Half-holing C-nat

Whistle
1

Over the years I’ve tended to rotate between playing whistle(/flute), mandolin (standard/octave), and piano, because for whatever reason, I can only focus on playing one instrument at a time. What I’ve learned from this is that each time I revive an instrument from neglect, it provides a magical opportunity to shed suboptimal old habits and pick up more ergonomic new ones.

So I’ve decided this time around, as it’s been a really, really long time since I’ve been able to play any music at all*, I can make an extra fresh start. The two things I want to change this time are:

  1. left/upper hand: learn the habit of half-holing C-nat
  2. right/lower hand: get into the habit of steading the whistle with my little finger, instead of having the ring or middle finger cover a hole
    So really I’m open to advice on either, but it’s the execution of a swift and in-tune half-hole on C-nat that’s eluding me.

What process worked for you in teaching yourself half-holing in general?
What pitfalls/mistakes might you have encountered when trying to learn this yourself?
Is there an approach do you’ve found most ergonomic? (or least ergonomic?
If you teach, what do you tell your students about this?

Prone to tl;dr ack wall’o’text? You can stop right here!

As far as my lower hand goes, I’m gonna try using an elastic to attach my wildly flying pinky to the whistle this time around. So I’ve been playing around with hair-ties to create the optimal ergonomic pinky-harness (tinkering around making/repairing/cleaning things chills me out). Any other suggestions are very welcome, though.

This is the point where I regret having given away Grey Larsen’s Tin Whistle Toolbox to whistle beginner after I got the flute one. My physical prowess far enough behind my intellectual/verbal processing that his ultra-detailed/verbose descriptions of things actually wor for me. I understand how is style might cause others to eyeroll or slog down, but I need to use my thinky-brain to visualize doing things in great detail before can make my body can execute it properly (sorta like writing code: gotta see the whole thing in my brain before I can translate it into code.

People with natural coordination seem to be better at learning physical actions by trial and error, but my body only stumbles upon dumb non-ergonomic habits that never work very well to begin with. Thus my iterative process of eliminating a bad habit each time I return from hiatus.

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  • Personal stuff of possible interest to members who’ve observed my evolution as a whistler over the years (I started out as clueless as a newbie could be!!!)

Back in 2015 I exhausted myself more than I had realized while doing home hospice caretaking, and my autoimmune disease responded (after the emergency was over, of course) with the most debilitating flare ever. Worst case, my connective tissue disorder lets the autoimmune reaction leak into my nervous system & brain, screwing up everything from autonomous processes to memory (it’s OK, I’m getting traditional/integrative medical support).

Generally, my hiatuses had been shorter. Simple connective tissue tears from overuse or non-ergonomic habits causing tears would heal if left alone for year or so: thus I’d switch instruments, or change my pastimes entirely [cooking/baking (I was an artisan/whole grain baker in my prime), learning languages, coding, site-building, writing, various methods of turning string into lace, etc]

This nervous system involvement may be why I"m naturally so uncoordinated, and need to visualize things very clearly before I can execute them well.

And then, because of that hyperactive immune system, I got Long COVID. Not recommended!!!

2

For high whistles, I play John Sindt’s instruments, and sidestepping the discussions concerning whether John’s whistles are sharp with forked fingerings, or whether one should deal with it via breath control, or whether there is an anomaly at all, I personally half hole the C natural, during 99.9274% of the selections I play. (The .07246% of our music in which I use a standard forked fingering, exists because there is one fast tune I learned a whole lot of years ago, and relearning it with half-holing the C-natural is simply not worth the time… Heh. Heh.

I play high whistles with slightly curved fingers. To be able to control the amount of C-natural half holing needed for good intonation, I simply straighten out my index finger a bit, which lifts the finger in a slant, off the top hole just a bit - which flattens the C# just a bit - allowing the C natural to be controllable, and in tune. Works for me. Mileage varies, I am certain.

3

I apologize in advance for not giving the help you wanted haha.

