Forced Workshop...

Whistle
1

Ok, I posted a similar bit in a recent post regarding workshops..

I have been ‘requested’ to start teaching whistle at a local music store. I offered up a couple of local musicians that I think can play whistle just as good or better than myself, and can read sheet music and all of that, but they have rather efficiently ‘suckered’ me into it! :slight_smile:

I need input pretty please!!!

What I have put together so far is the following. I still haven’t sorted out what order as of yet.. but this is what I have observed… still hafta do basic, intermediate, advanced, what to include there, etc.

Basic fingering, Breathing (control, good places to take a breath with the beat, etc.), Tounging (kinda goes with breath control), Clean jump to second octave (tounging again, a bit more advanced), basic structure of ornamentations, keeping time, keeping it simple to keep it smooth and steady instead of trying to go too fast and get muddy w/ ornamentation at first.(a mistake I’ve made in the past)

I’m considering using Britches full of Stiches as a good, basic tune that incorporates all three major components, at a very easy pace. What do you think? It has the most basic ornamentation, and just hits the second octave.

Ok, overall, any ideas, suggestions, ok’s, not ok’s???

Any input would be greatly appreciated. I can’t believe I’m being asked to teach a class when I don’t even know how to read sheet music, but they insist they just want someone to show HOW to play. Hope I can meet the standards!!!

Thanks all,
John

2

I had to teach a whistle class at Renaissance Festival Academy in KC, and proceeded as follows:

  1. got 2 dozen Clarke Megs from The Whistle Shop - they’ll give you a break if you buy in quantity, but you have to ask first.
  2. got sheet music for a few simple pieces I already knew by ear, and studied the sheet.
  3. went over basic simple scales and fingerings with the class
  4. tried an “in-unison” exercise on a couple of the pieces (Megs are not well in tune with each other! :frowning:
  5. gave everyone homework on one piece that incorporated all the basics
  6. from there, you just have to ad-lib.

You’ll get students who can sight-read, and those who haven’t a clue. Just wing it after the Basic 5, and you’ll not go wrong! If they can come out of it playing something relatively simple like “Blooming Heather”, they’ll love yer forever! :smiley:

Cheers,
serpent

3

Egan’s is also a good for a first ‘real’ beginner tune when teaching by ear…

4

Well, I don’t have to worry wbout the whistles, I have all the second hand ones I need for that, and they all just happened to work good and be exactly in tune with each other for some reason! :laughing:

I hate to agree, but I’m gonna hafta agree on the sheet music. I know hundreds of tunes, so I’ll just memorize each note and then have that one to pass out to the class! :slight_smile:

Haven’t learned Egan’s myself… I’ll have to nab that one somewhere and learn it real quick today.

Thanks for the info thus far guys.

This is gonna be a little nervous for me at first. I’ve taught classes plenty for children and adults, but not for whistle! :smiley:

Take care, and thanks again writing notes… :smiley:

John

5

Speaking as someone who is at the playing level of someone who would attend your beginners class, and as someone who used to teach, I’d say that your first stab looks like a good one. A couple of suggestion.

You need to give your students the means to contine their edutation after they have left your class. Translate that as the ability to learn new songs on which they can practice the techinques you teach them.

It doesn’t take much to learn to read sheet music. A broad statement like that needs some clarification. Learning that the four spaces on a five line staff are F, A, C, E (face) doesn’t take very much to learn. The rest on the notes can be figured out from those, one note at a time. Now that is a long way from being able to play a tune by reading sheet, but it is enough to translate a song from sheet into tablature. What I do when learning a new tune is to write down on the sheet below each note what the letter name of that note is. Below that, I write down how many holes to cover to play that note. Given that, it is easy to get the fingers used to the correct sequence of notes. Once the fingers know where to go, I’ll listen to a MIDI of the tune a small section at a time to get the timing down.

On the web, it is easy to find sheet music and/or ABC. I suggest using either of these as a starting point and teach the students how to create some form of tablature.

If you were to type up a small turorial for translating to some form of tablature and give it to the students a few days before the class. You could then review it quickly in class so that one piece does not wind up taking an hour of the class time. You could then teach the class using tabluature.

