Critique and hints on what to work on and improve

Whistle
1

I would like some advice from fellow whistlers on what I should practice when I play.

The Silver Spear
Star of the County Down

i don’t really like the way I played Star of the County Down, now that a couple of days have passed, and I think my timing on “the Silver Spear” is not very precise.

Can you tell me what you think of the way I play and give me some new easy tunes to practice on, please(maybe a jig, i like jigs a lot)? :slight_smile:

2

You’re coming along. Playing Irish music is a bit like learning a new language: tone, phrasing, accenting, tempo, etc. Keep listening and play along with some good examples and you’ll improve.

3

I’m new at this, too. I watched Ryan’s videos and do his exercises and do some of the exercises on the brother steve site, too.

When I’m not playing, I’m listening. I have an iPod with several days worth of Irish music so I listen all day at work.

I also have a book. It’s for learning Irish fiddle but close enough. I’ve been working through it slowly. It came with a CD so I can play along and know I’m getting the rhythm right (or wrong, which I also do.)

I also read these forums and I use the search feature to look up older topics.

All that is to say you might enjoy trying similar things. Just keep playing. You are good at playing lively and fast and hitting all the notes and keeping in time. But it sounds kind of stacatto to me.

4

I believe that this very, nevertheless can that perhaps “tongue” too much the notes, try to touch a little but fluid. I am not expert but it is a council of noob to noob :wink:


luck!!

5

You sound like you have been working hard. I would suggest that you slow down a bit. Speed will come. I didn’t hear you tapping your foot. I know that when I do, it changes my rhythm and inflection.

Good for you. It takes guts to lay yourself out like you did. Best, Cyril.

6

now this is a true brother---------good on ya mate :smiley:

7

thanks everybody for the advice, now my ipaq is packed with music by Lunasa and the two cds by Mary Bergin, feadoga stain.. I’ll listen to them while not playing, as suggested.
Whom else can I listen to? I just listened to something by Brid O’Donohue, and i like the way she plays very much. It sounds very lively to me (but again, I just listened to some examples). I also like the way tinwhistler plays.
Wanted to add that it’s very impressive, to me, how a tune can change when you listen to someone who got really into the spirit of it. It kinda gets that unspoken message that maybe the first composer of it tried to conceive through the music! For example, i really liked this!

I’ll continue practicing on the Silver Spear, and I will slow down as CranberryDog (thanks) suggests, but could you please me suggest another tune to work on? Sometimes it gets a bit ripetitive for you and (especially) for others to listen to the same thing again and again.. :slight_smile:

8

Here’s one I like for a slow one: http://www.micksvirtualwhistle.net/whistle/mp3/inisheer.mp3

Here’s the website it came from: http://www.micksvirtualwhistle.net/

And notice Mick also provides the sheet music.


Best, Cyril.

9

thank you again, unluckily I can’t read music very well (just learnt the basics when I was 13). In these days I’ve tried to practice the tunes (tapping the foot is still difficult when I am learning how to play a tune) I already knew and listened to various styles, and hopefully will ask for your advice again soon :smiley:

10

You owe it to yourself to get Laurence Nugent’s Windy Gap cd. His is the most expressive playing I’ve heard. He does some tunes slow, some fast, some in between. He’s very entertaining to listen to as well as instructive. His other cd’s are great also.
Tony

11

I’ve never learned about notes (just black dots on lines) but this site : http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/ has a lot of classic tunes with tablatures for whistle which tells you how many holes to cover and when to blow harder. Makes it a little easier…