I want to play jigs at the right tempo, but my fingers seem to move like snails. Can anyone recommend some finger exercises?
Better, STronger, Faster by Bill Hart.
These exercises are for fife, but they work on whistle
and flute. They do work, IMO.
Also playing scales up and down is helpful,
in D, in G and in A. Spending some time every
time you practice going over fundamentals.
Increasing speed takes time, in any case.
Playing slowly is probably the key to increasing
speed. Speed tends to come from playing
slowly. Also playing VERY slowly difficult
passages, repeatedly, helps build speed.
Patience is essential, then more patience.
Spend at least 95% of your time playing slowly enough that you get the notes, rhythm, and (secondarily) ornaments right. Go apeshit every so often if it makes you feel good, but don’t consider that practice. If it doesn’t sound musical when you’re playing it slowly, it won’t if you’re playing it fast. It’s really important to learn the music correctly.
There are exercises, but I don’t do any except running.
Give it a year or two. As Jim said, patience and more patience.
There’s good advice here on lots of threads. IMO, praticing the scales slow at first, then faster and faster while remaining clean is a great excercise. Don’t forget to practice jumping octaves, changing your blowing speed with your finger speed (D - High D, E - High E, F# - High F#). Even going up the scale while dropping back to the same separate note in between scale notes. This helped me a lot to increase speed on more difficult tunes and for adding accents to them.
The more you practice a tune and know it well, the more relaxed your fingers will be on the whistle. While you’re practicing, think about how hard you’re squeezing the whistle. The more relaxed you are, the faster you can play.
I’d think practicing scales and exercises will help speed. I just don’t have the patience for it. Practicing tunes is an alternative that has worked for me. Some tunes have particular fingering challenges- an arpeggio or whatever. Play that tune and you’ll practice that technique.
Tony
Hi there. just a little advice from a music teacher…Most students who struggle with speed do so for various reasons, the most common including:
- they just didn’t practice enough:), though if you’re practicing alot this wouldn’t be your problem
- comfortable and confident with the material - already mentioned, yes the more you work on something, the more natural it feels so this goes back to practicing
- but this is the BIGGIE…Finger pressure. Most people who struggle with speed do so because they press too hard on the instrument.
And what do people do when they are trying to play fast?..the natural reaction is to ‘try harder’ and they end up squeezing the instrument too hard.
Ironically, even though I’m a semi-pro clarinetist, I am currently working on this with my clarinet playing. I struggle learning very difficult finger passages in orchestral rep. and even though I practice alot, use different rhythms combinations on the passage to loosen up the fingers (more on this some other time), I still have trouble. I always have lacked confidence in my technique.
I use more downward force than is necessary to cover the toneholes. Meaning, once my finger is on the tonehole, I squeeze beyond what is needed to keep my finger on that hole. I see this in young students whose fingertips are ‘white’ from pressing down so hard.
SO,…even though I’ve been playing for eons, and I can play many things well, I have reverted back to playing scales. VERY slowly using as little finger pressure as possible. So lightly in fact that sometimes a note won’t even come out because I’m pressing so lightly I didn’t cover the hole…and that’s OKKKK! That’s the point. And, as I play the scale exercises in 16th notes, slowly, they don’t always come out perfectly, metronomically even. ANd that too is OK…the point of the exercise is relaxation, not note accuracy or rhythmic evenness. Then I will increase the metronome by a few ticks. again, the goal is to play a little faster but staying relaxed. You keep doing this until you get to the desired speed.
Loosen your fingers up to the point of being ridiculous. Also, if you’re playing a whistle that doesn’t require piper’s grip, make sure your finger is ‘falling’ naturally from the big knuckle, not the knuckly in the middle of the finger or from the tip…people who do this are very rigid and tight in their finger motion. This way the entire finger should ‘fall’ in one motion with the tip of the finger landing onto the tone hole..instead of aiming for it with the just the finger tip. Hard to explain in writing without giving you a lesson:)
If you’re interested, pm me and i will compile a list of technique exercises for you including a list of different rhythms to use when practicing a technical passage.
Ok, sorry if I bored you all with my ‘music teacher’ stuff. These kinds of problems is what I teach and deal with every day so I love talking about it.
There’s more i can say but my thread is already very long:) Heck if my snooty lil’ conservatory education can help someone else without them paying as much money as I did to learn the stuff…then great! 
At least free advice is that…FREE:)
Good luck!
Kim
Kim, there is absolutely nothing for you to be apologetic about. Thanks for putting in the time and energy to help other players improve their technique.
Jon Michaels
What I used to do to practice speed was to take a recording of a passage and play along.
I would get some software like the “Amazing Slow Downer” and slow it down to half speed.
When I could play it three times in a row without error, I’d do it again and increase the speed by 10 bpm.
If I couldn’t play without error, I’d back off by five and play some more.
Basically, this method would keep me right on the edge of clean playing, but would keep just enough pressure on me (by being at the edge of my comfort zone) that the speed possible would go up quickly.
These days, I just play. It’s been a long time since I’ve done specific speed practice.
Only one other possible suggestion - something that’s been working well for me lately - using a metronome. I don’t mean exclusively, but making it part of your practice regimen. I was afraid of it at first because I thought it would make my playing robotic, but, to the contrary, it really has helped to sharpen my playing, increase my speed WHILE STILL HOLDING THE TUNE TOGETHER, and actually freeing me up and relaxing me. You get a good idea of where your playing is really at and you increase speed over time in a controlled and meaningful way. At first I only used it on jigs because that felt more comfortable for me, but now I use it on reels which was a bit more difficult at first but now very rewarding. I now find that when I play without the metronome, I’m playing faster and much better. Start at as slow a rate as you need to play the entire tune comfortably; don’t be intimidated into trying to play at first at say 114 or so because somewhere it says that’s the “correct” speed. This is just part of the overall approach in addition to what everyone else has said and whatever else you may feel like doing.
