Help for a (still) newbie!

Whistle
1

Hi all,

I’ve been playing for about six months now and hit a brick wall about a month or so ago…I just can’t seem to get any better regardless of the time I spend practicing!

Anyway I have two questions:
1)Regarding technique. I started paying attention to how I tongue and noticed that I tongue off the roof of my mouth instead of the mouthpiece of the whistle. Should I start over and spend extra time tounging off the mouthpiece? I don’t want to play lazy and would appreciate some input here.

2)Bonus time at work and I’m considering picking up a Burke. Given that I’m a new player should I just stick with my Clare for another year until I get good enough to warrant the Burke or should I just geek out and buy it now? :slight_smile:

Thanks folks!

2

On 2002-01-08 00:11, Whistlin Dave wrote:
Hi all,

I’ve been playing for about six months now and hit a brick wall about a month or so ago…I just can’t seem to get any better regardless of the time I spend practicing!

Anyway I have two questions:
1)Regarding technique. I started paying attention to how I tongue and noticed that I tongue off the roof of my mouth instead of the mouthpiece of the whistle. Should I start over and spend extra time tounging off the mouthpiece? I don’t want to play lazy and would appreciate some input here.

2)Bonus time at work and I’m considering picking up a Burke. Given that I’m a new player should I just stick with my Clare for another year until I get good enough to warrant the Burke or should I just geek out and buy it now? > :slight_smile:

Thanks folks!

My comments:

a) Getting better: You’ve only been at it 6 months. Give it more time, and more practice, and you’ll see improvement. If you seem to have hit a wall with the tunes you’re working on, work on different tunes. Early on, I ran into quite a few snags that seemed to work themselves out when I came back at them later. In my martial arts practice, I’ve noticed long periods where I didn’t seem to be getting better either, but in comparing my technique before and after those stretches, I indeed made progress. It was just so subtle, I didn’t notice it on a daily or weekly basis. During those times, you just have to have dedication to practice, and try to enjoy your experience and not worry as much about the finish line.

b) Tonguing–I’ve always tongued the roof of my mouth. Bill Och’s tutorial (as do a few others I own) suggests pronounicng “ta” or “to”..a roof-of-the-mouth technique. L.E. McCullough’s tutorial suggets the mouthpiece, but I find this technique (as well as his suggestion for mouthpiece-roof-mouthpiece for triple-tounging) totally unworkable for me. If it works for you, and sounds good, I wouldn’t give it a secound thought.

c) I spent a lot of time with the inexpensive whistles before buying my first high-end one. Mostly, that’s because of the deep satisfaction I had for my clarke sweetone. If you’re happy with the clarke, I’d say stick with it a while longer before travelling down the slippery slope into full blown WhOA. That said, if you really want a Burke, do what you want…pro- and con-whistle collectors may all have their arguments, but ultimately, it boils down to personal preference. There are certainly worse ways to spend a buck or two. I’ve played the composite Burke, and was very pleased with it. It did feel a bit fragile in my hands, however (which may have just been an illusion due to the lightweight nature of the composite material).

Greg

3

Yes, tongue off the roof of your mouth.
Most everybody else does.

Yes, buy a new whistle. A new whistle
can be a good
way to shake things up so that you
move ahead. The Burke composite
isn’t the only choice, of course.
If you don’t have your heart set
on it, you might consider
the field.

4

One thing I wanted to add about tonguing – if you toung the mouthpiece, you’ll clog the whistle very quickly. Definitely something to stay away from.

I think the Burke would be an excellent choice. My Burke is much more playable than my Clare. The Burke has no tendency whatsoever to jump octaves, which is my main complaint with the Clare.

That said, there’s also the possibility of getting several low- or moderately priced whistles.

Charlie

5

Dave, if you’ve hit a plateau in your practicing, I would suggest trying something utterly different. In theater, when roles become a little stale, sometimes the cast will rehearse for a day with everyone playing different roles.

We can shake things up by playing with other people, changing key (maybe pick up an inexpensive C or Bflat (Someone here mentioned this, and I found my D whistling improves tremendously if I’ve played a few tunes on a lower instrument)), stepping away from celtic-trad and trying something different like American folk.

In regard to buying another whistle, I say go for it. I found it easier and more pleasant to play a high end than the less expensive ones; I got bolder on the high notes, and ended up improving my technique across the board. Now when I have to play a cheapie whistle it sounds a lot better than it did before.

My twocents.

Best of luck to you!

6

Thanks for the help everyone! I’ll stick with tounging the roof of the mouth. As for the Burke I’m looking at getting the brass narrow bore…but we’ll see. There’s so many to choose from!

-d

7

This sounds like my kind of thread. I’ve been playing about a year now and have found several roadblocks. Got past some and went a different direction on some others. I’ve got a few dozen tunes under my belt - some of which I can play fairly well.

It seems my style is mostly to learn by ear. I try to read, but mostly can get notes from reading - timing baffles me. I tend to memorize the timing from recordings. If I try to play as I read I can only do it at the most painfully slow pace.

So heres my question:
Should I push harder on reading or should I keep learning more tunes as I have been and just let the reading come as it will.

