Stage Fright

So I learned to play the Irish ( or tin) whistle in 2022, after my late husband Mike gave one to me for Christmas in 2021. He said every Irish girl should have one ( I'm only 26% Irish, but I was born on St. Patrick's day ☘️)

Let me start by saying I'm not great at it. I don't practice enough , and I am just now learning to play it by ear instead of using a finger chart. I learned it from an online class by Raviv Stein on Facebook, and what an incredible experience! I was extremely shy going into this class, and he taught us Happy Birthday. But he didn't teach us just Happy Birthday, he strongly encouraged us to play it for someone on their birthday. I was terrified to record myself playing Happy Birthday on my whistle for someone else to hear and see. The person I sent it to was amazed that I could even play the thing, and said that no one had ever done anything like that before for his birthday. Since then I have progressed from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to songs like this one, The Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond.

Make no mistake...I have by no means mastered this whistle, but I enjoy playing it, and you will hear little mistakes in this song as well. But it's OK, because I'm not perfect, and although I like to think that I'm aiming for perfection with the whistle, I don't know that that's my goal. When I play the whistle, I am making an inanimate object sing. I am using the air that I breathe, to put air in my lungs to make a tube with holes sing.

Our voices were the original instruments. I took vocal music in high school, and we toured our province( state) to promote vocal music in high schools, and I was petrified singing on stage. And to make it worse, I was the shortest person so I had to stand in the very front. We sang Handel's "Messiah" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" and because we wore long skirts, no one could see my kneecaps doing a fear -induced gymnastics routine under my skirt. After high school, I never sang in public again. Until three years ago.

2022 was the year that I started singing in front of people again. People who are creative are meant to share their creations with others, but that comes at a cost sometimes. When I play the whistle, no one is studying the whistle. They're studying me and whether I know how to play that thing or not, so it becomes personal. And when we sing, that comes straight from our inner core and it is an outpouring of our very selves. It takes great courage to get up in front of someone else and either sing or play an instrument. It takes some measure of skill, but the confidence to risk putting ourselves out there is the most important element. Writing is easier in a way because we can remain anonymous with a pen name and a photo of anything. But believe me, I've thought about how to record the whistle without anyone seeing me. I have recorded the whistle while videotaping the butterflies land on the flowers outside my window so yeah, that's a possibility too.

Oh, I have lofty goals. I want to learn to play the chanter, which is the whistle part of bagpipes, I want to learn to play the mandolin. I'm learning to play the shofar, which is a horn, so it doesn't have a huge range of notes for me to mess up on.

I just want to say that I am not posting this for anyone to say "oh wow that's amazing and she's really good at playing it" because I'm not, but I'm no longer afraid to let other people hear it- mistakes and all. I'm posting it to give someone the encouragement to share their creativity with others. Sometimes we need to watch others cross a frozen river first to see that the ice didn't break, and that we can cross too. I had a horse that was always leery of moving water, and had to watch someone cross first. Because your odds of drowning in ankle deep water is low, but it's never zero percent.

I would love to hear what inspires you, and what is your story of facing Giants, whether it's a whistle or singing, or whatever brings you joy in creating.

💚

“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1‬:‭27‬ ‭NKJV‬‬