Anyone have any hints to keeping time better? As a beginner, 1/8 notes are really difficult to consciously do. If I don’t think about it so much it’s a little easier but if I try to count with the beat, I keep screwing it up. Anyone else have this difficulty when first learning? How did you work around it? It realy is a problem when there are four 1/8 notes in a row and they are different notes like defg I keep sliring it rather than making clear individual notes.Other than that, everything else is going great. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
-Jim
The most important thing is to not play faster than you’re able. I think the real difficulty isn’t in keeping time, but keeping time and putting the fingers in the right place simultaeously.
The old trick of tapping the foot works well for some. For something in two or four, one eighth note as the foot taps, the next as it reaches its apex. Or one-and-two-and. For something in three or six, either tap once for each eighth note, or eventually, count three for each tap, trip-a-let, trip-a-let.
I presume you’re reading music. Another very important thing is to be familiar with the piece. Find sheet music for very familiar tunes or find recordings of tunes you have the music for. Something else to do is downloading some slowdown software, like Transcribe. Slow down a piece you like and play along till you have it note-perfect at slower pace, then begin speeding up.
It takes time and patience.
It’s hard to know what you mean by “slurring instead of clear notes” - do you mean it’s hard to lift your fingers off one by one independently at the proper speed? Or are you talking about articulating the notes, using tonguing as opposed to slurring them together?
Without knowing exactly what you mean, I’d say Charlie’s advice is very good. But I’d go further and suggest that you might be better off learning by ear.
When you try to learn to play from written music as a adult beginner (when you don’t read music already) you are really making life difficult for yourself. Staring at the dots, trying to figure out how to count them, etc. Your ears can bypass all that stuff very neatly.
Do you have a teacher, or anyone locally, who can help you learn tunes by ear, or record them slowly for you?
The idea of learning to play by ear appears daunting to some, but remember that to play good music, you have to train your ears anyway. I think that once you’re over the initial difficulties of playing by ear, you’ll quickly appreciate the value of it.
I have taught dozens of beginners over the past number of years and there is no doubt in my mind that in traditional music, learning by ear gives quicker and better results - turns people into better players and more capable musicians, that is.
Using music to learn tunes from is something you can put to good use later on - when you can play a bit.
When I started I was tonguing a lot and had a hard time coordinating fingers & tongue. It helped me then to not tongue, because I was forced to really move my fingers in time.
And go slooooooooooooooooooow.
“One-and-two-and” has always worked well for me. It also helps to clap a piece before you play it…get a feel for how the basic rythmn is supposed to go (if the piece has words, you can “say” it instead of clapping…that’s how we work on complicated rythmns in the choir).
It does help, especially in the beginning, to listen to a piece if you can…but don’t give up on learning music reading either. It’s ultimately going to be a really useful skill for you, as you progress and want to learn new tunes.
Redwolf
P.S. just wait until you get to sixteenth notes! 
Hi Jim_B1,
StevieJ is always slow to blow his own trumpet (too busy with whistles, I guess), so I thought I’d give a toot on his flute by suggesting you visit his website.
http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/
It sounds to me like you’re trying to tongue every note, and that just isn’t necessary, or indeed desireable. Check out Brother Steve’s advice on tonguing (and everything, really) and listen to the sound clips to hear the difference. Also get some Traditional Irish Music CDs, or get to a few sessions if you can, to hear how whistles are used in Irish music.
Best of luck!
p.s. You might listen to the Virtual Session, if you can’t get to one yourself:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/folk/acoustic_club/launch.shtml
MCM Transatlantic Whistle Detective Agency - no case too small.
Branches in London and Salt Lake City
[ This Message was edited by: Martin Milner on 2002-10-11 11:31 ]
On 2002-10-11 09:32, StevieJ wrote:
It’s hard to know what you mean by “slurring instead of clear notes” - do you mean it’s hard to lift your fingers off one by one independently at the proper speed? Or are you talking about articulating the notes, using tonguing as opposed to slurring them together?
Sorry, I mean slurring by not articulating each note by tounging so it sounds like a slur between the notes.
Do you have a teacher, or anyone locally, who can help you learn tunes by ear, or record them slowly for you?
I am in Bill Ochs beginning tin whistle class. Usually I only get to hear a tune once or twice in the class though and then I have a week to come up with the tune so I have to go by the music for certain parts that I just don’t remember.
The idea of learning to play by ear appears daunting to some, but remember that to play good music, you have to train your ears anyway. I think that once you’re over the initial difficulties of playing by ear, you’ll quickly appreciate the value of it.
I think you are very much right about learning to play by ear but until I build up my ear a bit better so I can pick out specific notes, I think that may give me a bit of trouble too. I’m listening to a lot of music lately (currently Micho Russell: Ireland’s Whistling Ambasador is the only tin whistle album I have though) Maybe it’s just something that will build up over time. I’m probably just being impatient about it 
Thanks,
-Jim
-Jim
I may never be the best, but I can always be better than I am now!
[ This Message was edited by: Jim_B1 on 2002-10-11 14:37 ]
On 2002-10-11 07:47, chas wrote:
The most important thing is to not play faster than you’re able. I think the real difficulty isn’t in keeping time, but keeping time and putting the fingers in the right place simultaeously.
I think that’s right, sometimes the toughest part is defining the problem I’m going practice the whole piece slowly first then gradually bring it up to speed. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep it together that way. Thanks for the tip on the trip-a-lets thing. I’ll have to try it.
Thanks again,
-Jim
Fingers first, tonguing second.
I think I agree with everything said already. I just have one thing to add to the advice that you not give up on learning to read. Even a very poor reader doesn’t look at eighth notes and think of them one at a time. You look at a string of them and identify the rhythm of the whole phrase. One way to get used to doing this is to listen to the piece and follow the music at the same time. You can do this without even thinking about how the notes are changing; just attend to the rhythm. After a while you’ll think: ah, that kind of phrase again. I think that might help too.