I never half hole, and just cross finger c nat, its fast and reliable. For whistles that dont get a perfect c nat, I tape the hole so it does.

For 2, I’ve been doing the opposite. I’ve noticed that as I get more low whistles that I cant reach the whistle with my pinky, and need to stabilize it with my ring finger instead. Maybe this habbit you have isnt so bad after all? I still do like using my pinky on high whistle, it just feels right. I just leave it down all the time if I’m going to use it. A random thing I’ve noticed is the whistle is much more stable if I move my thumb a bit forward so that its directly under my middle finger. This makes it so when my fingers are coming down it doesnt work like a lever and try to push the whistle up (if my thumb is back more when I hit my middle and ring finger’s down it wants to push the whistle up). This is un related but maybe will help.

Welcome back to whistling.

4

“As far as my lower hand goes, I’m gonna try using an elastic to attach my wildly flying pinky to the whistle this time around. So I’ve been playing around with hair-ties to create the optimal ergonomic pinky-harness (tinkering around making/repairing/cleaning things chills me out). Any other suggestions are very welcome, though.”

Just on the issue of using an elastic to bind the finger to the whistle, upon just fiddling with a whistle here to test that out, I notice that on my right hand the last two fingers interact and if I secure the last finger onto the whistle the fourth (ring) finger is highly restricted in motion range and sense of control. If I release the last finger, the fourth finger then regains it’s sense of control and speed. You should test that out, and make sure you don’t restrict your finger action, speed and sense of control by not keeping all fingers free and independent.

5



I agree with RoberTunes. First if all, squidgirl, many of us cannot have a best-operating ring finger if the pinky is restrained; it’s a natural condition that goes with having human hands. Some people may be able to overcome that, but I keep thinking about your connective tissue tears; a restrained pinky is NOT ergonomically sound, physiologically, and you might pay a price for it. At the very least, I can guarantee that your ring finger won’t be able to operate well that way, and possibly never. I am too impatient to force my hands to do what is unnatural to them. Which leads me to my next point: Secondly, I am extremely leery of prescriptive pronouncements such as one must steady the whistle with one’s pinky. Why, when other methods work just as well? I never used my pinky for that - instead, I would use my ring or middle finger as made sense; you just build an unconscious habit out of familiarity with playing the thing, and it works remarkably well. I would rather have a highly responsive ring finger from the get-go. I suspect that your “wildly flying pinkie” is merely an impression, for the reality is that the ring finger is ever in harness to the pinkie. Try this: Lay your hand flat, and lift the ring finger without raising the pinkie. Most, if anyone, cannot do it in any way that matters. Next, first lift your pinkie, and then lift your ring finger. You will find it easy to do. I hope this will clarify some things for you.

6

Ooh thanks, those are very good points about keeping the pinky restrained when ergonomics would call for its freedom!!! In the beginning I thought I simply had a pathologically stubby pinky, but now I want to figure out whether it’s a matter of angle and grip, but the power of habit works against me, sigh.

And whether or not I use it to steady my whistle, there’s still that issue of my pinky dancing around dementedly when I play, as thought it fancies I’m taking tea with a duchess.

7

Exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

8

Has anyone else mentioned it? If not, I think the only reason to be concerned is if it interferes with your playing, or if you are feeling some sort of stress in the finger as it happens.

9

squidgirl, here are a couple of observations from my (short) experience in playing the whistle. These may or may not help you.

I have found that it is good to know both half-holing and cross-fingering for c natural. For me it depends upon the musical passage (arrangement of notes) as to which one I use. In one song I use half-holing in part A and cross fingering in part B simply because for me it is faster to cross-finger and then play 2nd octave D than to half hole it.

