attack - but luckily hasn't yet.
My old upright piana in a fit of jealousy killed a fiddle of mine. it had apparently overheard the discussion about how to get it out of the house and down the stairs - dismemberment was discussed- as a mercy killing - it had a cracked sound board.. I don't recall how i came t o leave the fiddle on top of - but there the fiddle was, next morning in pieces on the floor.
(of course, the fact of having cats does not come into this.)
I have a friend that laid his fiddle bow on the floor for a minute to get something out of his case. Someone who was just walking by didn't see it and stepped on it... Broke it cleanly in half. My friend was really upset, but he ended up getting a better bow than he had before, so maybe some good came out of it.
Poor old Tirno tells us he's got a crooked G hole! 'Fraid there's just no answer to that!
Anyway, one of my students sat on her bow a few weeks ago - £20's worth!
I heard of someone who put their fiddle, in it's old wooden case, on the roof of their car late one night, while they fished for their car keys & ...you guessed it, jumped in & drove over the case & wrecked both case & fiddle completely!
I was playing my Jews Harp once in front of an audience (Yes, I really do have no shame! ) when it just fell apart - mid tune. You should try that sometime, you look & feel a total fool!
I remember my fiddle bow flew out of my hand one night in the middle of a particularly frantic session. Yes - red face again!
Oh yes, last one. A prat of a waiter knocked over my Hammered Dulcimer in a restaurant one night & completely wrecked the treble bridge!
Warning - don't sit anywhere near me in a session!
My pride and joy - from messrs Monzani and Hill flute makers -got sat on at a party. The flute was built in 1834 and had survived for over 170 years without any real damage. It nearly broke my heart
BUT - there is always a silver lining in the clouds. While it was off getting repairs I played a mate's Clinton flute and it made me completely rethink how to play, different embouchure, different spacing between the finger holes, needed more puff to fill it, etc.
So when my true love finally returned from Sam Murray's workshop it was playing better than ever.
So - my commiserations but maybe an opportunity to do something better. Why not treat yourself to a Michael Burke or a Copeland whistle [Iknow, I know very pricey BUT well worth it] and become a new and resurrected whistler
Ptarmigan, I have a friend that drove over her instrument, too! Except it was a cello, and it was particularly bad timing because it was the morning of our All-Region orchestra competition, and she would have had a good chance of making it if she could have auditioned on her own instrument.
That surely must have been quite a feat Fiddlekit!
I'd say if you ran over a Whistle or Flute you would hardly notice it, but something as 'huge' as a Cello - now that must have taken some amount of pre-ingested alcohol to perfect!
I've not broken an instrument, but careless handling in my early days of playing has put several nasty nicks and gouges into my guitar. I also once dropped an accordion onto the floor, but to the best of my knowledge it's nearly impossible to break an accordion, even if you hit it with an axe.
In my 20s, I played at a bender of a party in a youth hostel and the bedroom was 3 floors up. I don't remember how or when, but my accordion managed to get back upstairs by morning, with a chunk missing from one of the black keys.
Yes, the whistle often gets a bum time of it. People sitting on them must be the most common way for them to pass this veil of tears. I use a tweaked Walton's mellow and make sure it goes back in my handbag when toilet or bar calls. All whistles are different and although they're cheap as instruments go, it's still a sad and sorry time when a favourite dies. My sympathies.
Tirno, panic not !
Get a length of wood dowel just slightly smaller than the bore of the whistle, in fact as close a fit as you can.
Insert it into the whistle and past the bent hole - it may be that this takes some effort because the bore may well be narrowed or squashed into an oval.
Take a smalll hammer, and hammer around the edge of the hole onto the dowel.
You should be able to reduce the distortion and the damage to a minimum with a few minutes work.
Thanks for that. Further playing would indicate that it is at least as in tune as it used to be. I'll see about hammering out a fix at some point real soon :D
Also an excellent opportunity to see if I can't buy a clarke or even an expensive one
Gurnsey,
I tried the "hammer back into shape" on a Clarke whistle, but because of the conical shape, it didn't work--whistle was playable, but never quite the same. I had gotten a little leather whistle case that could hang from your belt--unfortunately, it hung at just the right (wrong?) height to be closed in the door of a taxicab one night when I was not very alert.
