Has anyone worked out why it is that some tunes are just so hard to play? I have been trying to learn “The Wise Maid”. The first section is OK but the second one has some runs that just tie my fingers in knots. On the mandolin no problem: the fingers just fall into place, on the whistle.. oh dear.
Drowsy Maggie is another one for me.
Steve
Drowsy Maggie will do that to you. Dropping from a high D to the low E is pretty tough. When I play this with my fiddle player friend I let him take the A part and join him on the B
Break the tough parts into smaller parts and practice those very slowly, over and over and over. This type of practice is not musical: you’re training your muscles to do something unfamilar. If you find particular intervals difficult, just practice those two notes over and over. As you get comfortable, you can pick up the pace. Next, add a note or two to the tough section and repeat. In time, you’ll get those tough sections down pat.
There must be something about the mental process that make some bits hard: just like tongue twisters: something happens in your brain when you try to say “red lorry, yellow lorry” over and over.
I was wondering if everyone finds the same bits difficult or if we all have our own individual problems.
Steve
Drowsy Maggie will do that to you. Dropping from a high D to the low E is pretty tough.
But has very little to do with the fingers
What you could do is just play a low D ~E2 DEB once you can play that fluently practice to spit a bit of extra air on the D and you play ~E2 dEB there’s really nothing much to it. Ofcourse you’re free to play low D all the time, which is a lot easier and suits the whistle and flute than your typical fiddle movement that is ~E2 dEB
There is no music on the planet that you can’t play if you slow it down enough. The key to playing quickly is by mastering it more slowly. This is what I was told and have found to be true.
I think it’s a matter of learning patterns. The easier tunes use patterns that we have seen many times before and can both recognize immediately and play without thinking. As we learn more and more tunes, we learn more and more patterns.
Yeah, Wise Maid used to get to me, too. It’s the variation on
arpeggios, I think. If you practice your arpeggios enough, your
fingers want to do them, but then you throw a leading note in
between, and suddenly the fingers rebel. The B part of Atholl
Highlanders is similarly tough phrase.
Miyagi: First, wash all car. Then wax. Wax on…
Daniel: Hey, why do I have to…?
Miyagi: Ah ah! Remember deal! No questions!
Daniel: Yeah, but…
Miyagi: Hai!
[makes circular gestures with each hand]
Miyagi: Wax on, right hand. Wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off. Breathe in through nose, out the mouth. Wax on, wax off. Don’t forget to breathe, very important.
[walks away, still making circular motions with hands]
Miyagi: Wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off.
(from the Karate Kid. Now go sick those box players.)
I think it’s a matter of learning patterns. The easier tunes use patterns that we have seen many times before and can both recognize immediately and play without thinking. As we learn more and more tunes, we learn more and more patterns.
I’ve noticed this too. It’s not nearly as difficult learning new tunes now that I have a few patterns learned. But there are still those tune-specific patterns that make certain tunes harder to learn than those with more familiar patterns.
~Steffi
I concur.
Playing without thinking. Its preloaded patterns for sure.
I feel that is about the only way you get really clean and fast.
Learn it slow and correctly and then “Zen it” up to speed.
Your perception off time will stretch and control will increase as you practice.
Dont think about playing the notes.
Its too fast to think. Just make the tune in your head happen.
Not to say you aren’t aware of it but its a different part of the brain I guess.
So you do have to pay attention too.
Crazy thing is when you turn a corner not paying enough attention take the wrong exit and end up on another tune.
Might be my brain is just crosswired though. 
Good thing about that is its clear they might go together well as a set. 
It works for other things besides music. I fence and use the same method.
Anyway… just my personal experience for what its worth.
Try dropping notes. Some pices can only be played “in full” at slower speeds. At high speed you need to drop out some stuff, unless you are a serious expert. Part A of Drowsy Maggie falls into this category IMHO. I drop out all that counterpoint.
For heaven’s sake, just follow the above advice and practice it a bit. That counterpoint is both relatively easy and present in a number of great tunes – “Pigeon on the Gate”, “Jackie Coleman’s”, and “Maudabawn Chapel” come to mind instantly.
I have really appreciated lurking in the background and learning advice from more experienced players. I’ve only been at this a few months and I’ve been struggling to play Donnybrook Fair at jig tempo. (Something I brought up in another thread.) I’m still struggling with it, but trying to slow down and be patient. In the meantime, I’m finding my intonation is improving for slower things and I’m really beginning to enjoy listening to myself, even if the dog does still run for cover! 
Hmmmmm. Not being a natural “grinder,” I find myself kind of glossing-over certain hard parts of tunes. (Skipping notes, or reconfiguring them into a “sounds kinda like” bunch.) This, to keep to a certain tempo, and to fancy m’self a better player than I actually am… And each time I gloss, I cringe inside…till finally, I get sick and tired of the charade, and take the damn phrase by the horns, slow it down…and GRIND, till it improves.
You naturally gifted “tedious” types are way ahead us Superficial Pretty Boys…
Maybe this is related phenomena or maybe not, but I’m aware of passing thru various stages of tune awareness while learning this dang whistle playing…
First it was a struggle to make a handful of notes fit together nicely.
Next it was hard to play a whole A part or B part at one go.
Then playing an A part and a B part together had a stumble between the parts.
Somewhere in there, if a song was going well I would start listening to myself and stop playing to listen, and the music would stop! (anyone else remember this happening?)
Next, I got lost in the repeats. Each part was fine and putting them together was fine, but I sometimes would lose track of where I was in the larger scheme.
Now I’m working on playing the “song” which is not simply playing the right notes.
I do think that playing - the mechanics of playing - needs to become reflex action. And on more than one level, no? You think a song and it comes out. You don’t think about wiggling fingers and puffs of air, you think “yes, that’s the sound I want” and make it.
Could the finger twisters be new habits yet to be formed, new reflexes?
I have to admit to having done quite a bit of that myself in the past. But this really is a cardinal sin. It’s much more efficient to slow things down and play every single note, evenly and clearly and with the proper rhythm. Before you know it, it’s sounding real good.
The Wise Maid:
The B part is mostly a series of arpeggios. So first tackle them individually as arpeggio exercises, very slowly at first, then gradually build up speed. Play the notes forwards and backwards and in different orders until the fingers lock in. Then work them back into the tune. The arpeggios are roughly (in ABC notation):
|:dA FD FA df af:| Keep the B1 finger (first finger, bottom hand) down
|:fAdf fAdf:| Keep B1 down
|:eAce eAce:| Keep B1 and B2 down (maybe)
|:BEGB BEGB:|
|:AD FA df af:| Keep B1 down
Drowsy Maggie:
For the common |E2BE dEBE| pattern, the trick is again “lazy fingering”. Keep the bottom B1 and B2 fingers planted firmly down on the “E” throughout the fingering, and it should be fairly easy to play (because now only one hand at a time is moving).
A tune that always tripped me is Ed Reavy’s Hunter’s House, in bar 3 of the B part: |c2ac bcac|. Using cross-fingered c-naturals, the peculiar rocking motion seems awkward. Then I tried using the overblown harmonic a (xxxxxx) and b (xxxxxo) fingerings, and suddenly it’s the equivalent fingering of |c2dc ecdc|, which is pretty easy.
Are you sure you mean “Hunter’s House”? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a version of that with a C-natural pedal note anywhere in it. The Reavy collection gives the 3rd measure of the B part as |A2 ad bdbd|, thesession.org |A~a3 b~a3|, and I think I usually play it |Aaaf bfaf|…
You’re right, Sol. It’s just a weird variant I picked up somewhere, probably on concertina originally, and transferred to whistle.