Need some tin whistles

Jane Blonde

does anyone know a good spot to get some tin whistles for a secondary school, I'll need about 60 plus tutorial books. I really don't want buy the ones for sale in the music shops I've seen as they're a bit too touristic.

Any ideas?

Futurecrook

Where are you based? If you're in Dublin and can get to Baldoyle, there's a fantastic music shop in the industrial estate there called 'Irish Musical Instruments'.

You can get a nice Dixon whistle for €15 euro. They have a lovely tone and will make teaching 60 beginners a lot less painful on yourself.

I'd also recommend Oak whistles. They should stock them too. They're only around the 10 euro mark, but again, have a lovely sound.

If the budget really can't extend that far then go for Generation whistles. Don't buy any of the cheap rubbish from Waltons as they're awful instruments and would make the best whistle player sound like they're musically challenged.

As for the tutorial book, you could just buy one yourself and photocopy as you need to.

Blade

Definitely check out 'Irish Musical Instruments' in Baldoyle, they supply large orders for schools and have great prices, you can haggle with them too seeing you're getting 60 of them. They'll give you good advice too.

Tutorial books are expensive, so I'd either do what Futurecrook suggests or get your material from the Internet for free.You can even get beginner sheet music with those little diagrams of whistle fingering if that's how you want to teach, or write the notes under normal sheet music and photocopy them out 60 times. I really don't think there's any need to buy tutorial books, at least not 60 of them.

thecelt

This company appears to do one for E5.50,
Maybe they would be worth calling,
in theory they might do a better deal for 60 if you told them why you were buying them!

Jane Blonde

thanks Guys, don't think I've heard of them, do they have a website?

Futurecrook - I cannot photo copy books for legal reasons, it will be the parents paying for them and I think they'll go with what ever I say.

trad

I have 200+ tunes done out it a logical easy to understand format (my own) of ABc's. It's surrently being used by a group of 20+ musicians without issue at the moment. If you want some tunes and I have them I'll send them on to you (email).

If you want specific tunes send me the tune name ad I'll put it into ABc's for you.

trad

An yes, yer mand in Baldoyle is your man although I paid €50 for my Dixon whistle off him.

thecelt

Jane blonde, i was just looking at what i posted and realized i never actually posted the link, www.feadog.ie this is where i saw the tin whistles for E5.50, they are in Dublin

Blade

Jane Blonde wrote: »

thanks Guys, don't think I've heard of them, do they have a website?

Futurecrook - I cannot photo copy books for legal reasons, it will be the parents paying for them and I think they'll go with what ever I say.

http://www.irishmusik.com/ is their new site, but they don't list everything they have on it, you really need to go there and talk to them. It's best to ring them and make an appointment as they're in and out of the place all the time. It's more of a distributor in the Baldoyle Industrial estate than a shop.

If the parents are paying, why not get them decent whistles for 15 to 20 Euro each than waste money on "tutorial" books which you don't need. Presumably you'll be the one tutoring them anyway! There's usually very little in these books in the way of tutoring, they're mainly just books of sheet music which as I said you can get off the net for free. You have an offer there from user trad, and you're welcome to any of my material or we can point you to appropriate websites depending on what method you want to teach them.

Futurecrook

As Blade said, I really think tutorial books are a waste of money. I've been teaching tin whistle for seven years at this stage and have never had the need for one. There are plenty of ways around it.

Jane Blonde

Thanks for the PM Celt, they sell the same whistles as www.irishwhistles.com but I can pay in dollars there which suits my PayPal account:). Their whistle books look the best too so I can probably get some packs at a reduced rate with a bit of haggling.

Jane Blonde

thanks Blade, that site crashed my Firefox browser though, looking around it now with IE, they take paypal too which is good.

update: Hi Blade, just been looking around that site, the whistles seem to be more suited to professionals rather than learners as they are a bit pricey.

Blade

Jane Blonde wrote: »

update: Hi Blade, just been looking around that site, the whistles seem to be more suited to professionals rather than learners as they are a bit pricey.

Like I said, not everything is listed on the website, you really need to call them. They supply cheaper whistles in large quantities for schools.

I'd go for Generation whistles before Feadógs any day, especially if I had to listen to 60 of them.

Jane Blonde

happily it's not me taht will be listening:)

I think I'll go for these:
http://www.irishwhistles.com/product_info.php?products_id=121

I can pay in dollars with my paypal account.

Blade if you know the guys in Baldoyle, best tell them that their site is linking to malware, this is why it crashed my browser. PM me if you want more details, I cannot post that sort of link here.

Futurecrook

Those whistles really aren't great quality at all.

Blade

Jane Blonde wrote: »

I can pay in dollars with my paypal account.

Blade if you know the guys in Baldoyle, best tell them that their site is linking to malware, this is why it crashed my browser. PM me if you want more details, I cannot post that sort of link here.

If you pay by Paypal the sellers will have to pay a high fee which you could be haggling as a discount instead. Lots of easy ways to pay them within Ireland. Unless you're not in Ireland.

Their old site had a problem with malware and they thought that by changing domain name it would go away, obviously not if you're still getting that from their new domain http://www.irishmusik.com/ ? They won't be happy about that after changing all their printed logos I wouldn't mind but I told them I could get their old site fixed but it was too late.