Tape record your lesson with Bill O and learn from the tape at home. Download the samples and tunes from Bro Steve’s page and learn those by ear.
Learning by ear just means getting of a hump initially. I thought I couldn’t do it, but then sat down to learn a tune by ear once. Had it down in half an hour! That really surprised me because about 20 minutes of that half-hours were spent squawking and squeaking the wrong notes. It sounds awful and sounds awful and then it falls into place. (I found using headphones really helped.)
What happened did you loose the CD that Bill gave you as part of the course.
I’m sure Bill also recommended the Transcribe program if you are trying to learn from a different source.
You need to follow direction of the master grasshopper. The playing will attend to itself if the direction are followed.
On 2002-10-11 11:51, Wizzer wrote:
What happened did you loose the CD that Bill gave you as part of the course.
I’m sure Bill also recommended the Transcribe program if you are trying to learn from a different source.
You need to follow direction of the master grasshopper. The playing will attend to itself if the direction are followed.
I’m still in the kids book, the CD he gave for the class starts with the real Irish songs not the stuff in the Mel Bay book. No transcribe program was mentioned in the class yet. What’s a transcribe program? Not sure I understand what it is.
-Jim
Another thing that might help is doing timing exercises. I know most of the books I have have exercises for various note patterns…things that help you get coordinated to play, say, strings of eighth or sixteenth notes.
One basic exercise is to start with a 4/4 meter. First play measures of whole notes (all on the same note). Then divide the notes in half, playing measures of half notes. Then halve it again and go to quarters. Finally, halve it one more time and go to eighths. Keep your foot tapping steadily throughout, so you keep the same meter…only the note pattern changes.
I find it easiest, when learning a new tune, to tongue the eighth notes…it helps me keep the rythmn clean. Then, when my fingers have settled into the right pattern and my ear is comfortable with the tune, I drop the tonguing unless it feels called for to emphasize a particular run.
Redwolf
On 2002-10-11 11:28, Martin Milner wrote:
Hi Jim_B1,StevieJ is always slow to blow his own trumpet (too busy with whistles, I guess), so I thought I’d give a toot on his flute by suggesting you visit his website.
Just took a quick browse through, lots of good stuff there. I’ll check it out later tonight when I get home from work.
Thanks
-Jim
OK, I’ve been practicing for a couple of hours and I think I’m getting the hang of it. saying one and two and three and four really helps alot. Thanks for all the help and hints. I’m sure I’ll need more as I continue to learn more.
Thanks again.
-Jim
Eighth notes is like playing baseball. When you’re on deck, you swing a bat that has a weight on it to make the bat heavier, so that when you get up to bat, the bat feels lighter. What you need to do is find some sixteenth notes. Play them slowly, and when you finally go back to the eighth notes, they’ll play like a piece of cake.
JP
Hi Jim
As one newbie to another all I can say to you is…DON’T GIVE UP!!! When I first started to teach myself 1/8th notes I thought I would go mad…it just didn’t seem like it was going to happen!! I understood the basics and the idea but fingers and eveything else just didn’t want to cooperate..or so it seemed! Foot tapping does not work for me…if the foot is going I am not blowing and vice versa. All I can give in the way of advice is…BE PERSISTENT! I can’t really add any advice because you have already gotten tons of great advice from folks on the board who can blow me out of the water!! (Good pun!) But I DO know how discouraging it is at first and I just want to reassure you that it will come in time. And then when it does…you can move on to 1/16th notes which are EVEN faster…if that is possible! I don’t know what instuction books you are using. I learned with Bill Ochs book…"THE CLARKE TINWHISTLE..A HANDBOOK.He gives the best written instruction on 1/8th and 1/16 notes…in my humble opinion. I also agree with the advice already given you as to go slow…and practice with tunes you know the tune to…that way you know how they should sound. “TINWHISTLE FOR BEGINNERS” by Donna Gilliam and Mitzy McCaskill has some familair tunes using 1/8th notes and also the “TINWHISTLERS POCKET COMPANION” by the same two ladies. These are what I learned on.
Well…best of luck to you..I have no doubts that you’ll pick this up fine!
Andrea
Bloomfield:
Bill now gives out a CD with each set of classes you do not need to bring a tape recorder to his classes anymore. On the CD he plays each tune:
at speed
slowed down
each section of the first half is then played on a separate track so that it can be repeated on a cd player and you can play along with it until you have it down.
the first part of the tune is played after its sections
each section of the second half is then played on a separate track so that it can be repeated on a cd player and you can play along with it until you have it down.
the second part is played
This is an extremely well though out teaching method that anyone can learn form if they have the patients to sit down and practice. If you are having difficulty with one section of a tune you can
Bill will sell you the CDs wit the sheet music if you cannot make it to his classes.
One other thing I thought of…
Pick a song you know how to sing (with eighth notes in it, obviously, but most have some, at least). Put the music in front of you, and sing through it a couple of times (not trying to “read” it…just singing it as you know it). That will give you an internal “feel” for how the eighth notes should go (sometimes this is easier than just hearing it). Then play the song on the whistle, keeping the same rythmn.
It occurred to me last night that the very first songs I learned on the whistle were songs I’d been singing for years and just kind of “picked out” on my first whistle…consequently, I could already “feel” how they should go.
If you don’t sing much, an alternative would be a tune you know well enough from hearing it to hum it. The idea is to use something whose type of movement you can already “feel” internally (rather than listening to a new song and trying to pick it up from that). Does that make sense?
Eighth notes aren’t hard once you get a feel for them…it’s getting that initial sense of how they work within the measure that can be a little challenging.
Redwolf