Finding Modern Popular Songs to Play

Whistle
1

Hi,

I’d like to learn to play modern pop songs on the whistle. This is what I’m starting to do today:

  1. Go to http://www.songkeyfinder.com/learn/songs-in-key
    to find songs in D or G.

  2. Go to musicnotes.com and look through different versions (piano, violin, etc.) to see if there’s something suitable for the whistle.

Here Comes the Sun (for piano) in G major:

http://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0104486

Yellow Submarine (for violin) in G major:

http://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0109955

Is this the right approach, or are there other tips you can share?

2

Musicnotes can transpose songs, up to 3 semitones as I understand it, so any key is fair game, transposable to either D or G.

Pick songs you like, particularly those you know well enough to sing.

3

And if you can sing them, try to sound them out on the whistle. May be difficult at first but gets easier if you work at it a bit. Start with simple kid songs (Twinkle, Twinkle or Frere Jacques) and work your way up to Yellow Submarine.

Best wishes.

Steve

4

Up to Yellow Submarine??? :really:

5

There are numerous websites to be found with Google and use key words like music, tin whistle, tabs, etc., and you will find what you’re looking for. If you like movie themes try the name and include whistle, tin whistle, penny whistle, tutorial, etc., for that approach.

I found one here:

Enjoy your whistling. :thumbsup:

6

A chorus with four whole notes… What more could one aspire to? Such elegant simplicity!

Best wishes.

Steve

7

Thanks for the suggestion. The YouTube videos from this website have links to the sheet music, which is helpful. However, many songs are not in G or D, so would require half-holing. As a beginner, I find half-holing to be tricky. Of course, you could also play without half-holing, but it would sound off.

Are there any tricks to getting half-holing to work okay? Thanks.

8

Tricks? yes, practice playing… a lot. Half-holing will come with some effort. I’m still working on my half-holing skill and it takes time.

There are plenty of other sites with pop tunes with the whistle in mind. Google around. If you can find ABCs for tunes, then you could work on transposing keys. Another skill in whistling and it takes time. No tricks.

9

Yes… I need to practice a lot, since I’m new at this. I seem to like my new hobby and practicing, and it’s giving me something to do in these colder months.

Speaking of keys, I did try to copy some of the ABC stuff into a converter and transpose a few tunes.

If I remember correctly, sometimes they transposed into D okay (with the F#, C#) and G okay (with the F#), but at other times, while it transposed into D or G as I wished, I wound up with one or more non-scale notes (e.g., Bb), so transposing didn’t actually solve the issue.

I only tried this a bit, so didn’t quite figure out the formula. Are there certain keys which transpose “cleanly” into D and G, and other keys I should stay away from (where transposing would result in non-scale notes)?

Also, I just got a low F whistle to avoid the shrill factor, and I’m using the D fingerings, so if I understand this correctly, D comes out sounding like F, and G comes out sounding like Bb, which is okay (I think, if I don’t play with other people, or if a guitar player plays different chords or uses a capo–I think playing with others is “far” off into the future).

If I learn the “correct” fingering to not-transpose and play the notes as actually written (so I would play hole 6 for F, instead of pretending it’s a D), then I could play in F major (with Bb), and Bb major (with Bb and Eb). Is this something that I should do? Assuming I only play an F whistle (…and don’t get carried away with buying whistles in other keys and learning multiple sets of fingerings), it seems quite do-able (I already know the D fingerings, and could learn the F fingerings).

Sorry to add different subjects to the original thread title, but as a newbie, I’ve read so many older posts here, but still have some questions.

Thanks.

10

No. All keys are symmetrical.

Some songs have melodies which stay within the bounds of a major scale and some have a few notes that stray beyond it, usually to haunting effect. These are known as ‘accidentals’. In that melody they’ll be accidentals no matter what key you transpose to. If you read the dots, these will be the notes that have a sharp (#), flat (b) or natural (♮) sign before the dot. These are tunes you’ll need to pass on until you get better at half holing unless you find a tune where the accidental is one of the Cs.

11

Hey, it’s your thread … you can take it wherever you want. And as far as thread drift goes, this is nothing.

If I understand the question, this is what you’re doing when you transpose a tune. You can read a tune scored in F major and play it at “concert pitch” on your F whistle, playing F as XXXXXX and Bb as XXXOOO, or you can transpose that tune to D major and play it with D-whistle fingering, playing the note that looks like D as XXXXXX and the note that looks like G as XXXOOO. You’ll get exactly the same fingerings, and the tune will sound exactly the same.

The only difference is you’ll have to learn how to read music scored in F major (and Bb major). You may find this a useful skill–if you find a tune scored in F or Bb you won’t have the bother of transposing before you can play it–but it isn’t a necessary skill. You’ll find lots of advocates here for learning to play tunes by ear, and not reading music at all. (I’m not one of them, but I can appreciate the argument.)

It goes the other way, too. Once you can read tunes in F major, you can pick up a D whistle, finger it as if it was an F whistle, and the tune will come out in D major.

12

LOL! A good laugh to start the morning!

13

WE have a flute player and whistle player in the band they do a really good job with the fiddler of Hey Jude
a sort of Dedannan rip of. The second part is the Jude hornpipe music and midi on session (web site) and we finish with
Rocky road to Dublin Its really nice to get a mix of pop and traditional