Gary, certain lots to digest here and some great advice. One small thing is to think about the whistle as much as a rhythmic instrument as a melodic one. Some ornamentation is to make it easy to keep an eighth- or sixteenth-note rhythm going so your fingers will naturally cut and tap as needed (with lots of practice) to keep the drive of the tune moving. Good luck and have fun!
-Peter
Seriously, just join the Online Academy of Irish Music, start from the beginning, and work your way through. You can thank me later. https://www.oaim.ie/
Im all for cuts and taps, rolls and cranns, whatever works and is enjoyable, but for beginners i maintain a simple unadorned Approach is the best so as to focus on developing basic musical ability.
As regards the recording, yes thats a master at work. How he plays the tunes and how a beginner plays the tunes are worlds apart.
Trying to imitate a master, as a beginner …maybe if you keep at it for a couple of decades you might superficially be able to copy well enough, but thats My point really , its not about copying soMeone else, its about developing your own style. Not by means of artifice but by organic , Patient holistic growth.
As it happens i did indeed spend many hours repeating and playing along with the second tune there, im still not sure how he gets the sound from the firSt note of the second tune! The whole idea of simplicity of approach is as a basic for complexity down the line and variations , personal touches, style. Isn’t that the question!
The OP has some months of playing and is asking about ornaments.
Im a string player originally so there are no ornaments available basically apart from triplets… so my whistle tunes were basically the same for many years . Im not a whistler , i just have a few tunes. So I speak from personal experience .
I’m going to be direct. If you want to learn how to play Irish traditional music well, then you need to learn from someone who both plays it well and teaches it well - not by trying to figure it out yourself, and not from 99.9% of people here on Chiff & Fipple.
Unless you live near someone who is a professional Irish-trad musician and also a great teacher, by far the best thing you can do for yourself is to sign up for the Online Academy of Irish music, start at whistle lesson #1, and work your way through one by one until you become an expert.
This way, until of wandering around trying to figure it out yourself, and trying to learn from the people here, wasting time, and building bad habits, you will be guided through your learning in a systematic, methodical, logical progression by some of the most respected Irish traditional whistle and flute players and teachers in the world, doing it right from the start. Why would you do it any other way? https://www.oaim.ie/
Different people learn in different ways, remember that. You will have to find the way that best suits you. Some of the finest traditional musicians I know never saw a teacher. You do need the presence of and interaction with other musicians, well grounded in ‘the tradition’.
Theres another issue with commercial organisations and teachers; if they dont provide what the student thinks they want, the student goes elsewhere until he finds what he thinks he wants. Hence pressure upon commercial providers to teach not what is actually best for a students development, but obliged to cater for the perceived best. Which could be diametrically opposed to what is actually best and even how the teacher/ learnt themselves…
Hence the online idea that seems so prevalent is that its all in the ornaments , all in the tricks and adornments, that its the gold chains that make a person rich, but actually the gold comes from the richness…not the other way round, if you get my drift. And its then easy to have a gold plated silver chain and pass for the reel thing to the uninitiated , or even a plastic goldy looking chain!
Im not saying this in about the OAIM , but it does seem prevalent in many organisations and i would certainly be aware of the pitfalls.
People forever search for short cuts , they wish to arrive without taking the journey. If you tell them, well its 7 years ,then another 7 and then another 7 … but the guy next door says, sure 2x a week for 2 years … where will they go…
If you tell them its 21 years for that gold chain, and next door its 2 years for a gold plated silver chain, whos to know the difference…
So personally , considering this, and its the same in many fields , i dont recommend learning from people and organisations where there is financial pressure to succeed . Better an amateur who gives you the real thing to a professional who gives you the appearance of the real thing..
Do people really claim “it’s all in the ornaments”? Honestly, I never heard that.
I was wondering if there are songs that should be left bare. Slow airs come to mind when I say about being left alone (obviously not all slow airs)
Reading back this thread the above struck me as something that wasn’t really responded to. For slow airs the common advice is to take your cues from singers. Singers will more often than not decorate their melodies. Sean nos singers will usually have a fair amount of ornamentation going. Perhaps ‘modern’ singers, much like instrumentalists, have a far more conscious, and arguably more predictable, way of ornamenting their tunes. If you listen to older singers, they were adlibbing and making things up on the fly in a perhaps, far more natural way. Modern singers can sound, as someone put it, ‘like they were taught’. But whatever way you choose to go, the key to your slow airs lies with the singers. Play your air like the singer sings it and you’ll be flying it.