But fortunately, like a lot of people, I have a number of backup whistles!
Last week I dropped a full pint on the floor. It fell about a foot and a half. . . I was surprised the glass shattered at all.
About 3 feet away was a set of good uilleann pipes (not mine) which were completely unschathed.
Waaaaay back in the dark ages, I used to go to two-week long GHB boot camps. One day during Pibroch class, my chanter came off the set of pipes, in my hands. Unfortunately, the socket and tennon (IE the top part of the chanter) was still attached. The chanter had snapped in two. It was my fault, though. Becuase of constant playing and humidity, the chanter had gotten tight in the socket, so I would twist it from the bottom for more leverage. BAD idea. It was a nice chanter too :(
I've been known to sit on a few whistles myself in my time! Lol! I sat on my bow once too! The whole thing just twisted - it was a sorry sight! Fortunately it wasn't a particularly good one and I was forced to buy myself a new one! (",) My mate sat on his sisters fiddle once but miraculously it survived unscathed!
How do people manage to run over their instruments?! I dont understand at all! But I have a friend who plays the keyboard for our group and his dad ran over it one day before we went to play at a concert! Some of the voice buttons got stuck down and the keyboard changed between choir and harpsicord all night! It was hilarious! Actually...he's had a lot of unfortunate incidents with his keyboard - another time when he was playin at a feis with an accordian player the power went off. When it came back on there was a power surge and the sound equipment banged, the accordian player jumped and hit his mic, which swung round and hit a cup of tea which was sitting on the keyboard! So he had to dry it with the hairdryer! I think he's got a new one now tho...a keyboard, not a hairdryer!
Walton's Mellow D is my favorite whistle and I got my first one on my birthday in my first year of playing.
It has numerous dents. Once, (I don't remember how) it got bent completely in half. Luckily, I was able to bend it back.
Another time, I stepped on it while I was wearing some thick boots, and completely flattened everything below the G hole.
Thank goodness it was a mellow D. I was able to fix it by pulling the fipple off a Generation and hammering it down the bore!! I still have the old thing, but I can't play it at sessiond cause the d is actually Eb and the b is more like G#.
Another whistle player took his whistles ("Michael Copeland D, my Michael Burke C, D, and F, my Sandy Jasper F and G, and a couple of whistles I had picked up in Ireland") on a pirate sailing trip. Whereupon, disembarking from the sailboat to the dinghy, the whistles went for a swim (in 15-20 feet deep water). After 6 weeks of snorkeling on weekends they finally turned up tarnished black.
I once leaned my elbow on my fiddle to get through a boring bit of orchestra practice. I was only 12 and didn't realize how much weight an elbow exerts on the surface beneath it. The result was a lovely crack from the bottom of the left-hand F hole clear to the chinrest. :-p I was heartbroken; it was my very first very own fiddle, and I had visions of having to go back to a lousy rental instrument from the school. Luckily the damage wasn't as bad as it looked. Even more luckily, my parents were nice and paid for the repair instead of garnishing my spending money for the rest of my teens.
Then when I was 17, I was messing about in the band room just before a concert, my bow hanging from the forefinger of my right hand, and turned around suddenly due to being startled. The bow just barely hit the latch of my case --- there was a tiny little "tick" sound --- and the entire tip of the bow hung, swinging, by the hair. It was a fairly new bow and expensive as such things went then. ($200 in 1977...) Again, heartbreak. I had to play the concert with a ratty old bow. Neither the orchestra teacher nor my parents were pleased, and I was stuck with a ratty old bow until I gave up the violin entirely not long after. (Not due to the bow's sudden demise --- due to a combination of my violin teacher's sudden demise and the realization that I did NOT want to play classical violin.)
Guy bought a bombarde and about a week later he's on the other list looking for a reed. All the information we got initially was that he was in Vegas and a friend sat on it trying to store it. You may agree that amount of info raises more questions than it answers. "Friend" had stood it behind a chair. Then sat in the chair. Meanwhile, bombarde fell against the chair, pointy end up .
I play a three quarter size Englehardt bass fiddle and I almost backed up my van over it accidentally two years ago. I had just performed with some friends at the local Arts Center (playing folk music) and I forgot to put my bass fiddle in the back of the van after I set it down.
