The Boys Of County Lee -> We're the house band!

This past Wednesday "The Boys Of County Lee" debuted as the Celtic Ray's house band. It was fun, but I thought it a little odd to be standing on stage with a mic and all in the same place we hold our weekly session. But that didn't last long. At the moment we're a four-piece with bouzuki, fiddle, guitar, banjo, vocals, whistles and flute. Who plays what varies some, so I didn't put names on it all.

The place was pretty empty when we started at 7 PM, but very soon people started showing up, and for most of the evening the tables were all full and there were a number of people at the bar. Everyone seemed to have a good time. The tip jar did fair business, and management behind the bar was pleased and told us so.

We recorded the whole thing on a Zoom 8-channel studio and it's taken a while to get the music out, never mind pick out some good sets. I'll work on that, and post something when I have it. Also, our friend Steve took some photos and when I get those I'll post some.

It's Never Good Enough, But It's As Good As It Can Be

Sometimes I think maybe I shouldn't post about when I make improvements to my process or my whistles, because I worry some people might feel bad about not having the latest and greatest. But then I remember what W. Edwards Deming said once when challenged about some changes he had made "I refuse to apologize for improvement." He was a crusty old sod when I met him as the 80's were turning into the 90's. But he was always dead on when he got in somebody's face about something.

I learned from Dr. Deming that if things appear to be all the same, you are not measuring closely enough. There's always variation at some level. It's foolish to pretend there isn't. Nothing is ever perfect. So don't set specs within which a product is considered "good" and outside of which it is considered "bad" because it just ain't so. Maybe a customer says they will only buy product within certain specs, but even that is foolish because they probably could be getting better, or at least more uniform product, if they just specified a target and took what you made, as long as both you and they know how much variation exists in the product and there's confidence you are working to get better and better.

Enough of the quality improvement theory for now, here's what's new in the shop...

In this case the intonation of the whistles was the subject of my scrutiny, and while my then-current whistles were better than those of the recent past due to the adoption of a solid whistle hole template (rather than a set of six stops sliding in a groove on my jig which were difficult to position accurately) I was frustrated by the effort involved in making a new template when I wanted to move a hole a little bit.

So, just before drilling the holes in the last batch of whistles it dawned on me that I could make an adjustable hole template that was very easy to adjust accurately and once the hole positions were known I could then make a new fixed template as easily as I could drill holes in a whistle.

Below you see the results of my work. The black rod with the six holes is one of the permanent hole templates. The screw on the end lets me adjust the collection of holes in case there is a need to. The new R&D template is in the foreground. With it, I set the holes to match the whistle I want to change, then budge the stops to the new hole positions and make trial whistles. Once I arrive at the new improved hole locations I simply put a piece of the black rod in my jig and drill the stop holes.

After using the jig to refine my C whistle template, the best whistles in a batch didn't get any better, but the variation in intonation from whistle to whistle has been reduced. Which is a good thing. Are they noticeably better? I wonder. Are they are more alike. No doubt.

I know, "Just send me the whistles, and don't tell me how the shop works!"  HA!

Stay "tuned!"

Carey

Mobile Phone Post

I'm trying out blogging from my new "phone." It probably has more computing power than the Apollo lander had. Pretty sweet what they are doing these days.
Anyway, I have been working on tooling for the shop. I'm not convinced I can put the drill press back in shape if I had to take it apart so I'm devising ways to ensure the drill ends up in the same position relative to the hole jig.
Oh, and I did a little work on the 1860's Meyer flute too.
Session tomorrow and Rob Gandara of The Pipe Makers Union is going to stop by the shop. He's in the area for a Celtic fest.
Yeah, this phone is sweet. I'm lying on a couch next to the pool in the Lanai.  The weather is turning nice.  We've finally got the A/C off and the doors open. Great. Time of year here.

Busy day

Friday an editor from the regional newspaper the News-Press called to see if she and a photographer could come by sometime early this week. Heck yeah! We set up for today. The editor was unable to come but the photographer spent over an hour taking shots of me making whistles, playing whistles, and whistles in racks and on tables etc. I wonder how good I was at modeling? 
Following his departure, I set about filling in my web presence by finally getting on Twitter, and trying to link all the various social networks together. In case you found you way to this post and are not a friend/follower/whatever on your favorite social net, here's where I can be found currently:


www.parkswhistles.com
http://www.facebook.com/carey.parks
www.linkedin.com/in/careyparks
www.reverbnation.com/careyparks
www.myspace.com/careyparks


and the band at
www.myspace.com/theboysofcountylee


For you news feed junkies:
http://feeds.artistdata.com/rss.newfeeds/artist/AR-9H1I9281A64I4QBJ/rss



So, stay in touch eh?

Blog to Blog

There's some interesting stuff going on in Boston these days, and my customer Susan Gedutis Lindsay seems to be in the middle of a lot of it. Check out her blog. This link will drop you in on her post where she comments on her new Walkabout Every Whistle.

http://sueandstevelindsay.blogspot.com/2009/11/100-days-of-practice-round-2-day-24.html

On that post is a link to the Boston College photo collection which is a lot of fun to browse.

Enjoy!

How quiet can it get?

I just had to pass along this e-mail from Ben in Japan. No further comment needed.

Hi Carey,


It arrived a few days ago, and I'm loving it. Excellent whistle, great sound, very portable. The best part, of course, is the tuning ring, or silencer, or whatever. I'm living in a Japanese apartment with pathetically thin walls, and I can play without my neighbours hating me. Thanks!


Ben

When Life Hands You Lemons...

