Hi, this is my first post here, so please excuse the n00b lameness off it
I’ve been trying to score this melody for my whistle in key D. Problem is it doesn’t have Ab or A# notes. I tryed transposing it down a couple of semitones, but now I don’t have F or Ab.
Am I just not finding the right key for this tune, is it impossible, is it impossible for a key D whistle, or is there a way to get an F and Ab on my key D whistle (such as partially covering up a hole)?
Thanks!
Hmm… what the hey, here’s the melody I’m working on scoring, if it helps:
E G A B C B A | F# D D E G | E E D# E F# D# B |
A C D E F E D | B G G A C | A A G# A B G# E |
| | |
2 0 0 5 ? 5 0 | 1 3 3 2 0 | 2 2 ? 2 1 ? 5 |
2 5 - - 5 | 2 | |
_ - | | |
----------------------------------------------------------------
(play first bar) |(play second bar)| F# E D# C# D# E |
| | B A G# F# G# A |
| | |
| | 1 2 ? 4 ? 2 |
| | |
| | |
----------------------------------------------------------------
D D C# B A |(play second bar)|(play third bar) |
G G F# E D | | |
| | |
3 3 4 5 6 | | |
- - - - - | | |
| | |
----------------------------------------------------------------
(play seventh bar) |(play second bar)|(play sixth bar) | E |
| | | A |
| | | |
| | | 2 |
| | | |
| | | |
(Top notes are the actual notes based on a guitar tab I found, second line is the transposed key, underneath that is the fingering - it’s pretty obvious what the song is )
Hi AirScapia—Welcome to the forum. You don’t need to excuse your question. Many of us are beginners (I am) and we have all sorts of problems. I am not adept at this sort of thing and I am having a bad brain day, so I hope someone else will come along who can help you.
F nat can be played on a D whistle by half covering the second hole.
Ab can be done by the same trick on the fourth hole.
This half holing can be tricky on the more up tempo tunes but should not be a problem - after practice - on airs and songs.Many of the good folk on this Board would use cross fingering for these notes but I never do so I will leave that to them to explain.
You mention in your post that the tune is pretty obvious …well I can’t hear it
I have no way of knowing if the notes are rising or falling so I am curious as to what the tune is called..
Go on now …show me up in front of the whole board..a never repeated offer
I tried it a bit on my whistle and like dubh I couldn’t get the tune. Usually for whistle notation they use a capital letter for the lower register, e.g. A and a small letter for the higher register, e.g. a. So “A” would be an octave below “a”. But I also don’t know many tunes. Also, I can’t get the rhythm. Is it in 4/4 time? This code is a tough nut to crack!l The tune doesn’t have the name “Maggie” in it, does it?
BTW, I think it’s a 6/8 beat, not sure, but I put them in bars based on the tab I was reading off not actually how it should be.
And I’m still not saying what it is, as it should be blindingly obvious. Maybe you people are reading my score wrong. Sorry, I learnt this tabbing method from some book:
0=all holes open
X=cover X amount of holes from top
0 over X=leave top hole open and cover X amount of holes below that
hyphen under number=upper octive / blow harder
I guess I like my wild guesses to be really wild.
Brain deficit. As soon as you said that, it suddenly worked.
Good thing I wasn’t a character in The DaVinci Code.
Clearly, I cannot decrypt.
There are hundreds of versions of Greensleeves—if yours is something written by Mozart then what I am posting here won’t help you. This is a version in E minor. It isn’t exactly like your version. I stuck in a few extra notes when I was playing it to make it sound like the Greensleeves I know.
Edited to say the tune went away. Which may be just as well.
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/FindTune.html
If you go to this website and type in the title of a tune, it will help you find it. I don’t understand everything about it, but if I read the instructions it might help me.
You might be perfectly happy half holing and it’s good to learn how to do it. I am just lazy!
I was a bit taken aback by the jig part myself. Perhaps we should just call it Kick My Arse and say someone thinks it sounds something like Greensleeves. (I didn’t mean that I stuck extra notes into this sheet music. I just did that when I was playing it.)
I have tried and tried to find a version of Greensleves (or What Child is This, for
you Christmas music types) that is suited to the whistle, but I think it’s just not
possible. There are too many accidentals. It’s nowhere near as difficult on the
recorder (cringe)…
AirScapia, I think you’ve probably hit the “easiest” key. It will only need
the G#'s (Play a G and then tilt your ring finger until it sounds like a G#.
This is half-holing.) and F naturals. The F naturals are easier in this song,
because you only use them between E’s. So you can play an E, then lift your
middle finger enough to get an Fnat, then put it all the way down again to
make an E.
You can play this starting on E. I do it all the time. Have been since I started playing it whilst still having difficulty with that C-d-C jump. Which I stillst have.
When you get down too low, just, ah, play some other notes for a while . . .
EGABCBAF#DEF# GEEDEF#GF#
or, more excitingly,
EGABCBAF#DEF#GAGF#GF#EF#E
Thus explaining why the music teachers kept throwing me out of class . . .
Well, that’s one way to solve the problem… ignore the G#'s altogether!
Actually I have heard bars 7-8 played that way (as a minor chord rather than dominant), but you really should play G# in bar 15. Same in bar 31 and 47.
I agree with dlovrien that the G#'s need to be in the later measures. I also agree with fearfaoin - Greensleaves is not only much easier on the recorder, it is truly beautiful tune on that instrument.
)
as it should be blindingly obvious. Maybe you people are reading my score wrong. Sorry, I learnt this tabbing method from some book:
