Hey everyone,
I’m a pretty proficient whistle player who’s been playing for two years. I practice an insane amount of time (about 5 hours a week or more, but sometimes as much as 2 hours a day). I can play at session speed & rhythm, and have fooled people into thinking I’m professional.
I decided to start giving dirt cheap whistle lessons because there’s demand for it, since I’m not professional… but I know the whistle like I know the back of my hand, and I could teach it.
Do any whistle teachers here have advice for me as to how to conduct lessons? I am pretty good at explaining things and was going to go at a similar pace to the pace at which I was taught. Should I introduce simple ornamentation the first lesson, or the second? What tunes should I start with? I was thinking Amazing Grace and London Bridge, perhaps a simple polka or march like Rakes of Mallo, and then move on to simple jigs like Tripping Up the Stairs.
I will be notating music with ABC and giving it to students, Xeroxing it, or using a shorthand notation that Louise Mulcahy taught me in. If students don’t know how to read, I’ll use the shorthand or I’ll write the notes onto the music until they get used to seeing what is what. I think most of my prospective students can sight read, however.
So… does anyone have any hints, advice, etc.? Something I should do differently? Please let me know.
Start as simply as possible, use good books/texts/cds. Don’t rush things.
Keep it one-on-one if possible, or as small a number of people as possible.
DON’T play for the students, especially if they’re new to whistle. It gets intimidating quickly to hear somebody who is so much better, while you struggle with Old MacDonald.
YOu might want to find a method book/CD combo that you like, and use that as the framework of your lessons. I like Bill Ochs’ set a lot. The student could purchase this and a decent, inexpensive whistle. The lessons are well thought out and will teach music reading at the same time. Plus, the student has the CD to listen to between lessons to reinforce what you teach them. By the time you work through the whole book with them, they will be pretty proficient.
PS-- be sure to tell your students about Chiff and fipple!
Have you actually ever taught a musical instrument? That is terrible advice. Students need motivation. They also need to hear how a piece is supposed to sound like when played correctly.
Writing the note names on the notation is also a very bad idea. This provides a crutch that will only hinder a student’s ability to learn notation, not help it. My advice is, if you don’t know how to read music notation, you are in no position to teach it, so stick with the ABC.
Have you actually ever taught a musical instrument? That is terrible advice. Students need motivation. They also need to hear how a piece is supposed to sound like when played correctly.
Actually, mabey. But I wasn’t coming from the teacher perspective, I was coming from the student perspective. I’ve been on the student side of a lot of different musical instruments, and I personally think it’s best to have a teacher who will lead you through it and tell you what you’re doing right and wrong, and not play for you. Play a few bars slowly or show you how to finger the notes, sure, but you don’t have to zip through the fastest jig you can, especially not in the beginning, it can and does lead to a feeling of ‘if this is what I have to live up to, forget it’. Just speaking from experience…
Disagree. I like for my teacher to play each tune for me, so I can hear how it’s supposed to SOUND. The key is that when I hear how it sounds, then I can try to emulate it. In fact, my teacher tapes each tune he teaches me, going through it at a speed that is at my ability, and I play the tape every so often to keep me on track.
As for intimidating students, I expect my teacher to be able to play well–that’s why I picked him. And I want to hear him play as an inspiration.
I take regular lessons, and for the most part I truly appreciate hearing how something SHOULD sound.
When we’re playing a tune (90% of the time we play it together), there are many many times when Bill will do something that is SO COOL, and I stop and ask him what it was…and learn that way. Also, on tunes that I’m moderately proficient with, we’ll do it together twice, and on the third time I’ll just let him rip…I find it quite inspiring!
We do exercises together too…no better way for me to learn to listen to another player and hear what a rock solid rhythm really is. I hear ‘real time’ how you honestly can do A-E-Cnat-E over and over and over again and not have funky crossing sounds.
Maybe the difference is ‘play for’ your student and ‘perform for’ your student. I agree you shouldn’t perform.
Cor, you didn’t say whether you were thinking of one on one or group lessons, for rank beginners who need to learn the notes or intermediate players who need to learn ornamentation, or advanced players who may need to be untaught bad habits. Or the age…teaching a thirty-year old is far different than teaching a 15 year old.
Teaching on any instrument breaks down into 2 things
a) breeding familiarity with the instrument
b) teaching the music
For the first, having the student play tunes they already know is obviously a good thing - they don’t struggle to hear the notes, just to place their fingers etc.
Once the student has a modicum of familiarity with the instrument, that’s the time to start introducing new tunes. Personally I currently prefer to learn the tune fairly straight, then add the ornaments later to jazz up the tune.