The other big area I’m working on is the usual stuff: breathing, fingering, tempo, octave transitions, volume balance etc.

Thanks folks, I’m enjoying the board and trying not to let my WhOA get too out of hand - Joel

8

On 2002-01-08 09:53, joeln wrote:
ear. I try to read, but mostly can get notes from reading - timing baffles me. I tend to memorize the timing from recordings. If I try to play as I read I can only do it at the most painfully slow pace.

So heres my question:
Should I push harder on reading or should I keep learning more tunes as I have been and just let the reading come as it will.

You’ll probably get plenty of answers pointing out the merits of reading, but I say, if you’re already learning by ear - GREAT. Letting the reading come as it will sounds an entirely sensible approach.

My view is that learning traditional tunes from music is for people who already know how to play that music well!

To reach that stage, you must rely on your ears, and you can’t have a better source than listening to recordings of good players - or good players in person, if you’re lucky enough to have some around.

9

Joeln,

My old Mandolin teacher says that reading the little black dots gets in the way of the music. His argument was that we are so used to taking in information primarily through the eyes, but music is of course best taken in through the ears!

I usually learn a tune off the page first, ('cos I have so many tunes on paper and so few on CD), but practise it without visual aids. Once you get the tune into your head it’s easier to play around with. Many players learn tunes entirely by ear & never learn to read the sheet music, and I’m sure they’re all much more natural players than I am.

my 2 euros..

10

I agree with the two preceding posts.
It’s great if one can learn by
ear. If you already know a couple of
dozen tunes, some of which you
can play well–gee, that’s doin
very well.

11

On 2002-01-08 00:11, Whistlin Dave wrote:
…
I’ve been playing for about six months now and hit a brick wall about a month or so ago…I just can’t seem to get any better regardless of the time I spend practicing!
…

Someone on this board (and I apologize, I don’t remember who it was) once made the excellent suggestion of recording yourself playing once a month or so. When it feels like you’ve hit a plateau, take out last month’s tape, and you’ll find you’ve improved in subtle ways that you hadn’t even noticed. It’s a great motivator.

12

Well, I succumbed to WhOa again and treked on down to my local whistle store (Sherry-Brenner’s on Michigan in Chicago). Found a neat little no name whistle made in India (name appears to be Madhu Bansi). I checked it out on a tuner and it sounded pretty good., so I picked up a B flat (since I’m not ready to whistle all the way low). I’m going back Thursday to get the D and I’ll let ya’ll know how it sounds.

-d

13

Icky bad! I just looked at the fipple on that indian whistle and it is so soft, I swear it has to be solder! Gotta go return that…my wife already thinks I’m brain damaged for playing this thing I don’t need to prove it to her.

14

Go by ear at all costs. It’s ok to LEARN a tune, I mean the overall melody, from written music. But get away from it as fast as you can memorize the tune. After all in a theatre you don’t see the actors moving on the stage carrying their texts, do you?

Wilfried

15

Thanks! I don’t see any reading diehards coming out of the woodwork here. That’s ok, I was leaning towards ear. So back to 110 best tinwhistle tunes - I’m liking it a lot so far. - Joel

16

I’m a reader myself, sort of. What I do is hear something in session and get the name, play it a bit from the music, then come back to session and listen for the differences, and there are ALWAYS differences.

I then find that I actually know the tune two different ways. Solo, I play what I learned from the written music, with minor embellishments. In session I play the session version, but a bit more simply. Tunes that I learn JUST by ear in session I am utterly unable to play solo.

But I think the real answer is “whatever works for you”. If you can pick something up by ear, will you be lost when you go to some other venue and they play it a little differently?

17

Like many posters, I’m a ‘crutch-reader’.. I use the sheet music to get the basic notes, and then use my ears to get the feel of a piece. While I don’t think sheet music is the foul evil scourge of folk music (like some folks seem to..hee!), if you’re able to learn quickly by ear, it’s an enviable skill, and I’d say stick with it.

Greg

[ This Message was edited by: Wandering_Whistler on 2002-01-10 11:53 ]

18

As a classically trained violinist (if it ain’t on the sheet music, you don’t play it), I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestions to move OFF reading music as soon as possible.

I find I can move more quickly into the expression of the piece if I’m not looking at music, deciphering the notes and dynamics. Otherwise I never really move past the technical performance.

It’s the approach I’m taking with whistling and fiddling. I read the music until I can lilt the tune while walking down the street; then I work on replicating the tune on the whistle/fiddle. It’s much more fun, and I find I develop my own style while doing so.

As someone already mentioned, actors don’t perform with the script in their hands; and we don’t drive a car with our nose in the road atlas. Yes, check the map to know where you’re headed, but enjoy the scenery while you drive.

Well, that’s probably enough from me… :slight_smile:

19

Yesterday I was playing around on the Mandolin, and started playing a tune I couldn’t remember learning - name, notes, nothing. Then it came to me, The Blackbird, that I had learnt as a whistle tune (thanks to the Wandering Whistler!).

Having learnt from the page, and practised enough on the whistle, I was able to pick the tune without even thinking about it on the Mandolin. Hah, thinks I, giant leap forward?

But maybe only a small step for Whistlekind!