I was very preoccupied at the time because this was two weeks before I was going to get married. Since we couldn't afford an official wedding planner, my fiancee and I were having to do most of the work and the planning ourselves (with a little help from our friends). As a result, I quite literally had a lot on my mind at the time.
I did have to take my bass fiddle to the music store where I bought it for some repairs--mainly a new bridge. Yes, I am still playing my bass fiddle and it sounds good.
As for the wedding.....it went smoothly and we will be celebrating our second anniversary in June of this year.
Shortly after I got my first pair of glasses when I was fifteen, I set them down in a chair for just a minute and accidentally sat on them. My father had to pay for the repairs and he wasn't happy about it.
Don't sit on a whistle...
Don't sit on a whistle...
especially if it's your own. It was lying on my bed, I sat down on it; it bent and now has a crooked G hole. I'm terribly sad about this - all the more so because I'm not musical enough to tell how out of tune my whistle is (I don't even know how in tune it was in the first place). I think it's just the high A that is even more difficult to hit sweetly now.
Anyway, I realise that, at worst, it's about 15 swiss francs to get a new one, but this is my baby: my first whistle, the one I learnt to play on. I need consoling. Tell me of when you broke whistles, flutes, fiddles or - heaven forbid- uillean pipes
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by Tirno
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
I sympathise. The closest I came is nearly sitting on my wife's new violin when she put it on a chair for a second. So I guess there's a lesson in that - put it anywhere you'd sit...and it'll get sat on!
(or learn a bigger instrument that you can't possibly put on a chair or bed!).
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
Or buy a polymer instrument (i.e. flute) that if sat on, will do more damage to the person sitting on it than to the instrument.
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by Jason G
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
When I was once in a session with my sister a few years ago, she went to the toilet and left her flute with me. When she came back, i slid it along the chair to give her, but she didn't see it. All I remember from there is CRACK!
A few years beforethat, I was playing on a gig rig. I play the harp and put it down and then bent down to pick something up. Anyone else here seen a harp bounce on a concrete floor?? Needless to say, not a pretty sight! However, a chunk came off the top with the bottom string, but the rest of it miraculously stayed in tune!
I don't seem to have much luck with instruments!!
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by Rosh
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
A friend of mine had her cello knocked down a flight of stairs about an hour before a wedding that she was playing. Not a pretty sight. My mom has had her hammer dulcimer knocked off of it's stand and bounced (bridge down) onto concrete. My sis has come really close to sitting on my fiddle before - just about gave me a heart-attack - but luckily hasn't yet.
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by musicfan
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
My old upright piana in a fit of jealousy killed a fiddle of mine. it had apparently overheard the discussion about how to get it out of the house and down the stairs - dismemberment was discussed- as a mercy killing - it had a cracked sound board.. I don't recall how i came t o leave the fiddle on top of - but there the fiddle was, next morning in pieces on the floor.
(of course, the fact of having cats does not come into this.)
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by ratbiscuit
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
I have a friend that laid his fiddle bow on the floor for a minute to get something out of his case. Someone who was just walking by didn't see it and stepped on it... Broke it cleanly in half. My friend was really upset, but he ended up getting a better bow than he had before, so maybe some good came out of it.
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by Fiddlekit
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
Poor old Tirno tells us he's got a crooked G hole! 'Fraid there's just no answer to that!
Anyway, one of my students sat on her bow a few weeks ago - £20's worth!
I heard of someone who put their fiddle, in it's old wooden case, on the roof of their car late one night, while they fished for their car keys & ...you guessed it, jumped in & drove over the case & wrecked both case & fiddle completely!
I was playing my Jews Harp once in front of an audience (Yes, I really do have no shame! ) when it just fell apart - mid tune. You should try that sometime, you look & feel a total fool!
I remember my fiddle bow flew out of my hand one night in the middle of a particularly frantic session. Yes - red face again!
Oh yes, last one. A prat of a waiter knocked over my Hammered Dulcimer in a restaurant one night & completely wrecked the treble bridge!
Warning - don't sit anywhere near me in a session!
