I’ve always wondered how well does the tin whistle do in the non-irish music ?. , like slow tunes or soundtracks like james galway’s Lord of the rings . I will be very grateful if you would give me some of the names of music tunes and bands who use tin whistles in their music
Some of very well known examples of non-Irish whistle playing are south-african kwela and jazz whistle - you can search it on Youtube - there are some vids.
Or, I play with a Ukrainian folk-fusion band and use both Irish flute and high & low whistles in it.
1 Like
Take a look at Tony Hinnigans site, if memory serves me there’s a list of all movie music he has played whistle and flutes in.
Have a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d79_DJP5XEw
I recommend the Fraser Fifield album that includes this track.
The album “Cuht” by Phil Hardy is far from ITM, available at http://www.kerrywhistles.com/store.php
Martin “Educciman” Niethammer plays jazz on whistles and quenas. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiCVuWHTpns for example. I wish he would record some finished whistle jazz tracks. He posts here on C&F. Maybe if we nag him he’ll do it.
I’m not sure what you are looking for in terms of music genres. But it is safe to note that the tinwhistle, pennywhistle, low whistle, whatever you want to call it is at the center of it all a musical instrument and can and probably has been used in just about every genre out there at some point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDaPfJOXr-E
Les Lieber, a famous jazz sax player, was a very accomplished whistle player too.
Harpo Marx played whistle too.
Billy Novick has a couple jazz LP’s out there. While he is mostly know for clarinet and sax work he also plays whistle. He also played with David Bromberg’s Big Band back in the 70’s and did some whistle work in that context too.
Broadside Electric has a whistle player. They do/did English folk rock and the occasional hornpipe and shanty. Several folk bands from the 60’s-70’s used a whistle from time to time.
Celine Dion? Titanic?
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones have featured the whistle now and then over the last twenty years in the hands of Howard Levy, Paul McCandless and Jeff Coffin.
Davy Spillane’s Atlantic Bridge CD was a mix of styles too. Davy played whistle and pipes on that one.
Nashville has flirted with the whistle in things like the Dixie Chicks song Ready to Run which has a whistle backing. Cherish the Ladies CD Country Crossroads is a recent mix with good Nashville players (Rob Ickes on dobro).
Catch the Transatlantic Session videos for more Country/Bluegrass/Irish/Scots fusions. (Jerry Douglas on dobro)
Cormac Breathnach and Deiseal, while Irish inspired played a lot of jazz/rock fusion stuff. Great playing there!
Afro Celts (Sound System), again a fusion effort, was a very successful electronica and dance outfit. James McNally is a darned hot whistle player (also ex Pogues).
Does Celtic punk rock count?
Mike McGoldrick has dabbled in fusions with jazz.
Brian Finnegan’s Ravishing Genius of Bones CD has a jazz feel in places. He also mixes American roots in too with banjo and dobro (Curtis Burch on his Bobby Wolf reso no doubt). Great CD.
There are surely other cases which I am sure others will list.
Feadoggie
The Band Cowboy Celtic…pretty interesting stuff if you like the cowboy culture. Of course I’m a bit partial as I played and toured with the group for 12 plus years ( whistle )…google if curious…BTW, I’m hardcore trad…I was asked to guest record on one of their albums along with Matt Crannich, Johnny McCarthy, Phil Cunningham and Laois Kelly…As I was based in North America, I was asked to join the band and have since fallen in love with the cowboy way…I was however firmly rooted in the celtic half of Cowboy Celtic…The band is still touring but I have moved on..
Of course the whistle can play pretty well any folk music… curious to see all the other folk traditions in the world lumped together as ‘non-Irish’.
It’s a standard instrument in English folk, and there’s not much there that doesn’t suit the whistle.
It’s pretty common in Scottish folk, and there are thousands of tunes there that you can play.