I couldnt agree more with mr Gumby , but the advice holds for all music . Obviously some is outside the possibility of singing , but basically its of universal application.
But what does that mean ? Play as if your singing?
Well there is obviously emotion , but how does one actually instill emotion into a piece of music …
frankly its on a deeper level than technique ,its about transmitting the feeling you have energetically. So if your bored of a tune … thats what the audience will receive … so its partly about self control , controling your own emotional state .
So once you are fully absorbed and excited by the music , this is what is transmitted how? No idea , could be subliminal, chemical , micro expressions etc that are unconsciously sent and unconsciously received .
But at a basic technical level there are fundamentals you can work on; your phraseing .
A singer. Im one, Will phrase the song in numerous ways . Obviously the verse will ,due to the lyrics changing , have a natural phraseing but the chorus can be varied each time through subtle changes in emphasis on words and rests .
So i suggest learning tunes from singers ,nothing about ornaments again, these will develope as you develope , but concentrating on melody and phraseing so find a good singer , and pick up song melodies from them. Say ..Dick Gaughan i dunno , Christy Moore . Whatevet floats your boat . Any genre really ,but sticking to the genre ; Sinead , Mary Black , traditional yet not too complex, Sean nós is a very highly advanced style so id suggest something simpler .
This for me is the ultimate.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3AFRCWg_kOc but you can find the same song in many formats so try them all maybe …
the simple melody of a tune is deceptive , the depth and breadth and detail is something again. For example try slowing this down…
Its not about technique, not to disparage technique , but its merely the tool , its what you do WITH the technique that matters …
I had not logged in for a couple of days.
Plenty of useful info has been posted here, and has actually changed my outlook of the trying to “develop a particular style”.
Especially when playing using emotion was mentioned, now that I have thought about that, it makes so much sense.
It’s easy for a beginner like me, to get caught up in the “,your not good untill you can play rolls at lightening speed” mindset which seems to be far from the truth.
But it would be nice to be able to do that 
You can put all the feeling and emotion you want into your playing, but without command of the instrument your feeling won’t be communicated to the listener. They will only perceive formless noodling.
There’s a saying that goes something like
The difficult must become habit, the habit become art.
In visual arts, I’ve heard this definition:
Art is the recording of human experience; the more profound the experience, and the more clear the recording of it, the better the art.
A musician has to learn how to play, and a painter how to paint, before they can create good music or good art.
Amen !
Well yes, and no… depends… just look at the world of popular music… some of those bands are pretty rough, yes there is technique but an unschooled singer … can make a fortune and the schooled singer… can maybe make a living.
Its not in the technique . Yes the basics must be mastered, 3 chords did the rolling stones ok …
In the world of art… yes there are the old masters, real art IMO but thats just an opinion. There are plenty of artists where its just art and no technique…
So to an extent it depends on the genre and the aims of the artist. Do they want to express their art with or without commercial success with or without decades of study. What do they aim for?
Technique alone simply is insufficient , yes it can garner some success , but what do we play for?! Commercial success? To enjoy a few tunes with friends, sessions. To sit of an evening on the porch with a beer and have fun? To play with an orchestra? A jazz band , there are numerous aims all with different requirements On numerous instruments.
Every instrument has different requirements. A whistle… put it to your lips and blow, 10 min or an hour and the whole scale can be played with a fair degree of intuneness and acceptable tone, to accomplish the same on fiddle… could take years…
And being able to play an instrument.. the techniques required doesnt make one an artist, it makes a technician.
Mastery of the physical bit, the wiggling of fingers in the correct order, admirable as it is,doesnt make an artist…
I have 120 + solo GHB albums. Of those maybe 5 ? stand out , sure they all have exquisite technique but what is it that those few have that Isnt had by everyone of them . all world class players technically.
And who do pipers play for. Mass audiences? Or other pipers…
Im all for technique , but its a tool to achieve artistic expression. Not a replacement.