Instruments

I'm playing the offertory in church tomorrow morning. I knew the song I wanted to play. That just left the question of what did I want to play it on. Over the years Mr. H and I have accumulated quite a collection of flute-like instruments.

The silver one at the top is my oldest flute. While I played the flute all through high school and college, I didn't play this particular flute. That one fell off the back of my Mustang back in 1989 as I was driving to play with a church orchestra. It was a bad day and I'd rather not talk about it. My dad replaced it with the one you see. He was always taking care of stuff like that.

The four in the picture below are recorders. The big one is a tenor. My fingers are barely long enough to play it. It sounds really nice. The other 3 are all the same: soprano recorders. This is essentially the little flute you may have learned to play in elementary school. We actually have 2 more wooden ones: an alto which is smaller than the big one here, but bigger than the other 3. Then we have a smaller one. I'm not sure where the 2 missing ones are. I guess I need to look for them.


These are penny whistles or tin whistles. The red ones are made of tin, and the white ones are plastic. The red ones are a bit older and don't sound as good as the plastic, which disappoints me for some reason. The different sizes are in different keys: smaller=higher pitched, larger=lower pitched. Tomorrow I'm using the bigger white one to play "Come Thou Fount, Come Thou King."

This last one is called a Quena. It's a South American flute. Think of the song from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." We bought this while we were on vacation in San Antonio one Thanksgiving. I can't really get a good sound on it. I think my chin is too small to completely cover the end.
I know this is a long list but it doesn't even include Mr. H's 3 saxophones (1 tenor, 2 altos), my piccolo, L's clarinet, M's orchestra bells, or the keyboard also residing at our house.