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by Ptarmigan
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
My pride and joy - from messrs Monzani and Hill flute makers -got sat on at a party. The flute was built in 1834 and had survived for over 170 years without any real damage. It nearly broke my heart
BUT - there is always a silver lining in the clouds. While it was off getting repairs I played a mate's Clinton flute and it made me completely rethink how to play, different embouchure, different spacing between the finger holes, needed more puff to fill it, etc.
So when my true love finally returned from Sam Murray's workshop it was playing better than ever.
So - my commiserations but maybe an opportunity to do something better. Why not treat yourself to a Michael Burke or a Copeland whistle [Iknow, I know very pricey BUT well worth it] and become a new and resurrected whistler
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by breandan
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
Good job it wasn't vertically aligned at the time, eh, Tirno...
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by pfft
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
Ptarmigan, I have a friend that drove over her instrument, too! Except it was a cello, and it was particularly bad timing because it was the morning of our All-Region orchestra competition, and she would have had a good chance of making it if she could have auditioned on her own instrument.
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by Fiddlekit
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
That surely must have been quite a feat Fiddlekit!
I'd say if you ran over a Whistle or Flute you would hardly notice it, but something as 'huge' as a Cello - now that must have taken some amount of pre-ingested alcohol to perfect!
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by Ptarmigan
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
I've not broken an instrument, but careless handling in my early days of playing has put several nasty nicks and gouges into my guitar. I also once dropped an accordion onto the floor, but to the best of my knowledge it's nearly impossible to break an accordion, even if you hit it with an axe.
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by Zazzaliss
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
In my 20s, I played at a bender of a party in a youth hostel and the bedroom was 3 floors up. I don't remember how or when, but my accordion managed to get back upstairs by morning, with a chunk missing from one of the black keys.
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by geoffwright
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
Yes, the whistle often gets a bum time of it. People sitting on them must be the most common way for them to pass this veil of tears. I use a tweaked Walton's mellow and make sure it goes back in my handbag when toilet or bar calls. All whistles are different and although they're cheap as instruments go, it's still a sad and sorry time when a favourite dies. My sympathies.
# Posted on November 6th 2005 by Judge Judy
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
It also makes a BIG difference if the whistle is vertical or horizontal when you sit on it!!! 0^:
# Posted on November 7th 2005 by CeolCairdeas
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...all is not lost !
Tirno, panic not !
Get a length of wood dowel just slightly smaller than the bore of the whistle, in fact as close a fit as you can.
Insert it into the whistle and past the bent hole - it may be that this takes some effort because the bore may well be narrowed or squashed into an oval.
Take a smalll hammer, and hammer around the edge of the hole onto the dowel.
You should be able to reduce the distortion and the damage to a minimum with a few minutes work.
# Posted on November 7th 2005 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
Thanks for that. Further playing would indicate that it is at least as in tune as it used to be. I'll see about hammering out a fix at some point real soon :D
Also an excellent opportunity to see if I can't buy a clarke or even an expensive one
# Posted on November 7th 2005 by Tirno
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
Gurnsey,
I tried the "hammer back into shape" on a Clarke whistle, but because of the conical shape, it didn't work--whistle was playable, but never quite the same. I had gotten a little leather whistle case that could hang from your belt--unfortunately, it hung at just the right (wrong?) height to be closed in the door of a taxicab one night when I was not very alert.
But fortunately, like a lot of people, I have a number of backup whistles!
# Posted on November 7th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
Last week I dropped a full pint on the floor. It fell about a foot and a half. . . I was surprised the glass shattered at all.
About 3 feet away was a set of good uilleann pipes (not mine) which were completely unschathed.
Waaaaay back in the dark ages, I used to go to two-week long GHB boot camps. One day during Pibroch class, my chanter came off the set of pipes, in my hands. Unfortunately, the socket and tennon (IE the top part of the chanter) was still attached. The chanter had snapped in two. It was my fault, though. Becuase of constant playing and humidity, the chanter had gotten tight in the socket, so I would twist it from the bottom for more leverage. BAD idea. It was a nice chanter too :(
# Posted on November 7th 2005 by wormdiet
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
I've been known to sit on a few whistles myself in my time! Lol! I sat on my bow once too! The whole thing just twisted - it was a sorry sight! Fortunately it wasn't a particularly good one and I was forced to buy myself a new one! (",) My mate sat on his sisters fiddle once but miraculously it survived unscathed!
