In childhood I had a plastic toy-ish whistle with 8 holes and I learned to play many songs on it. In a few months I developed enough muscle memory to be able to play almost every song. One day I happened to be a guest in some celebration and they had a similar instrument made of wood and I immediately could play it the same way as the plastic toy. I decided to learn to play a more serious woodwind or similar kind of instrument later.
Then I got busy with studies, electronics etc. and forgot about music and the plastic toy was also gone, given to other kids. I got great at whistling, though - really enjoying it. But whistling "doesn't count" and I usually am not allowed to whistle at home - people in my country have great superstitions about whistling indoors, it is "bad taste", "bad luck" etc.
So, after many years I wanted to find something that would be as easy to play as that childhood toy or even whistling.
I tried different recorders and flutes, but I found that they all have this annoying feature - if I blow a bit harder there's a threshold after which the tone rapidly jums up. I really hate it. My old plastic toy nor the first wooden instrument I tried did not have this behavior; or if they did I had to blow unusually hard for the jump to happen.
So, I'm not sure what kind of instrument should I look for now. I would like to control only the volume when blowing softer or harder, and the tone should be controlled only by fingers. Also, I would like something not too expensive - it's just a hobby, I'm not intending to become a musician, I'm legally blind and I still can't read notes, I just whistle or sing from memory and my music teacher once claimed that I have absolute pitch, but I'm not so sure about it.
I just heard about Xaphoon and it sounds great; I've always loved sax-like sounds. But I'm not sure if it has this "note jumping" feature, in which case I won't like it.