When I first started, the second register was some vast and mysterous thing and I just couldn’t for the life of me translate the notes on the sheet into upper register fingering fast enough to learn anything. When I switched to using tablature, the second register became clear. I want a G, I cover 3 holes. I want a higher G, I cover the same 3 holes and blow harder. Learning how hard to blow takes practice, but the mystery is gone.

You may want to introduce the class to Bill Och’s (sp?) Clark Tinwhistle book. I haven’t seen it myself, but others on the board seem to recommend it more than any other.

Well I’ve probably typed enough for book now. I’ll go ahead and hit submit.

Good luck with your class.

6

Thanks for that suggestion on the sheet music. I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I am able to read it as far as E-G-B-D-F AND F-A-C-E, so you’re right, I could then just convert it to tablature and create picts of fingerings for each note. Great idea. I was only going to go the finger hole route… good thinking to give them something to take w/ them.

I have seen several post on Och’s book too, I just may have to take a look at it. I have written up a small booklet already that I plan to distribute with my whistles when I get back up to full steam and production, whcih thankfully is getting closer and closer, so I think I get the general idea of it.

Very good. Thank you sir.

That’s what’s great about this board… the wealth and breadth of knowledge.

Take care all,
John

Edit: Oh yeah.. serpent… I know what you mean, I taght a little boy (around 6 I think) to play Britches pretty decent, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a kid smile so big I thought his face would split at the corners of his mouth!!! :slight_smile:



[ This Message was edited by: McHaffie on 2003-03-02 18:32 ]

[ This Message was edited by: McHaffie on 2003-03-02 18:36 ]

7

Looks like the exact workshop I’m looking for. Too bad there isn’t one around here (like that). I really could use a proper introduction into tin whistling :slight_smile:

I thought about some additional points you could teach, but can’t think of a single one. Probably hand them out enough tunes to keep them busy.

Good luck with your class!

8

from personal experience, i’d advise against learning to read sheet music by writing out the letter names of each note and playing it that way. in the end you’re going to rely on those letter names. really, the letter names of the note are not important so much as remember what fingering goes with that note. just find out which fingering goes with the note and play it whenever you see it. if you just do this without writing out the fingerings or notes, you’ll develop a much quicker reaction during site reading.

you can teach the class this by writing out the note and the fingering the first time, and then having them recall it from then on. teach them two notes and have them go back and forth looking only at the staff representation of those notes.

you can go look through the book section of the music shop and study the methods they use to teach beginners. they often work for all instruments

9

A tool I’ve found helpful is on Thom Larson’s Whistle Shop site. The tutorial features scale notation below
and a whistle above each note with appropriate finger position for the note. This helps newbies correlate finger positions with each note
of the scale. Just print out, trim & laminate with a real laminator, or do a quick & dirty lamination with off-the-shelf stickum sheets from Kinko’s. This makes a food/coffee/Guiness-proof learning aid, - easy to prop on the computer keyboard while picking through new tunes. It helps me learn stuff I can’t figure out by ear,
and gives an easy intro to note reading. -Check w/Thom Larson before producing these as its copyrighted to www.thewhistleshop.com.
-Good luck with your class!

Brian O.

10

Yup, I’ve already got the pictures of each possible fingering of a whistle. Theyre about twice the size of a High D, so they should be easily viewed from two rows of 5 chairs in a semi circle methinks. (Oh, I have also printed out some fingering charts for take homes. Didn’t laminate them though… good idea.)

My original thoughts from info thus far had been to put the appropriate ‘whistle fingering picture’ above each note of an enlarged piece of sheet music, and then the letter below it.

Now then, I guess I can see the point of them not relying on going by the letter each time, however, shouldn’t I at least have a large picture of the scale?? You know, xxxxxx = D (in a nice big vertical picture format of course) ?? And possibly a Note scale next to it??

Also, I can’t see how I won’t have to have at least one or the other (letter or fingering picture) in reference to each note for those who cant read sheet music at all, the won’t have any reference point with which to play. Explain that in more detail if you would, maybe I am not thinking of something here, but I don’t see how they could possibly learn without some visual aid. (I can’t yet! :wink: )

Anyway, I am soaking all this up like a sponge, thanks so much, keep it coming as long as you can, cuz it’s all helping me out tremendously here. Golden tidbits of everyone are working their way into this class.

I super appreciate it.

