A belated realization...

Whistle
1

I’ve had a weird realization recently – it’s OK, even beneficial at times, to look at what my fingers are doing when I’m playing my whistle.

I seem to have had some quasi-conscious sense than significant manual skills, at least ones not obviously visual in nature, were worth learning to do without looking… I also have a slightly embarrassed sense that I approached learning whistle as something akin to learning to touch-type, where the whole point is to not need to watch your fingers are doing…

Which is not to say that one should always be gazing cross-eyed down one’s whistle, but, when trying to get a tune from music into memory as swiftly and deeply as possible, it turns out to be quite helpful for me to stare at my fingers and get a clear sense of what they’re doing down there.

But being able to close my eyes and make music on my whistle is still one of the coolest things of all.

2

Unless I am very confident with what I am playing, tend to get distracted if I happen to glance in a mirror and see my fingers while playing. I guess I become too much of a passive observer, as though I am watching someone else play. But I see how it could be helpful.

3

No problem for me. At my age, my eyes can’t focus that close anyhow. :slight_smile:

4

I watch my left hand playin’ guitar but never on whistle or pipes.

5

I watch my fingers everynow and again, only when i know the song really well, just cause it looks so cool at how they are moving