But… there are also a lot of accordionists who like writing clever tunes with chromatic bits that aren’t so easy at dance tempo, and there are accordionist band leaders who put together sets of tunes with key changes at every tune change (‘It gives the dancers a lift’) so that even if every tune is whistlle-friendly, you’re swapping whistles half a dozen times in the set. Fun all the same.
A lot of French folk tunes are whistle-friendly, though often for the C whistle rather than the D.
Plenty of Renaissance music sounds nice on the whistle, though again C whistle or high F may be more in demand than D.
And there are many more genres than these…
Here’s who introduced me to the tin whistle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Q2L1Tt1Hk - Jethro Tull’s The Whistler
It wasn’t until I went looking for one that I discovered Irish traditional music. Now I can’t get enough of it. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Q2L1Tt1Hk > - Jethro Tull’s The Whistler
… cooler than a cool thing in a cool place !!
Now I’m going to have to get a blue-top nickel Generation “like Ian Anderson plays” 
I’m pretty sure that he is not actually playing the melody in this video…looks like he’s faking it…he may have played the whistle on that recording? but he is defo faking it in this video…but if it inspires people, I’m all for that…
Have always had a soft spot for that band. I still keep “The Drover Road” on my iPhone playlist all these years later. I like to play it for people out here in Colorado occasionally just to show how musical traditions can merge. Nice to know the band is still touring. Haven’t heard them in a long time, but I travel in different circles now.
Thanks Swizzlestick…a little funny story for you…the title track song from that album was a funny recording experience…you may notice a very simple whistle tag throughout that song…kinda da da dunt da…well Dave has often called on me to come up with some kinda whistle part for all his songs…I usually can and did…however, when recording this one song, that’s all I could come up with…we laughed hysterically when we heard the playback of my attempt…I actually almost fell off my chair…then after listening to it a few times, It kinda grew on us and we kept it…I still chuckle about that track…as a side note, " The Drover Road " is David’s favourite album that we have ever done as it was recorded with all of his longest standing members… the fiddle and harp player are still with them…they are in Elko, Nevada as I write this…it was a great time with them and I have lots of fond memories…
I wish I’d seen that video in 1977.
I got into playing the flute from listening to Ian. There’s more whistle on the Songs From the Wood album, and I think some as well on the Heavy Horses album. I didn’t even know Ian was playing a whistle until I saw that video.
I’m pretty sure that he is not actually playing the melody in this video…looks like he’s faking it…
… maybe … the video/audio synchronisation is fairly poor throughout the video, just check the percussionist for example, even the voice doesn’t synch with the face on occaision, like it was one of those terrible mimed “live” studio productions that were so prevalent then, but it could just be poor post-production editing.
All videos are ‘fake’ in the sense that the music you hear isn’t coming from the musicians pretending to play. The music is always from a studio recording, except for pure live concert videos, but those are not “music videos” in the normal sense (and there are lots of fake “live” recordings too.. going all the way back to Top of the Pops.. aargh, horrible).
So even when you have a “video” of a band playing in what looks like a studio what you hear isn’t what was played.
I thought that was obvious really.. that’s always how it has been done and that’s how it still is.
-Tor
Tor…you are right obviously…I wonder does anyone know if it was Ian that did the recordings on the whistle or someone else…to me, he didn’t look comfortable with the whistle in his hands at all…
I plan on using it in a cover of Pink Floyd’s On The Turning Away, if I ever get around to it ('cause the tune reminds me of Barbara Allen in spots).
Always meant to add it to the intro of my cover of Stairway, too-- mostly 'cause it’s been so long since I’ve played recorder that I don’t really remember how, and not in the mood to re-learn… (what, me lazy? i know. Pathetic.)
True. I’m still sort of disappointed that the music in the video of Where The Streets Have No Name is from the studio, but I know, I know, it had to be…
The CDs I mentioned previously didn’t have liner notes when I bought them so I found this on the Ian Anderson Wikipedia page:
Anderson plays several other musical instruments, including acoustic and electric guitar,[2] bass, bouzouki, balalaika, saxophone, harmonica, and a variety of whistles.