How do people manage to run over their instruments?! I dont understand at all! But I have a friend who plays the keyboard for our group and his dad ran over it one day before we went to play at a concert! Some of the voice buttons got stuck down and the keyboard changed between choir and harpsicord all night! It was hilarious! Actually...he's had a lot of unfortunate incidents with his keyboard - another time when he was playin at a feis with an accordian player the power went off. When it came back on there was a power surge and the sound equipment banged, the accordian player jumped and hit his mic, which swung round and hit a cup of tea which was sitting on the keyboard! So he had to dry it with the hairdryer! I think he's got a new one now tho...a keyboard, not a hairdryer!
# Posted on November 7th 2005 by an cuirtín
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
Walton's Mellow D is my favorite whistle and I got my first one on my birthday in my first year of playing.
It has numerous dents. Once, (I don't remember how) it got bent completely in half. Luckily, I was able to bend it back.
Another time, I stepped on it while I was wearing some thick boots, and completely flattened everything below the G hole.
Thank goodness it was a mellow D. I was able to fix it by pulling the fipple off a Generation and hammering it down the bore!! I still have the old thing, but I can't play it at sessiond cause the d is actually Eb and the b is more like G#.
# Posted on November 7th 2005 by Red Crow
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
Another whistle player took his whistles ("Michael Copeland D, my Michael Burke C, D, and F, my Sandy Jasper F and G, and a couple of whistles I had picked up in Ireland") on a pirate sailing trip. Whereupon, disembarking from the sailboat to the dinghy, the whistles went for a swim (in 15-20 feet deep water). After 6 weeks of snorkeling on weekends they finally turned up tarnished black.
# Posted on November 8th 2005 by Aidan HD
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
I once leaned my elbow on my fiddle to get through a boring bit of orchestra practice. I was only 12 and didn't realize how much weight an elbow exerts on the surface beneath it. The result was a lovely crack from the bottom of the left-hand F hole clear to the chinrest. :-p I was heartbroken; it was my very first very own fiddle, and I had visions of having to go back to a lousy rental instrument from the school. Luckily the damage wasn't as bad as it looked. Even more luckily, my parents were nice and paid for the repair instead of garnishing my spending money for the rest of my teens.
Then when I was 17, I was messing about in the band room just before a concert, my bow hanging from the forefinger of my right hand, and turned around suddenly due to being startled. The bow just barely hit the latch of my case --- there was a tiny little "tick" sound --- and the entire tip of the bow hung, swinging, by the hair. It was a fairly new bow and expensive as such things went then. ($200 in 1977...) Again, heartbreak. I had to play the concert with a ratty old bow. Neither the orchestra teacher nor my parents were pleased, and I was stuck with a ratty old bow until I gave up the violin entirely not long after. (Not due to the bow's sudden demise --- due to a combination of my violin teacher's sudden demise and the realization that I did NOT want to play classical violin.)
# Posted on November 8th 2005 by sara g
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
Guy bought a bombarde and about a week later he's on the other list looking for a reed. All the information we got initially was that he was in Vegas and a friend sat on it trying to store it. You may agree that amount of info raises more questions than it answers. "Friend" had stood it behind a chair. Then sat in the chair. Meanwhile, bombarde fell against the chair, pointy end up .
# Posted on November 8th 2005 by Owell Mabee
Re: Don't sit on a whistle...
I play a three quarter size Englehardt bass fiddle and I almost backed up my van over it accidentally two years ago. I had just performed with some friends at the local Arts Center (playing folk music) and I forgot to put my bass fiddle in the back of the van after I set it down.
I was very preoccupied at the time because this was two weeks before I was going to get married. Since we couldn't afford an official wedding planner, my fiancee and I were having to do most of the work and the planning ourselves (with a little help from our friends). As a result, I quite literally had a lot on my mind at the time.
I did have to take my bass fiddle to the music store where I bought it for some repairs--mainly a new bridge. Yes, I am still playing my bass fiddle and it sounds good.
As for the wedding.....it went smoothly and we will be celebrating our second anniversary in June of this year.
Shortly after I got my first pair of glasses when I was fifteen, I set them down in a chair for just a minute and accidentally sat on them. My father had to pay for the repairs and he wasn't happy about it.
# Posted on February 18th 2008 by fauxcelt