    Ŀ 
      from the introduction to TINWHISTLE BASIC                 Screen 2    
    
     didn't  quite  work  out  that way; what I heard with my ear didn't even
     come close to what I heard in my mind and my fingers continued  to  defy
     what I wanted them to do.   With some justification, I blamed the instru-
     ment. Its action was stiff and there was a lack of resonance in its tone,
     and  why  then  bother  to practice when the damned thing was constantly
     letting me down?
          And so it was that when I could afford it, I spent what then was an
     enormous  amount  of money on a sterling silver concert grade flute.  It
     was a Haynes with an action like silk and even I could  coax  from it an
     incredibly lovely sound.  It soon became  apparent, however, that it was 
     still  I  who  had to make the music and that the more sophisticated the
     instrument, the  more  glaring the inadequacies and the more humiliating
     the mistakes.               
          Worse, I  had  hoped  that the spontaneity that I once had with the
     whistle would somehow magically return, especially the ability to  impro-
     vise  and  play  by ear.  But that did not happen.  In fact, the reverse
     seemed to be true and in a curious way, the enormous number of possibili-
     ties that the instrumnt offered seemed to inhibit rather than to inspire.
         
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