As for the pinky finger, mine are extremely short (I guess) compared to others. I play high whistles with the pads of my fingers and cannot get my pinky finger to even touch the barrel of the whistle. To do so I have to play with the middle sections of my middle and ring fingers, which feels very un-natural and is slow. I have high whistles from several of the well known makers and find that it really doesn’t affect the tone of the note I’m playing to have my ring finger covering the last hole of the whistle instead of having the pinky steadying the whistle. Now that doesn’t apply to some of my low whistles. The second octave C#, B and or A can be affected by that method so I have learned to rest my ring finger on the top of the barrel just below the hole instead of in or on the hole.

I’m in my mid 60’s and have had hand/wrist problems for the past 6-7 years. I have found that if I try to play in a way that is un-natural for my body I start to have problems; however, if I listen to my body, I can play the whistle or flute for a couple of hours at a time with no problems.

I hope some of this helps you!

10

I can’t help wondering if what you have there are solutions looking for a problem. Try observe whistleplayers, see how they stabilise their whistles.

It’s always handy to have more ways to play a note and half holing is one way of doing it but you have to ask yourself what you’re hoping to achieve/improve and to what extend you want to upend your playing by relearning your Cnats. Try playing The Humours of Scariff :smiley:

11

Using the pinky to stabilize the whistle is impossible for me. Maybe it’s the way my fingers have been manufactured; with the pinky down, my ring finger is immobile. Thus, both my pinkies serve as ridiculous conductors while my other fingers diligently obey my commands, albeit poorly.

12

I think that in my case, the flying pinky are a reflection of way too much tension in my hands while playing. Whistle was my first instrument when I decided to learn to play music as a result of my (somewhat early) midlife crisis, triggered by my best friend dying of the flu when we were around 45. It made me ask, what do I want to do/experience before I die? It turned out the utterly unexpected answer was: being able to play music (my guess would have been exploring ancient temples in the jungle, or maybe popping out last-minute baby? :astonished: ).

Having being fired from childhood piano lessons for “lack of aptitude or application”, being the notorious owner of the worst singing voice ever, and totally failing to learn guitar & recorder as a teen, I had concluded I was not only untalented but tone-deaf too, and gave up on the whole idea of making music.

So when I started learning whistle, I was super tense about the whole process and very uptight about how bad I was at it. This all improved after getting back on the horse that threw me by succeeding at re-learning piano, then going on to learning a bit of mandolin too. And as for having the worst singing voice ever, I finally learned that I was that rare phenom, a female baritone, so no wonder attempting to sing in the normal female range did never went well!! I just have a lousy falsetto (though really broad range! :smiley: )

The end result is that my oldest whistle habit is to clutch it way too tightly. Yup, Brother Steve, I did actually fumble and drop the whistle surprisingly often–no wonder my childhood paranoia was spontaneous human combustion :laughing: . I wouldn’t even so much drop it as send it twirling away through the space when I freaked myself out with a really wrong note. And even to this day, it feels like my flying pinkies are an expression of that unnecessary habitual tension from when I first began.

Also, having been playing for so many years, it seems silly to continue to fear half-holing, and C-nat seems like the obvious place to start. It’s not even so much like learning something new–when I first picked up my whistle again, I couldn’t remember how to play C-nat at all. So, having been so very long, it’s kind of like a totally fresh start. Also, I was always afraid of half-holing in the past because I thought I was tone-deaf. Now I can trust my ear more, it seems like an obvious skill to learn.

13

My pinkies made quite a journey as well. I actually played the Highland pipes before injuries side-lined me and I gravitated into the world of recorders because the number of holes were the same. As much as I enjoyed the recorder, I wanted it to sound like a whistle, so naturally, I bought a whistle. Interestingly, nobody in the piping group/marching band I hung out with said anything about my wayward pinkies. :smiley:…then again it was only the left pinky that had a chance to wander.

14

I also struggle a bit with the pinky down for the same reason. Somehow putting that finger on the whistle throws off my others. I probably just need to do it a thousand times, but I’ve been finding that putting my ringfinger of my right hand back down once I get up to A/B has been working just as well.