Take care,
John

11

Is this like a one-time workshop, or will it be a series of lessons? Teaching music reading is easy if you have a few sessions over which to teach it, because you can focus on a few notes at a time (BAG being common starter notes for whistles and recorders)…you show them the notes on the staff, then the fingering on the whistle, run them through some exercises using those notes, then teach them a simple tune using those notes as they follow along on the staff. They practice for a week, come back the next week knowing those notes, and you teach the next 3 (often FED…or you can go up, if that’s easier). As you’re going along, you also teach note values and time signatures (I like to do it by teaching them to clap the rythmn).

If this is a one-time workshop, however, you’re not going to be able to do much with the music reading thing, other than what you’ve described. Even the Ochs book is set up to be used over several lessons. If this is the case, I’d not worry too much about music reading, but I would send them all home with a fingering chart that includes the notes, as well as with a recommendation for the Ochs book or a similar tutor so they can, if they wish, eventually learn enough music reading to go on with.

Redwolf

12

Yeah, this is what’s making me pull my hair out… I’m not a music instructor, and I do not know how to read sheet music (other than egbdf / face) nor do I understand what or how time signatures are / work, etc.

I’ll put it this way, you know everything about me (musically) as thus: Visually, if I can’t find any other resource than sheet music, I can break it down note by note, writing it down to letter form, then playing from there until I figure out ‘how it goes’ and play it till I know it.

If it’s in abc format. Fine. But still, I am limited to the abc’s of it. I am trying to learn the time sigantures, modes, etc.

The only thing I can honestly say that I can 100% do ‘johnny on the spot’ is listen to a song, play with it for a few minutes, and play it. If I take the time to practice for a few days, I can play the ornamentations and add my own flavors to it. That’s it guys.

I am to teach a class twice a week. It will not always be the same people, and it will be a variety of age groups. I officiated this with the music store today… 1 beginners on tuesdays, and one intermediate / advanced on thursdays.

I have gone over and over this with the owner of the store, and he is insisting that everyone he has spoken with are either band students, or enthusiasts that are unsatisfied with teachers / instructors in the area, and he only wants someone that will show HOW to play a whistle, as the impending students (like that term? :slight_smile: ) are apparently fed up with certain things I don’t understand what he’s saying, and they want to be shown HOW to play. Makes no sense to me, but I will find out shortly!!!

Basically, I think I’m going to have to take a culmination of everything we’ve all discussed here with me, and take my own notes the first two classes to see what the heck is going on!!! :slight_smile: Then I’ll keep bugging you guys for help!!! :laughing:

Geez I’m nervous. I’ve substituted for math, biology, general ed, done some daycare, and yes a music class, but that was just going by a lesson plan… I’ve made up my own lesson plans and such for many different workshops of different kinds, but this is something I truly love myself, and want to make sure those interested get what they deserve.

More than likely, I’m jst making a mountain out of a molehill but we shall see… Tomorrow is the big day!!! Pray for me! or whatever it is you might do!!!

Thanks again all, everything is in my mind and on paper, and going with me tomorrow. We’ll see what goes! Wish me luck!!!

Take care,
John McHaffie


Boy, I sure am good at novels ain’t I? Sorry… :laughing:

13

Given all that, I’d say don’t worry overmuch about the musical notation. What your students want is the mechanics…as you said in your first post, the breathing, tonguing, ornamentation, etc. Sounds like most of them will read music already, and teaching musical notation would be outside the scope of this course.

You may be able to do a lot simply by example…you play something, they follow you…you correct what needs correcting, etc.

Redwolf

14

I wanted to wait until a little time passed since my weekend workshop.

I think that with a group as diverse as we had, it would have been hard to teach a lot of technique because there would only be a portion of the class who was at any particular level at any time. So, I think that his (the intructor was Jimmy Noonan) options were limited. As such, he taught us songs. I think that what I would have liked to have seen is as he taught the songs, he broke down each song and described the WAY he played it. For example, explain the specific ornamentation he used. There was one place where someone suggested that he could have used a roll rather than a triplett in one song and he said “No” that it would have changed the essential character of the song. That is the kind of stuff that I would have liked to see more of. He also showed one fingering trick. These are the types of things I liked the best.

So, if he would have integrated learning the song with learning ornamentation choices and playing methodology and with IrishTrad theory (in other words how to make true to the Irish tradition), that would have made the fact that I couldn’t play the pieces less disappointing. I would have felt that I got something significant from my time and money.