I can play the first octave reasonably well now, but i bought a new whistle today and it came with some songs that jump from say something like… XXXXXX to X00000, 0XX000, 0XXXXX+ XXXXX0+…which i haven’t come across much in the ‘Baa Baa black sheep’ level I have been playing upto now.
And it sounds rather weird and screechy when I try to do it, the high E seems to be giving me the most troubles. apart from the new whislte being quite ‘jumpy’ itself…
any tips or practice excercises???
I should have just stuck to playing my guitar, now I have got into a whole new obsession.
When I first started whistle (I began with a Walton’s Mellow D) all of my high notes sounded screechy. I was really shy and thoght that I was probably disturbing everyone in my house. Basically I was too scared to blow hard enough to make the high notes sound good. It came in time though. Stick with it and don’t be afraid to really blow.
Cheers!
Wear some earplugs and go for it. The earplugs will help overcoming the natural tendency to not push the second octave hard enough, beside, I read this is a good habit anyhow, so I am getting myself some musician earplugs to protect myself from long term damage.
I found learning Ashokan Farewell (transposed so the lowest note is a C#) helpful.
Could be the whistle, could be you are overblowing from the 1st octave straight to the third, could be that you aren’t completely covering one of the finger holes and so you have a leak, or it could just be that you’ve just now found you don’t like high pitched whistles, in which case you may want to try a lower pitched whistle
I think screechy second octaves are a required step in learning fipple flutes - seems everyone in both the recorder and whistle communities struggles with it at first. FWIW, I looked around for a couple tunes that a) I really liked so b) I knew them by heart and c) they had some high Ds and Es in them but nothing higher. I practiced those until the Ds and Es sounded OK then found a few more tunes with a F in them and so on, working my way up the second octave. Also, listen to at least a little professionally played music every day. This will train your ear as to what you are supposed to sound like and give you assurance that the second octave can, in fact, be conquered. It will come, just keep practicing and don’t get down on yourself.
I think your suggestions (which I did not quote) are good, however I must strongly disagree with what you’ve written above: There is no good reason why someone who is practicing properly, on a good instrument, should have problems with a screachy second octave on a fipple flute. It certainly isn’t “a required step in the learning process.” You are obviously entitled to that opinion, but as someone with a fair amount of experience, I feel the need to offer an opposing viewpoint, fwiw, to those who may be reading.
I suggest the following: go outside to someplace not many can hear you, use earplugs or some cotton or tissue in your ears. Then really lean into those high notes. Practice a low D, a high D, a low E, a high E, and on up the scale until you reach B or can’t go up anymore. Try and hold the high notes during this exercise. Do scale work in the upper register. Find one or more songs with upper register notes and just practice that section.
Again, really lean into those high notes, and try and hold them steady. Some whistles are much easier to control in the upper register than others. If a lto of tunes that you like have a lot of upper register notes (like most ITM) then another whistle that is easier to blow, might be anidea.
I’ll tell you what not to do. Don’t avoid high notes because then they’ll never sound better . Take it from one who knows. Just get on with it, get the best sound you can from the whistle you have—it will take awhile to see what the best you can do is. When jumping from low to high, one tutorial, I believe Cathal McConnell’s, says to tongue the high note so it will sound “sweeter”.
One thing that can help with the second octave is when you realize there is more to hitting it then simply blowing harder:
You want to increase the speed of the airstream going into the whistle, but not the amount of air. That’s a critical difference.
How do you do it?
Tighten the muscles in the throat and lips. Yeah, I know: the lips are just wrapped around the fipple. Tighten 'em anyway. You might think it won’t make a difference but it really will.
Push harder with the abdomen to get a faster airstream.
This will allow you to “pop up” cleanly into the second octave, and it will also help keep the second octave in balance with the first.
As you play this becomes something that happens automatically and without thought.
As an aside about recorder playing, on a recorder, all of the above are true, but you also must learn to properly vent the thumb hole. On fingering charts, the thumb hole is always shown “half-holed” for the second octave, but in reality, it needs to be mostly closed, with just a very small slit of an opening.
How long did it take you all to get to the point where you can do this octave skipping? weeks? months? years!!?
what does it mean to ‘tongue the high note?’ Push your tongue against the soundhole?