15

Yep, that’s what I’ve been doing for all of these years, due to my dinky pinkies, and it works OK. But I’m curious whether moving a little further toward a pipers’ grip might enable lower pinky to do settle down and get a job.

16

It’s worth a try. I didn’t use piper’s grip on high whistles, and although my pinkies, too, are underendowed (I call it Dinky Pinkie Syndrome), it simply didn’t matter to me; never thought of the pinkie as freeloading, as it were. I just now tried piper’s grip on a stick and I was able to rest my pinkie on it. Basically, you just move your grip to a place where the pinkie is able to hit the right spot. If that grip doesn’t crowd your playing fingers too much, then it looks like Bob’s your uncle.

And I also discovered a mystery: even with the pinkie down on the stick, I found I could raise my ring finger with relative ease, unlike when you hold the palm down flat, as on a table. I wouldn’t say it’s ideal, but it seems probably quite sufficient. So if this true of everyone, then I hereby officially retract my earlier concerns and pronouncements on the matter. Please regard them as inapplicable, null and void. Pinkie-brace away, if you like. I probably still won’t, but old dogs and new tricks, and all that.

17

I’m not really a whistler yet, except for having tested my daughters whistle before sending it to her for christmas last year (I’ll be getting my own in a few weeks), but I have been playing keyless flute for almost a year. When I started flute, I was naturally trying to brace it with my right pinkie and was getting terrible cramps in my pinkie from the stretch. I started using a folded up piece of paper stuck to where my pinkie goes with a hair tie. It gave me a raised brace to reduce the stretch and was much more comfortable. Eventually I started learning half-holing starting with F-nat and then Eb, ocassionally other notes, but not much as forked fingering feels alot more natural to me. I found that using pipers grip on my right hand not only made half-holing easier and more accurate, but also eliminated the need for the pinkie brace. Win-win! :smiley:

18

About the topic of anchor fingers, I made a little video where I talk about the various approaches I’ve observed trad whistle and flute players using:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ_ypnajB44&t=6s

About approaches to playing C natural, I’ve always done both the half-holing and the cross fingering. Indeed the two approaches aren’t mutually exclusive, and on the uilleann pipes especially are commonly done in conjunction. I’ve always done the same on whistle.

Passages that go high B > high C natural > high B I’ve always done by leaving the top finger down and cracking it open a bit.

For middle C natural (which I call that because middle D is its neighbour, and the flute can play low C natural) I’ve always done the crossfingered C natural, with or without also venting the top finger.

Yes there are players, very good players, who don’t use the crossfingered C natural. But be aware that most of these players aren’t playing half-holed C naturals in all the spots that you think they would. Rather, they tend to play C# in many places that, in theory, a C natural would be played.

The most extreme example of that I’ve personally observed is when I arrived at a house party to find two young Irish fluteplayers sitting in front of the fire-place hammering out reel after reel, and nary a C natural between them! They were excellent players and knew loads of tunes.

In many tunes it mattered little, but it was odd to hear tunes like Rakish Paddy, the Gravel Walk, the Nine Points of Roguery, and the Bank Of Ireland played with C sharps throughout.

There are many tunes that would be extremely clumsy to play if you tried half-holing all the C naturals. Of course there are many ways of restructuring tunes to avoid difficult notes, and Irish pipers and whistle players have long done such things regarding the note F natural. There are many tunes that I’ve heard played with F naturals throughout by fiddle, banjo, and box players that I’ve heard with F sharps throughout by pipers, fluters, and whistlers. I’ve heard players who only half-hole C natural apply the same sorts of stratagems to the note C natural. (F natural has to be half-holed on keyless uilleann chanters, flutes, and whistles.)

One cool thing about crossfingered C natural is that it’s part of a shared suite of performance practices amongst trad Irish woodwinds (uilleann pipes, flute, whistles). Obviously this isn’t a practical argument for using crossfingered C natural, but it does help explain why it exists. Add to that the fact that the Baroque flute used crossfingered C natural as well.