I am 50, can’t read music, well I know the barest of basics, I cannot carry a tune in a basket, but I really enjoy Celtic music and the sound of the whistle. My children are all quite good musicians (Scottish bagpipes, voice and guitar). When they talk keys and tabs its a foreign tongue.
but it is very hard to hear live Celtic music around here and I would love to take it up.
My immediate family assure me that I am a musical cripple and should forget it, but a good friend at work believes that everyone can acquire at least a basic facility in common musical instruments like piano and guitar if they are willing to practice daily for even 15-30 minutes.
What do you think? Can it be learned initially from a book and CD?
Looks like a great and knowlegeable bunch here in the forum, BTW, as i have seen from the past couple of weeks of lurking.
I’ve met MANY 50+ people with tin ears that play the tin whistle.
It doesn’t stop them, so it shouldn’t stop you!!!
But seriously, play and have fun! … and have fun playing.
One of the best things about tin whistling is that (for beginner’s especially) the annoyingness of the high pitch covers up the annoyingness of beginner mistakes. In other words, if someone complains of the sound-- blame the whistle!
MOST IMPORTANTLY: If you have difficulties, keep posting your questions here on C&F. But if you are enjoying yourself don’t let everyone else’s posts here get you wondering “IS my playing good enough?”
I’ve been in several musical groups that were totally composed of people in their 40’s and 50’s who were learning to play an instrument for the first time. We did just fine, judging by the audiences’ reactions.
In a previous life I taught drawing and painting. As long as my students could relax into the exercises, I could teach anyone to draw or paint. Many of them became quite good. There were individual differences, of course, so each person’s work looked different. But they all learned the skills.
Well, to be 100% honest, there were a few didn’t learn. These were the ones who insisted on continuing with the stick figures and horses they had been drawing since childhood. If you want to learn something new, you’ve got to be willing to experience the uncomfortable foreignness of the new. What many saw as exciting, these few found unnerving.
You’re absolutely right: Practice daily for just 15-30 minutes and you’ll make amazing progress over the course of a year or two.
When you’re learning a tune, I think it helps to have the tune in your head. So, listen to the music before you try to learn it.
Hmm, I’m 46 and can’t carry a tune either, but love many kinds of music. I’ve always considered myself something of a musical cripple, but I seem to be able to learn to play the whistle. I hope that encourages you…
I started playing a few years ago, played for a few months then neglected it for most of the time since then, and started again early this month. After these couple of weeks I’ve remembered almost all I’d learned last time 'round, and even made some progress past where I was back then. I seem to be playing well enough that my roommate (who’s an accomplished musician) says it sounds pretty good… though the other roommate (not a musician) refuses to let me play when she’s at home.
I find that the hardest part is just persevering with something I’m simply not very good at yet – at our age, one gets pretty used to being reasonably good at the things one does. And so it gets very frustrating when you’re trying to play and your fingers just won’t do what your mind is trying to tell them to. And at times it sounds awful and that’s discouraging. But then you have days when your skill seems to leap forward all of a sudden, and that feels great.
Lots of words to say that if I can do it, you probably can too. And I seem to be doing it – I now have about 20 tunes I can play reasonably well. And both that one roommate and another friend have said that I’m pleasant to listen to!
Tin ears are exceedingly rare. If you really have one, you’d have little or no desire to play an instrument in the first place–music would be meaningless to you.
If you are able to tell the difference between the national anthem and, say, Pop Goes the Weasel, then you are not tone deaf.
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What you might have is a brain that’s untrained in terms of pitch recognition.
And what’s untrained can be trained. Yes, you’re going to have a hard time at first, but the more you work at it, the better you’ll get.
It’s by a neurologist who took up the piano later in life. As he learned he found himself wondering about the neuro-science of music. I found it a fascinating read, and it’s the book that gave me the courage to take up the whistle as an adult. Some of the hourney was enormously frustrating, and the other foks in the class seemed to do effortlessly what was either impossible for me or extremely difficult.
However, persistance paid off. I’ll never be a virtuoso, but I can play.
He’s Amaxon’s blurb about the book.
From Publishers Weekly
Convinced that everyone has an inborn ability to make music (a “biological guarantee of musicianship”), California neurologist Wilson, who came late to piano playing, here presents a picture of the brain and muscular system to help nonmusicians to understand that the human body is a “natural learner.” He describes, in admirably untechnical language, the biology of rhythm and tempo, how we hear and see, the intricacies of musical notation; he tells what it’s like to perform in public. Drawing comparisons between music-making and athletic skills, Wilson also tries to clarify such mysteries as tone deafness, perfect ptich, sight reading, memorization and “pumping ivory.”
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Here’s the thing… I’m 56 and started about two weeks ago. You play for yourself - if others don’t care for my playing, well, that’s their problem - I’m 56 - I don’t have to worry about what others think about my playing. It’s for my own enjoyment. That’s why it’s called PLAY-ing!
Yes, you can learn. Get a good tutor like Bill Ochs’ “The Clarke Tinwhistle” and follow the lessons one by one. It’ll teach you to read music and will progress from very simple tunes to fully ornamented jigs and reels. You can hear what each lesson is supposed to sound like on the accompanying CD. You’re in for a LOT of fun.
If you just play every day, even for a few minutes, you will wake up one day and realize that you have made progress. Listen to CDs if you can’t find live music, but just listen as often as you can; in the car, at home, during walks, etc. This instills the proper sound into your being and will come out in your playing.
At 50, you have a lot of life ahead of you. Just play and enjoy it.
In college, I took a course in water color painting. When it was over, the instructor told the class to continue painting as often as we could. He said “Don’t try to create the perfect painting, just paint a lot and you will find that your painting will greatly improve”. This applies to playing music as well.