As Tyg said, you need to take the age of your audience into account. Children CAN be quicker to pick up new ideas than adults, but they usually have a shorter attention span too.
I think someone who replied was very mistaken about my ability to sight read. I can READ at very fast paces, fast enough to play tunes that I’ve never played before, at intermediate sessions. I cannot, however, WRITE music very quickly. I personally use Louise Mulcahy’s method of shorthand notation when I am composing my own tunes, because if the notes are coming to mind quickly, I don’t have time to write out the notes yet.
I do agree, however, that not teaching sight reading is a crutch. I think most of my students can sight read already (One has experience on flute, another on piano, etc). I think I will employ a method of giving the sheet music, and a chart that translates from letter to note, and allowing the students to write a cheat sheet on their music for the first couple of months. I do agree that that becomes a crutch after awhile, though.
I was thinking of using some of the tunes and suggestions that Bill Ochs uses in his tin whistle tutor. However, I was going to base it more upon my own lesson experience with Ian Lawther, a piper/whistler from the DC area.
I am giving lessons in Asheville, North Carolina, at Warren Wilson college.
And I also have some strong opinions about teachers not performing for their classes. I think it’s condescending, and it’s not interactive enough. I took Robbie O’Connell’s Irish Songs and Ballads class, and it bored me to death. It was literally him sitting in the front of the room, performing songs and ballads. There was little or no class participation, and I dropped the class. I took it at Augusta Heritage, at Davis & Elkins college during Irish Week, in WVA.
In my lessons with Ian, he did not PERFORM for me, but if we were working on a particular tune, he would play it for me (at a moderate tempo) first, so I knew how it sounded. I found this very helpful and necessary to the learning process. Also, if we were talking about a particular tune, he would sometimes demonstrate how it sounded on his pipes or pipe chanter. I enjoyed that.
When I get better on mandolin or lap dulcimer, I may play that to accompany the class. However, only if the class (if I do do group classes, they will be VERY SMALL groups, like 3 or 4 people) feels comfortable without me on whistle. I also plan to frequently bring my low whistle to classes, as I’ve only been playing low whistle for 6 months and have a right amount of time before I will be as good on that as I am on soprano whistle.
As a former teacher (eleven years) of a skill-intensive art, myself, I have to say that although I understand Cranberry’s response about discouragement in the face of demonstrations, it’s the teacher’s responsibility to show the goal, make it desirable, and never let up in impressing upon the student that s/he can do it, too. Student discouragement can be overcome with little victories. My thoughts: pick a basic tune as the exercise, one that can be learned with little difficulty. Play it ornamented, then go about getting the student to get the unadorned bones as a framework to append ornamentations as they’re learned.
Still, some days a lesson might be devoted just to a particular technique. I always did my teaching “flying by the seat of my pants”; I’d run a class through some basics, try to pick out the overall thing that needed work for that day, and address it. This can apply one-on-one as well, but presupposes the ability to go through some paces already. At a rank beginner level, things to iron out would be breathing, posture, etc.
Never, never, NEVER tell a student s/he’s doing it “wrong”. That’s useless, unconstructive, and beats the student down. Doesn’t matter if that wasn’t your intention. It’s more skillful to approach an issue with a solution (e.g. “This {and have him/her do it} will work better for you…keep at it! You’ll get it soon.”) If you don’t have the answer, admit it, and say that you’ll have one after asking your own teacher or another player who can help you with the issue.
Above all, help the student to be able to have a sense of humor so that s/he can better temper discouragement. Having a chuckle at one’s own flubs is preferable by far to flogging oneself for it. Be careful with this, though.
Best,
N
P.S. --Oh, and if a student should say, “But I can’t do it!”, gently remind him/her: “You just can’t do it yet.”
As someone who wishes I had a teacher I can only say what I wish I had myself. I think someone who plays well, but doesn’t use the lesson as an excuse to show off would be ideal - I don’t think I would feel intimidated but inspired.
I am teaching myself at the moment by listening to slow airs (often using the snips and clips bit of this) and then playing it back. I’ve been practising the women of Ireland, because it is easy to get it sounding haunting and beautiful - though I am not yet as good as Phil Brown, the musician I have been listening to ! (he does an album called whistling for the moon, which is gorgeous.) Also, She moved through the fair, will ye go lassy go, the skye boat song, for similar reasons. I am familiar with the tunes, and they go slow enough for me to get the notes down.
I am starting to listen to jigs, and can sing quite a few back with all the notes in the right place - but am nervous about whistling them. I can actually play them on the recorder, but god knows I am sick of using it as a crutch - a properly played whistle is so much more responsive and intuitive an instrument, and I really want to get as good as some of my (intimidating) relatives. It only took you two years? Wahay! I’ll practise hours every day if it will actually get me good. A teacher should help the student feel confident, and remind them that they are actually improving. All I get is “Put a cork in it!” (Okay, exageration, but I can tell my beloved is thinking that.)
