Herge still hasn't said what kind of music the kids want to play.

With no answer to that we're whistling in the dark.

Peter K:
> It's a safe bet that these girls will be playing Irish traditional

Why? What you know about Herge's family that we don't?

If they are going to be playing with singers the answer would be totally different (they'll need instruments that can handle the appropriate keys).

> (and maybe Scots-Irish!),

What on earth is that?

> and fast enough that the precision of the internal tuning won't matter a damn.

Tuning matters at *any* speed; in a jig like "Haste to the Wedding", the high A lasts long enough that any listener can detect when it's out of tune. A Generation playing dance tunes in a session stands out a mile, going steadily flatter as it goes higher (try "The Old Grey Cat" for something like the worst case). Two of them stand out even worse because they will be out of tune with each other and producing the same timbre.

I often play recorders in sessions, and blend in with the fiddlers and accordion players just fine. When somebody joins in with a Generation I drop out or switch to a different instrument, since the result of continuing in the same register is invariably a shrieking dissonance and I don't want the audience thinking it's my fault.