I’ll expose my ignorance, being at the Low D only 7 months. I get that “scratchy” transition going from high to low notes on the first octave. It’s especially pronounced on the Goldie Low D, but almost non-existent on my brass Burke Viper. I understand this to be “transient response.” (Please correct me if I’m wrong.) On the Goldie I’ve learned to eliminate it via a focused approach to blowing the whistle. It takes a lot of practice and can be difficult on fast tunes like Drowsy Maggie. I wish I could explain exactly how to do this but it involves tightening the lips and blowing a thin blade of focused air while positioning the mouthpiece just in just the right position on the lips. That approach is specific to the Goldie, but it will result in a velvety transition between all notes. I also have to quickly reduce the pressure as I hit the lower note. The issue is much less of a problem on the Burke, but even that whistle needs a slight bit of breath modulation (not the focused approach used with the Goldie) to make the transition. In short, I’ve found that it’s the way you blow the whistle that both causes and cures that scratchy transition - and each whistle requires a nuanced approach and a lot of experimentation.
I’ve been working on exactly that over the past few days, based on what others here have said—and reinforced this morning by an experienced player I met at the dulcimer event.
He was able to reproduce what I was hearing on my Optima and Reyburn Low D whistles, but more importantly, he could almost eliminate it through how he was blowing.
What he showed me lines up closely with what you just described: control of jaw, cheeks, and lips, along with a subtle pressure adjustment during the transition. In other words, it really is about how the air is delivered, not just the fingering.
One thing he said (with a smile) stuck with me—he suggested I may have been “cheating” a bit by relying on my Burke whistles. Those line up naturally with how I tend to breathe and make clean transitions easier. But the flip side is that my other whistles are asking me to develop better control.
He encouraged me to spend more time on one or two of the whistles where this shows up most clearly, rather than rotating through everything, and to slow things down—only bringing the tempo up as the transitions become consistently clean.
So I’ve got some good, very specific practice work ahead of me.
That all makes sense. As I remember the approach on the Goldie, I had to find the embouchure/pressure that made all the notes up and down the scale sound velvety smooth instead of scratchy and metallic. This took a good deal of time. Only then could I work on the more difficult transitions where changes in breath pressure had to be coordinated with the fingers. So first things first. I’ve also noticed that over time the new whistle became “played in” and is now naturally less scratchy.
All that said. there are days I’m too tired or uncoordinated to tame the Goldie transitions. That’s when I appreciate the Burke. Despite its size and weight, it plays surprisingly fast.
I greatly appreciate your response. Everything you said is something I have encountered. Especially the growth or change that happens after a good night’s sleep.
This truly has been a joyous journey for me. I suffer a bit from OCD, but I am learning more and more how to check that at the door and just have fun in the process of learning, and to allow others’ advice to sink in.
Funny you should mention OCD, because I was going to suggest trying to avoid over-analyzing the problem. I often find myself playing better when I’m not thinking about it. One tactic is playing while I’m reading or even watching something online. By taking the mind out of it and allowing the body to take over, I’ll often discover I’m effortlessly playing a tune I was having trouble with. I guess OCD can be a good thing if the compulsion is to play and not to achieve perfection. As others have mentioned, you can use the idiosyncrasies of the instrument to provide the soul of the music - like fingers scratching on the strings of a guitar.
Being new at this I find that improvement occurs in spurts/phases and appears as if happening between practice sessions. All of a sudden you find yourself doing things you didn’t seem close to accomplishing. It’s like hammering against a wall that won’t give way and then you’re unexpectedly past it. Sometimes a simple word can make you think about it differently. My wife noticed how Michael McGoldrick’s fingers “floated” over the holes. With that in mind I suddenly found myself loosening my grip, and now I’m entering a new phase where I’m not playing notes or covering holes. My fingers are more or less dancing in air and blending notes with increased speed.
I’m with you. It is a joyous experience and full of excitement when you find yourself unexpectedly able to do something new with the instrument. You just have to enjoy the many hours playing on a plateau before you find yourself leveling up.
The discussion about over-analysing reminds me of what an uilleann piper friend told me.
He’d been playing for several years, getting rather good, but hadn’t taken the leap to playing the regulators. (His pipes had them, he’d just been hesitant to take on yet another complication.)
He approached a more-experienced piper who was excellent on the regs, and asked him
“How should I go about learning the regs?”
The veteran piper replied
“Just feckin’ play em!”
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Now if we apply that pithy but sage advice to the Low D Whistle, I might advise newbies to obtain a single Low D of known quality, lay aside everything else, and dedicate themselves to memorising 20 reels, established session standards, getting to the point where they can comfortably play them all at a relaxed speed of around 90 bpm, with clean precise fingering and well-supported in-tune blowing.
I would wager that by that time they will have acquired a clear sense of what is and isn’t important to the music. As the quote goes
Musical instruments exist for the music played upon them, and for that alone.
Richard, I always treat your advice as a gold standard. I appreciate the time and effort you have give C&F folks. It has helped me enormously along the way.
Thanks! However strange that advice may seem!
Another similar piece of pithy (but ultimately wise) advice I got as a newbie was when I was going to purchase my first set of non-Highland pipes.
Highland pipers obsess about the tone of the drones. Tons of these pipers play vintage pipes, the favoured ones dating to the last quarter of the 19th century through the first quarter of the 20th, this being considered the Golden Age of Highland pipemaking.
Highland pipers will endlessly discuss various subtle tonal characteristics of the various old makers…but it’s all about the drones. It’s extremely rare to find a modern piper playing a chanter from that period. What you hear nowadays is brand-new chanters played with century-old drones.
Coming from Highland piping, when I was going to buy my first non-Highland pipe, an uilleann pipe, I visited the booth of a guy who bought and sold vintage flutes and pipes out at a piping festival.
This guy really knew his stuff. I knew nothing about uilleann pipes. He had an uilleann set for sale, and revealing my Highland-piping biases the first thing I asked him was
”What do the drones sound like?”
“Like drones.”
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Now applying this to Low Whistle, had I at that time been interested in purchasing a Low Whistle, knowing nothing about them, and seeing this guy with a Bernard Overton Low D for sale (that probably being the only kind at that time) I might have asked
“What does that sound like?”
“Like a whistle.”