Hi
i learned years agao with the clarke book from Bill Ochs - it was good but i lost it.
I didnt play for years and want to start again, my skills are not very advanced so a beginner book would be ok
I dont want to buy the Clarke book again , i am sure one day i will find it again, wich would be good because i didnt made all the way trough that book, maybe a third only
Is there another Book you can recomend? To have aditional?
What about the Mery Bergin Books , well they are expensive for me, but i remember when they came out many of you bought them, i could start with the first one
Any other good Book to learn from?
I love Mary Bergin’s books but if you’ve played before you may be able to skip the first volume. I had already learned from other books by the time I came to hers so didn’t spend long working through it but volume 2 has been a wonderful source of learning, and though I’m not finished, I eagerly await volume 3 when she covers slow airs as well as much more. Can’t recommend them enough.
I am still thinking about the Mery Bergin Book 1 (i AM a beginner, i didnt made many lessons from the Bill Ochs Book and its years ago) and i am sure i will find the Bill Ochs Book again one day, so now i want another one “additional”
Robin Williamson’s “Penny Whistle Book” ist less then 10 € for Kindle i guess ill try that one anyway
Or i add 50 € and get Merry Bergins Book - its not easy to decide for a poor man
Before you decide on Mary Bergin Book 1, I suggest you go to http://maryberginwhistle.com/purchase.html and click on “View Table of Contents” for each book if you haven’t already done so. It will give you complete details of what she teaches in each book.
I was hoping with Willie Week underway that some announcement would be made about the upcoming third volume to tutorial. Release date? And website updated with tutorial book members area?
That would be nice! Last time I heard from her, some time ago now, she was hoping to release it early this summer. I think it’s too much to expect she will have started any work on the tutorial website.
Any of them will do you fine, if you stick with it. What you need to avoid is jumping to another book when the first starts to seem difficult. We all find different parts of learning to play easier, but no one gets it for free. Something is always work. Success comes to them what toughs out the hard parts.
OTOH, PM me. I have a bunch of tutors that I’d send you for little more than the postage costs.
i have a question about Robin Williamson’s “Penny Whistle Book”
I had a “look inside” at amazon and it seems to be mostly a tunes collection.
Does it also have instructions? Rols cuts etc …?
Details of cuts etc. are included where appropriate for a specific tune, but there aren’t very many separate exercises.
Like Bill Ochs’ book, the emphasis, to my mind, is to use the whistle as a generic musical instrument, the selection of tunes provided helping to demonstrate the wide capabilities of the whistle, rather than emphasising any skill-set particular to a specific genre.
If you particularly want to play one type of music, Scottish, Irish or whatever, there are probably better publications suitable for the purpose, none of which I am qualified to recommend.
It IS mostly a tunes book, as I recall. It had the least amount of what I’d call whistle-specific technique of anything I’ve seen marketed as a whistle method.
But, everyone learns differently. I’m sure to some, that’s exactly what they want in a tutor. It wasn’t what I needed.
Another plug here for the Mary Bergin tutor. I’m pretty much self-taught and hit a major plateau about a year ago, finding that the tunes didn’t flow as well as I wanted them to and often felt kind of clunky and awkward, especially when I was playing by myself. I’m working systematically through Vol 2 and it includes the best description about the importance of the internal rhythm of Irish tunes and how to honour it in the playing. This tutor has cleared up my confusion about where to place ornamentation, tonguing and breath pauses – although it has taken a heap of work to correct bad habits and to learn how to place the emphasis to get the drive, lilt and lift. Her notation really helps to identify the internal rhythm and is not complicated to learn. I’ve looked a lot of whistle tutors over the years and this is by far the best.
I haven’t posted on here for a very long time but am so impressed by this book that I just had to log in to make a comment.
I second zen . . . though I’m a bit miffed that Vol 3 is taking so long to come out which contains instruction on airs. They are exceptional books!! I’ve tried many tutors including on-line courses and none of them hold a candle IMO to Mary Bergin’s books.
