I thought I’d introduce myself and also ask for some resources for getting starting plying the whistle. I am a musician and have played guitar for about 7 years (electric and acoustic, everything from folk revival to indie rock to melodic death metal) and have played the Great Highland Bagpipes for about 5 years. I am a rather good guitarist, and I’m kind-of-sort-of ok on the Bagpipes. I love the sound of traditional music, and my goal is to switch from the GHB to the Uilleann pipes (many reasons: Noise level, being able to play in sessions, wider range of notes, don’t have to wear a uniform in public etc.) And I know that playing whistle is a good way to get started towards playing the UP. I also just want to play the whistle for itself. I have a Clarke D Tin Whistle and can play a couple tunes on it (Ok, I can play the Shire theme from LOTR, Wander My Friends from Battlestar Galactica, and the Braveheart theme) I figured them out by ear, but none of them are really hard to figure out. Can anyone suggest a good site/book/videos to start learning to play the whistle in the ITM idiom?
And I know that playing whistle is a good way to get started towards playing the UP.
Just out of curiosity: how do you know that and why would you think that?
Playing the whistle will give you a way to practice the use of your fingers and it may (under the right circumstances) provide a gentle introduction to playing Irish music. But that’s about the long and short of it. Playing the pipes well entails adopting a completely different concept of fingering from the whistle and in my experience (teaching the pipes) being a very fine whistle player doesn’t immediately and necessarily translate to being a good piper. There’s a fair amount of relearning and re-thinking involved in the process. And that’s only for starters.
From past posts, I get the sense that the “whistle-is-the-pathway-to-UP” concept is based more on a short-term means of getting a feel for Irish trad music and repertoire while waiting to get a set of UP.
As Gumby notes, the fingering is different and the whole bag/bellows/reeds/contraption thing of the pipes is far removed from the whistle. Can’t hurt, but if you want to play pipes, get some pipes and a teacher/mentor and learn pipes.
Mr Gumby is correct, whistle fingering is significantly different from uilleann fingering. In fact GHB fingering is closer than whistle in that it deals with 8 holes rather than 6.
Those friends of mine that have taken up UP from the GHB world, (usually with small/border pipes as an interim step so they are familiar with bag and bellows technique) say that they pick up the basic fingering quite quickly, but converting from GHB ornamentation to UP technique is the hardest part.
I would agree with Steve if you intend to play UP, get a set and start your journey.
I’ll assume that you know where you are going in regards to the UP.
In an attempt to actually answer the question you posed for us … One place where you can get started and which is free (assuming you have Internet access) would be the series of whistle lessons from Father Ryan Duns. These follow a rather logical path to learn the whistle through teaching a progression tunes in the idiom from simple ones to more the complex and introducing techniques as the tunes require them. Duns taught a college level course in tin whistle at Fordham. Start at the beginning of his blog on the subject and proceed at your own pace. Maybe it is not the best path for some or the only path but it is certainly one well worth looking into.
You can get started here. You start at the bottom of the page because of the “last in, first out” order in which the blog works.
There is no substitute for getting out living and learning within the idiom. A little time spent with a good teacher or at a workshop can be invaluable to get you off on a solid footing.
Thanks everyone for the help and the tips. I guess I’d just that learning the whistle was a good start o learning the UP. Using the whistle to get into the ITM idiom makes sense, I think I thought that meant that the fingering would be similar. I will start watching the videos suggested, even if whistle isn’t going to help learn UP fingering I still ant to learn it. In all reality the chances I’ll ever get a set of UP are a bit small, just too expensive what with guitar being my primary instrument.