Also is there any way to play the higher notes without playing them really loud? the shrillness really grates after a while. i know of the blu-tack trick, but that seems a bit unideal to have to carry blu-tack everywhere?
Its partly my blowing and also the shrillness gets rather grating, would a lower pitch sound more flutey and gentle to play? what would a lower pitch be? one of those awkward looking longer whistles or a standard whsitle in a different key?
would a lower pitch sound more flutey and gentle to play
Yes, but you can still get a high D that’s pleasant. Not all of them sound ghastly. Some are less foul than others.
Might we ask what whistle you’re playing?
A rock musician who works down the hall from me calls the Little Black D which I used to keep on my desk “that screechy-*ss metal thing.” I’m not sure he recognized my new Black Diamond as the same kind of instrument.
The more I think about this, the more I think we should be recommending something other than mass-produced tourist souvenirs for newbies. If the only way one of those whistles is bearable is after it’s required the attentions of an Exacto knife in the hands of an expert. . . maybe we should just be recommending something they can play reliably right off.
And then maybe the factories will start producing whistles that a person can play.
ok its a waltons irish whistle in D, but i also have a battered old sweetone which a friend loaned me. the Waltons seems to skip octaves a lot but i reckon thats down to my lack of skill.
Oh, ok. Well, I’ve had a lot of trouble playing that Waltons, too. That’s why people tweak them . . . so they become playable.
Some don’t have any trouble with them, though, so you can see that part of the problem is the whistle and part of it is the player. And, remember, one of the good things about whistle is that it’s not going to sound perfect.
If you keep playing and playing, you’ll learn naturally to control the sounds that come out of the whistle. There is a lot that your body does to shape the sound. It may be that with less expensive whistles, like Waltons, the player has to do more to control the sound than with a better whistle.
I think the need to try a lot of whistles is one of the causes of WhOA. Can you try some locally? If not, when you do decide to get another whistle, I’d recommend going for a mid-price one. That will increase your chances of getting a whistle you’ll like. Meanwhile, just play a lot–you’ll learn to control the thing soon enough.
Let’s talk about going one octave up. From the lowest E on your whistle, for example, to the E one octave above that. That E one octave up is normally the highest E you would ever play. Those notes are usually pretty shrill, and loud, but you can get them better using the technique peeplj talks about. If you whistle a tune just with your lips, you’ll notice you do a lot of things inside your mouth and with your throat and tongue when you change pitches. Try doing some of those things when you are playing the whistle to improve the tone you get. I would say it took me a few weeks to get those tones at all. And getting them better is something I am still working on, but I am not experienced.
Octave skipping—Okay, Loren meant that maybe you were blowing so hard that you were going up into the third octave your whistle can play, skipping the second or middle octave entirely. Those notes I have never encountered needing to be played. They would break wine glasses, injure dogs, cause you to be arrested. I doubt you are playing notes that high. You need to be hitting notes just one octave above your lowest note. If you are playing notes in the third octave, then stop it and play the ones in the lowest and middle octave.
Tonguing—I am the one that mentioned that. Okay, when you change from note to note on the whistle, you can do one of two things. You can slur the notes together, play legato or you can lightly touch the tip of the mouthpiece with your tongue (tonguing) which has the effect of separating each note and giving a more staccato sound. It is important that you know whether you are tonguing or not. Some people just do it automatically without realizing it on every note they play. People recommend different things about tonguing. My tutorial tells me to tongue the first note after I breathe or when I am starting the tune, and play the rest without tonguing when I am just learning. Then later I will learn to add some tonguing in for emphasis. Other tutorials recommend differently. So to “tongue the high note” would mean that you would be playing along without tonguing, sluring the notes, not touching the tip of the mouthpiece with your tongue, then right when you jump to a high note you will lightly touch the tip of the mouthpiece with your tongue. I think it is supposed to give a little cleaner edge to the transition. It is just something you might try—it isn’t a rule, it was just mentioned in one tutorial I read. You may find it improves the sound, or perhaps it won’t. It’s just worth a try is all.
So in my opinion you are having a very typical experience. At first I couldn’t even get any sound in the second octave at all. People told me I would get it and I did. Some whistles are louder than others, but most are pretty darn loud in that second octave at best.