If you decide you want to use a metronome (if you’re not already), I’d suggest the Korg MA-30 - relatively cheap and feature loaded ( nice sound, also has visual, tap in, etc.).
Good luck and HAVE FUN.
Philo
Right-e-o Philo…I second the metronome thing.
Metronomes are musical lie detectors…it measures your playing against the truth which is why most people avoid them:)
Metronomes can be scary for people who don’t know how and when to use them properly.
You want to use a metronome to help yourself…not to enslave yourself.
If you want to work on your speed and work on finger exercises, using a metronome is the way to go. Once you think you have it, then shut it off when it comes time to play, this way you can do all the nuances you want and not feel enslaved to stay a specific tempo for every single measure or note.
The Korg MA 30 is what I have my students get. It’s nice because it will subdivide the beat for you into 8th notes, triplets, swing 8ths, 16ths, etc. You can pick up a new one on Ebay for around $11-14 plush shipping. They are around $30 new in a music store.
Another nice thing about using one is that it really will help you keep track of your progress. For instance, if you’re playing some sheet music, you can write down the metronome number in the margin. Then each day as you get it a little faster, you can cross off the number and write down the new one. It’s a good esteem builder too; to write them down and keep track. In a week you may see that you went from 78-104 and you’ll feel really good about yourself.
ALWAYS use a metronome for scale excerices. Most people can get to the down beats on time…it’s what happens in between the beats where people have problems:)…like not playing 16th’s evenly across the beat etc.
when working on a tune you want faster, a metronome would be great, though a little mechanical but not as much as people think. You can get all kinds of ornaments and slides and things in a tune while still using a metronome. It does work:)
After you work yourself up to the desired speed…bye bye metronome and happy playing.
Thanks guys. I have returned to my whistle after a 2 year break. I was practising for about an hour a day, but holding my whistle too tight, and injured my hand. It took me 2 years to recover. I am now taking it more slowly, and I think I could loosen my grip even further. I don’t want to end up back where I was again! Thanks all.
Oh yeah…yet another thing that popped into my brain regarding finger pressure/practicing in relaxed ways…
not sure if this applies to flute and other horizontally held instruments, but I know on vertical instruments, whistle, clarinet, sax etc. another source of finger pressure is that people squeeze too hard with the bottom thumb.
Check to see if you’re squeezing with your bottom thumb in one or more of the following ways: (you can be guilty of squeezing with the top thumb as well but most people tend to squeeze more with the bottom, in efforts to ‘hold onto’ the instrument)
- are you pushing up against the whistle with too much force?
- are you ‘pinching’ the whistle between your fingers with the thumb AND the index finger?–this is a common squeeze point…pushing ‘up’ on the whistle from behind with the thumb and pushing ‘down’ on the whistle from on top. Index finger is usually the culprit but it can be any of the 3.
- are you pinching with the thumb and ring finger?
The ring finger is the most common undiagnosed problem because sqeezing too much with the ring finger actually slows down all the other fingers, but people don’t know that.
Example. place your fingers (keep them curved) on a flat surface like a table…as if you were going to ‘strum’ your fingers on the table…I hope everyone knows what i mean by that.
Ok, with fingers curved…like you were playing whistle!..press down on the table with your 3rd finger, hard.
Watch your other fingers when you do this. Did your middle finger and pinky finger rise up as you pressed down with your ring finger?..they should have. Pressing too hard with the ring finger creates tension in the rest of your hand. Because your other fingers ‘rise’ when you press too hard with just one finger, the other ones have to work against that resistance to come back down again…hence slow fingers and trouble playing fast:)
do the same exercise testing one finger at a time, index, middle, ring finger, and pinky, and be aware of which fingers rise the most, which ones when pressed create the most tension in the rest of your hand. then be aware of that on your whistle!
If you really want a hoot…balancing the whistle on your knee or whatever, REMOVE your bottom thumb from the whistle…thumb straight up in the air like a ‘thumbs up’ sign…keep it close to the side of the whistle, just have it vertical.
Ok now play:) Resist the temptation to squeeze harder with your fingers on the bottom hand. It’s ok if the notes don’t all come out. Just see if NOT have the thumb squeezing away helps the rest of your fingers/hand feel more relaxed. Play like that slowly, keeping the fingers loose.
Then put the thumb back underneath your whistle and be aware not to squeeze too tightly. Keep in mind this relaxing thing is a process; especially if you’ve already been playing for years.
For those of you who have inquired regarding practice exercises…I need to use Finale and put them in PDF format. The exercises I do are from a clarinet book that goes below and above written whistle range so I need to modify the exercises for whistle. i will try to work on it this weekend.
Hope some of this helps.
Good luck relaxinggggggggg
Yep, it can be done with a flute!
What about straight fingers vs. curved? I’ve seen the whistle played both ways seeming successfully. Is this just a matter of preference?
-Not sure if this helps everyone, but my speed improves when I play with finger pads rather than tips as each lift or cover of a tone hole is faster. In other words: Choke up just a bit onto your last finger pads rather than tips, maybe even the middle pads if it helps. Cocking your right hand fingers down slightly may help too. This is the “piper’s grip” writ small and helps me sound better than I am.