Actually it wasn't that bad. My alternate local session takes place on Saturday about an hour away. I got there twenty minutes early to find the doors locked. No note.The calendar in the window said there was some group performing later in the day. Everything looked as it should except the doors were locked. Hmm... I sat and waited for the session hostess to arrive and see what she would have to say. It was news to her too. Then a third player arrived. We had a fiddle, a flute and a concertina. Sounds like a session to me. After one set the fiddler said "Hey, let's put a note on the door and go to your house (the host's) and have some fun. I'll stop and buy some beer on the way." 
So we did that. The three of us spent the rest of the afternoon discovering tunes that we had in common. I only see the fiddler once or twice a year, and the concertina player maybe five times a year, so it was great fun. The fiddler didn't even know I was playing the flute now, and he was really pleased. When we parted he said "That flute sounds great. Have you noticed I haven't stopped smiling since you played the first couple notes?" 
It was a good day.

Play the Music

Sometime in the past year I read a quote from an oboist for a famous orchestra. (I would credit him if I could remember who said it so let me know if you know who it was.) They said "I play music for the (famous name here) orchestra on the oboe." That simple sentence is quite profound. He didn't say "I play oboe" he said "I play music." Playing the music is key. Not playing notes, not playing the whistle, but playing the music.

Many people start playing music on a penny whistle because it is not very complicated to make notes with. This is a good thing because you can more quickly forget about the mechanics of the notes and get to the music. Once you get to where you are playing the music, you will find that music is what comes out, not just notes. It will come out of your mouth when you hum it, it will come out of your lips when you whistle it, and it will come out of your penny whistle when you play it.

It will take a little time before your body will automatically make the sound you want on any chosen instrument, and until you reach that point you will be aware of the mechanics of playing each note. This is a place we must all pass through, but we don't want to stay there and learn to play each note faster and more precisely. We want to be able to forget all about the act of making the notes and just make the music. Speed and accuracy will take care of themselves since the music will sound better and that will reinforce the learning.

There is no short-cut. You have to train your body. The younger you are when you start, the quicker it will learn, but there's not such thing as too old to learn. Maybe too old to learn quickly, but since learning is fun, it doesn't really matter how fast you learn does it?

Once you can play the music, you will gradually be able to think other thoughts while you play. Most say when they started they were aware of playing the notes, hoping the result sounded like music. It took a lot of concentration. Personally I couldn't even look at anything moving or I'd get thrown off. Then people say they listen to the music they are playing and in effect play along with themselves thinking the music. The next level is being able to think about things other than what you are playing. Things like "What tune should I follow this with?" which isn't real hard to manage when you are ready, but also "How does it go?" which was a little trickier as you are playing one tune while thinking up another.

So focus on the music. If you can't hum or whistle a tune, what makes you think you can play it on an instrument? The music has to be in you before it can come out again. So listen to your chosen music a lot, and make sure it's really in you. Really in you. All the little details that make it sound like what it is. Then it will be a lot easier to share it with others through your playing. Because that's what you are doing. You are not "performing" you are sharing the music that is in you.

What Have I Been Doing?

Wow the time has gone by quick. It's been a month and a half since I told you about moving the lathe, and I've made some good use of it. Initially I had to make some tooling for the lathe and adapt some store-bought stuff to work with it.

I learned some limitations by breaking a mill or two, but I improved my whistle manufacturing process and shaved a little time off each whistle as well. I'm still not back to where I was before I added the step of doing RTTA graphs of each whistle body (that's three tests for a C, D, Eb set) but it's good to do the testing. I know the whistles are better because of it.

I have been a bit backed up on orders because of the lathe adventure, and that was compounded by a problem or three at the engravers where the logo and key are put on. As the saying goes, "what don't kill you makes you stronger." That applies here as well, as we now have a better process between myself and the engraver, and I am upping my stock levels of finished whistles so the larger dealer orders don't cause a bump in the system. Everything is sorted out now, and I have all whistle orders filled, with whistles on the shelf waiting for you (hint, hint.) There's only two gig bags I still owe people, and that's because they shipped them nearly a month ago but they never arrived here. The company promised me I'll have my replacement order by the start of next week. My fingers are crossed.

That's it for now. It's out to the shop to turn the tuning slides on the next 25 whistles.

Stay "tuned,"

Carey

Moving the Lathe

OK, I finally got around to a blog entry about moving the new (to me) lathe. As luck would have it, my wife's uncle bought this lathe in 1984 and took very good care of it. It came to us as part of his estate. All I had to do was go get it. No small task, but not a huge one either.

Here's the lathe sitting in the basement where it's been since it was new. It's a 5x25 lathe with a mill attached so the cross slide can be used for both. Lucky for me it runs on 110 single phase current.

The main challenge was going to be getting the lathe off it's stand as even stripped the main part weighted over 300 pounds and you can't go lifting it by just any old piece of metal that's sticking out lest you bend it.

We drilled a hole in the floor joist above it and used my old climbing gear webbing to make a point to attache the comealong to. Another piece of webbing thru the casting between the ways and up we go.

We set it down on a dolly and using a strap under the low end so two of us could get a better lift on it bumped it up the stairs one step at a time. "1-2-3-Heave!" is how it got to the top of the stairs.

Into the rented truck with the lathe parts and all it's tooling. It took the rest of that day and the whole next day (8-8:30) to arrive in Cape Coral.

No basement here, so an engine hoist was just the ticket. I unloaded the smaller bits, including the stand by hand or with a dolly. Then the hoist lifted the lathe right out of the truck and we pushed it over to the stand and placed it carefully over the bolt holes.

And here it is, in place in it's new home.

It is a bit of a challenge to find oil and parts for it way down here in vacation land. Maybe in Tampa it would be easier. Web shopping is the greatest!