I’m getting close to 60 and have been playing the whistle for 4 years. It’s among the 4-5 smartest things I’ve ever done - and I’m not very good. I put in an inordinate amount of effort for what only occasionally comes out sounding right. Best investment I’ve ever made.
Tell your family 1) it’s just your starter instrument; 2) whatever musical talent they have came from you; and, 3) you patiently listened to them in the painful early years, now it’s their turn to listen to you.
Well, i’m forty and i’ve started playing this september.I play 30 min. each day and my kids and husband like my playing. So - don’t worry about your ear, your musical memory will improve in no time.
s1mon may be correct when he says that very few people are truly tone-deaf, but there are plenty of people who do not have the “ear” to easily learn tunes by ear. This is especially true when you come to playing music late in life. However, this is no reason not to learn an instrument.
Once you’ve master an octave-and-a-half on the tinwhistle, teach yourself to read music. Not necessarily to play fluently and fast from sheet music (which is a challenge) but simply to be able to look at sheet music and figure out the notes. This is not difficult. For tinwhistle, you only need to learn the keys of D and G, and only an octave-and-a-half (roughly).
Then find a good recording of a tune you want to learn, and find sheet music for the tune (from session.org, or JC’s tune finder). The recording will tell you how the tune should sound; now pick your way through the sheet music a phrase at a time. Your goal is to learn the tune “by heart” so that you can play without the sheet music.
I am 68 and began playing the whistle 4 years ago. I thoroughly flunked an “ear” test but I stll play and I even learn some tunes by ear. Since starting the whistle playing I have taken up flute and keyboard. I didn’t play any other instrumen prior to this except guitar and banjo and didn’t play them well. I wish I had started much sooner. Will you be any more ready when you are 64?
I started at the age of 52, having lost the ability to read music that I had as a nine year old. The past 8 or so years have been among the most rewarding of my adult life—or is that a second childhood I’m in? C & F has been an important element in all of this.
I thought I had a tin ear as well–until I started ear training and actually transcribing what I was listening to. Whatever progress I have made–and I do not allege that it is a lot–I attribute to a great teacher, slow-down software, the support of one or two C & F stalwarts, and being able to do Internet collaborations on tunes with folks I’ve never ‘met’ in person–but regard as my finest friends. It’s been a great ride, and I’m still pulling out of the driveway.
actually…this could have been my thread a couple of years ago. coming on this forum and reading the ocassional posts about keys and notation and time signatures was all very intimidating. then i realized you only need to know the absolute bare bones of music theory to play the thing. and, actually…you probably don’t even need to know that.
i’m impressed by all the thoughtful responses you got to your question. the bill ochs’ tutorial and cd is the road that i took. it’s really quite good about starting with the basics and advancing from there. what i strongly encourage you to do is get a decent tape recorder, pick a tune, and every month record yourself playing that same tune. this will prove to you just how much you have improved each month - you’ll be amazed. it will also be good for your spirits when you feel like you’re not making any progress.
one more thing i would like to point out, if i may. make sure to get yourself a GOOD whistle. please know that it doesn’t have to be expensive to be good. my reason for this suggestion is because i started playing a walton - with NO musical experience - and after several weeks of practicing 3-4 hours per day, most of the notes would sqwak loudly regardless of how i handled the instrument. i sent an email to one of the whistle training websites that’s known around here for giving flawless information, asking if it could possibly be the whistle’s fault, as i had tried everything i could think of to correct any playing errors i might be making. the person replied very tersely that i was new, didn’t know what i was doing, and the fault lay with me and not the whistle. (all of this said without his ever having seen the whistle in question, btw.) besides, he said, it would be extremely rare to buy a bad whistle. i figured i was totally incompetent and was ready to throw in the towel - i mean everyone (including, apparently, himself) regarded his utterances to be the final word on all things whistle-related. then i was given a susato as a present. as soon as my fingers covered the holes on the susato, i could feel that the holes on the walton had not been drilled perpendicular to the body, not allowing my fingers to seal them properly, thus providing that terrible sqwaking sound. my problem with getting a decent tone had been solved. if i had listened to the expert, i would have considered myself an abject failure and given up in humiliation, all because i didn’t know the difference between a good whistle and an inferior product. somehow, i have the feeling the expert wouldn’t have cared one way or the other if i took his comment to heart and gave up in frustration.
sorry about the long-winded post and the semi-rant at the end. oh, well…
please know that i know you will do fine. just stick with it!!!
Well, I overwhelmed. I was chuckling out loud going through your responses. Lots of people in my boat.
What really got me thinking was again, my friend I mentioned from work, who quoted a story about someone who had doubts about learning to play when he was 55. “But it will take me 5 years to learn how to play and I will then be 60!” Supposedly the instructor replied “well if you don’t learn it how old will you be in 5 years?”
OK. I’ll do my best and check back in in a while. So, a good book or two, 15-30 min per day, daily, forget what the listening public think, do it for myself and have fun. I think I’ve got it.
Any suggestions for CD’s to listen to? Something that would be available in small town Canada?
PS: yes, I should have thanked everyone for their kind and intelligent comments. I had one whistle but gave it to my son the piper who just quickly figured it out. The other one I think came with a book and is an Acorn (its resting in the bedroom and I dont want to wake SWMBO to check for sure) if that seems right. Key of D I am sure. Whatever that is code for.
I was 50 when I started. I knew only the barest essentials of reading music. I’m now 55 and in a band. But i’ve spent a lot more than 15 minutes a day practicing. My view on starting was to simply amuse myself. That was it! I got the “bug” and it took me over.
