I’ve been practicing this and other tunes for a few weeks now and finally tried to record it. I think I did 20 takes before I finally said “close enough”. I know it’s not perfect but I’d like to see what others think and get feedback before I work on other tunes.
The tune is from The Complete Irish Tinwhistle Tunebook by L.E. McCullough. What I love about this book is the backing music can played without the melody. Well almost. I don’t know what they did but even when I remove the right side which contains the melody, I can still hear that High D playing the melody. But it’s close enough.
My goal is to learn how to play the guitar (and piano) parts on my keyboard. That has been a lot of fun but quite challenging as it doesn’t sound as good. But still I’d rather be able to play everything myself if possible even if it doesn’t sound like a real guitar player. For one the audio recording on the CD is not that great quality.
Any comments and advice on my playing is most appreciated. I want to fix any problems I can before they become bad habits. So don’t worry about hurting my feelings, I prefer honest feedback.
A couple other questions:
1 - How far away from the mic should I be? I try to get as close as possible without it interfering with my playing.
2 - Is the guitar track too loud or soft?
3 - I used a bit of reverb on the whistle. I do not like it when people use too much so I try to err on the “too little” side.
Thank you very much for listening & any feedback you may have. Here is the link:
I only received one feedback on my recording but I know many people listened to it. Please let me know your thoughts. I know I need a lot more practice so I don’t mind if someone says it stinks.
Today I spent several hours practicing playing the guitar part on my keyboard. As with my whistle recording, I finally said “close enough”.
Please let me know which version you like better. One thing is for sure, when I record the guitar part the audio quality is much better. I just need to improve my playing. I’ve been doing lots of googling on patterns for accompanying songs and I haven’t found much. So basically I just listen to the CD that came with the tunebook & some you tube videos and then try to come up with something.
The other song I’m working on has a piano part on the CD and I’m working on learning that.
Sure you’ve only been playing a few months but it sounds pretty good. Seems like you are blowing.g quite softly. Try putting a little more “force” in you blow. Do so with lotsa control however and I’ll help with your pitch.
Are you a beginner on guitar and piano as well? If so, why don’t you concentrate on one instument at a time. I know lotsa multi-instrumentalists. Some seem to be stuck at certain levels cus dere trying to plau too many instruments and not “mastering” any. Pick one dat you really want to play, concentrate on “mastering” it. By all means noodle around wit whatever you want but de hours spent practicing on say guitar or piano, copier be better focused on da whistle or whatever you choose as a main one.
I can make music on virtually any instrument I pick up as, I’m sure many, many, members here can but it takes a lot of effort and practice, practice, practice to master one. Sure dere are da “freaks” out dere dat master most any instrument but dey are de exception I’m sure. Take your time, concentrate on one, de udders will come in time and easier once you get da hang of just one. Same " language" for each you’ll find. Especially for Irish Trad.
Oh, forgot ta mention dat one needs to download the music file. At least I do , from Boxnet. Maybe if you use a different way to post so people can just click and listen. Some don’t want ta go dat extra step sometimes. I know I don’t usually like ta download den listen. Just a suggestion. S’all.
I just tried it in a different browser (where I’m not logged in to box.net) and I can just click and listen. I didn’t know there were any restrictions on doing that (I have a free account). Any ideas on why you can’t click & listen? Can someone else confirm that they can click & listen without downloading?
Thanks for the recommendation to blow harder. I’m going to try that next time. The big whistles need a lot more air.
I don’t play guitar, I was playing my keyboard with a guitar patch. I’ve been learning piano for a year now, working my way through a repertoire book (classical approach). The whistle was a happy accident as my daughter got one for Christmas. So I do split my time between the two but I practice them separately. My goal is to record my own tunes with a simple back-up. So that’s how piano gets involved. Working through the classical repertoire piano book is hard work. Playing some chords & arpeggios to back the whistle is pure fun!
Your advice is good though. My daughter has a harp on loan for her music class and I can’t resist playing it either. It’s a lot of fun.
I could click and listen without downloading just fine. IT sounds nice. Just feels like you need to get a little more comfortable with the whistle and start feeling the melody rather than pushing it out.
Thanks for the feedback Nick. I really like your music so it’s great to hear from you.
I just thought of something that may not have been obvious: This isn’t an attempt to record tunes for a CD or anything like that. The reason I like to record a tune is because it requires the tune to be “polished” (to quote a piano teacher). In other words I could play a tune and enjoy playing it and then move on to the next tune. But when I record it, I listen to myself and I notice all the problems and areas I can improve. And by recording it over and over it gets better and better. Once I’m happy with it I know I’ve documented my progress and I can go on to the next tune. And later I’ll come back to that tune and hear how I played it and then be able to play it better.
So I thought I’d explain my motivation for recording tunes. I don’t know how others feel about this. Sometimes I think maybe it’s a not the best use of my time because I’m fooling around with recording and playing harmony when I could instead be playing my whistle and learning a new tune. Playing with a CD is a compromise I guess.
“” But when I record it, I listen to myself and I notice all the problems and areas I can improve. And by recording it over and over it gets better and better. Once I’m happy with it I know I’ve documented my progress and I can go on to the next tune. And later I’ll come back to that tune and hear how I played it and then be able to play it better…“”
This seems to me to be a very useful idea. As a newbie who is phobic about playing for others (I guess I don’t have performers DNA!) I’m not likely to get much feedback about my progress.
Here’s my theory: I’m working through a tunebook trying to learn all the tunes. If I do that and record each one, by the time I get to the end my playing will have improved very much. So if I go back and listen to the recordings it will be interesting and I can re-record them.