Gracenotes are hard to get a grip of, and I am checking in a book with a CD - boring book, but I might learn something from it. I wish I could read music but find it is horrendously difficult - perhaps a teacher would help with that too. Any further advise, please let me know.
I don’t know where you live, so this might not apply. If there are other instrument teachers in your area, check how much they charge for lessons, and don’t destroy their prices. If you want to charge less because this is not classical music and you’re not an accredited teacher, that’s fine, but if you think that your teaching is so sub-standard that it’s only worth a third or half of the usual price, then don’t teach. This might sound harsh, but there are people who try to make a living from teaching.
For the lubohPete don’t teach TUNES…teach PLAYING. Okay, I know you have to use tunes to teach someone to play, but amassing tunes shouldn’t be the goal. Learning how to get the proper sound is the goal…they’ll find their own tunes and maybe even teach them to you.
My teacher and I have a tendancy to learn tunes together (I heard this great tune in session…can we work on it?) and he’s shown me how to take pieces of them and work through the weird spots…transpose bits in and out (“that doesn’t sound right…what if we put in this instead?”)
I like the idea of encouraging students. My whistle teachers (Ian for 2 years, Louise Mulcahy for one week) were both good at this. I remember when Louise was teaching the beginners rolls in that class. She would go through the room and have everyone try it once (which is good in group lessons, but can be quite tedious if it’s a large group). My group will be smaller, so I’m not so concerned about students getting impatient. Anyhow, if someone did a roll with the grace notes too slow (you know, when you can HEAR all 5 notes, not just the three notes with cuts in between), she was nice. She would say, “That was good. You might want to practice it a bit more until you tighten up those grace notes.” and I thought that was really sweet of her. I want to give criticism like that.
Ian seemed to have a well of neverending patience for teaching me. I got easily discouraged at times when something was new and hard. He would say, “Come on, it’s not that bad, just try it,” or something to that extent. I never would have learned the instrument if it weren’t for him helping me get past my own mental blocks.
I don’t even KNOW if there are any other music teachers in the area. I am pretty confident in my whistle teaching skills, as I have given brief, informal instruction before. I’m patient, kind, and good at explaining things. I know the whistle like I know the back of my hand. I am giving lessons dirt cheap because I’m an amateur like I said, and because my students are primarily broke college students, like me. I am not depending on the money to make a living. I just need to save up for a new Burke Session whistle, and other instruments. I also value the teaching experience. I may want to have a part time “day job” at some point, and be a part time musician/whistle teacher. If I do, four years of giving lessons at college is good to have on my resume.
Hellbound, I am inclined to teach with sheet music and then, once the student has the tune memorized, tell them not to use it. That’s what I personally do, that’s how I learned.
I find that learning by ear is all fine and dandy, and useful for musicians in sessions. However, it is a time-consuming way to teach beginners. Perhaps I will work with ear training and by-ear learning, later on, when my students are more advanced.
I disagree. I have a degree in Music, and teach Irish trad. flute, whistle, and fiddle, and I will say that, if you start on day one by ear, using notation as a memory aid afterwards, that students (in my experience) will, once they have gotten over the ‘mental block’ about by-ear, learn tunes (yes, and also technique and playing) a lot faster than a student who learns from the notation and must later transfer the tune from vision to memory - especially beginners, and children, who may not have the patience or inclination to sit down and learn about music theory before getting to play. I teach by ear where at all possible, giving notation AFTER having gone through tunes by ear, bit by bit, at a slow pace. In my opinion, learning to listen to a piece of music/musician/particular tune so that you can break it down into manageable components and then figure out what’s going on, and then (if you wish or need to) play it, is a skill that is applicable across the board. I’ve spent the last 2 months in Missouri, teaching people I’d never seen before July. The first few weeks are slow, but after that, the rate at which people can assimilate new techniques, information, and playing skills into tunes is much faster by ear than by music. I feel that learning to rely on written music is too easy, especially for beginners, and it’s very hard to enforce ‘by heart’ in a class situation - even harder if you aren’t in a child/adult learning environment. It is also sometimes a good idea to dissociate a new type of music from any previous experience - so basing your tin whistle lessons on what someone has previously learned in classical flute/piano lessons may not be as effective in terms of learning to actually play the music as starting from scratch with a different method of learning.
Obviously, you will teach your students the way you know best yourself, and are most comfortable with, but don’t dismiss other ideas already. If you want, PM me - I may not be able to help, but I’ll certainly try!
Deirdre
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