Here’s my latest whistle recording:
http://www.flutesite.com/samples/alexanders_wc.mp3
This is Alexander’s on a Hoover Whitecap on an Oak D tube.
I used to keep my whitecap on a Generation tube but the intonation was still a bit quirky, an Oak tube fixed the intonation difficulties in the upper octave, and the heavy tube sweetened the tone even more.
I enjoy this whistle enormously.
–James
I have a pair of Oaks dues this month, both whitecapped. C and D. thanx for the preview…
Ah. Thank you. Nice. I’m printing that out to work on tommorow when I should be working insted. Saving the mp3 too.
The sound of the whistle is very close to that of my black Feadog tube with Whitecap (although the playing doesn’t resemble mine at all 
).
James - great playing and super sound! Says a lot for your talent and for the Whitecaps.
BillG
after hearing your mp3 i was tempted to take all my whistles and make a lawn sculpture out of them. 
..But instead i decided to follow up on myself and go to the post office and order my whitecap today. DOOD.. you rock.. i only hope that i can get a quarter of your proficiency before i turn 50… i guess that gives me three years..
Good gosh, I just realized you played that without a single squeek. I love my whitecap, but I really have to be in the zone to keep from squeeking (and I still squeek) . That really cooks.
Compliments on the clip James; the recording is very clear, your playing crisp, especially the short rolls.
Just one question: What’s the rush? 
cheers,
Jeroen
That was great!
I just have one question:
How long have you been playing?
Rod
Thanks for the kind comments!
Jeroen, I just like to take that hornpipe faster than I usually take others. Different tunes seem to call for different speeds and different approaches, I think that one flows better when taken at a good clip.
Rod, I’ve been playing Boehm-system flute since I was about 11…I’m 38 now…but I came to Irish music about 9 or 10 years ago, with my aquisition of a German flute. I did have a couple of whistles before then, but I played snippets of classical music on them, and Christmas carols, and (simplified) recorder music. Also, there were several years after college where I didn’t touch a flute or whistle…it was really Irish music and the old flute that brought music back to me…or me back to the music, depending on how you look at it.
–James
I think he was giving a friendly hint to your rhythm, not your speed. To spell it out, I think you make a typical beginners mistake by trying to play faster than you actually can. What often happens in such a case is that the player shortens his/her notes and pushes the rhtyhm making the pulse topple over, creating an illusion of speed for the player but without actually going much, if at al, faster. The listener hears a hurried performance with the addition often of messy phrasing. it is always better to lean back in your rhythm and follow the pulse of the tune and take the speed as it comes. Stepping back and listening critcally and with perspective to your own playing is also an important, essential, skill that needs to be learned.
Well, Jeroen is a very friendly person.
And I agree with him; the playing is crisp and the short rolls are very nicely done, but the tune does feel a bit rushed…
Cheers,
Jens
A few weeks ago I came across a few old Irish sayings, on the back of sugar sachets provided with the cups of tea I was getting. One of them was ‘to the crow all her offspring look bright’. And I couldn’t help thinking about some comment applied to players on this board.
The consensus seems to be that no matter how someone plays you say it’s great and swallow the BUT…
Above I passed a comment on the rhythm James used playing Alexander’s hornpipe. Immediately I received a PM saying ‘I fully agree but why say it, let him find out in his own time’. True, and I would not have passed any comment there if James had picked up on Jeroen’s hint.
When I was going into my third year of learning the pipes I was getting a lesson from Padraig Macmathuna during the 1983 Willie Clancy week, I tore through the Yellow Tinker [anyone for ‘the Jaundiced Itinerant’ or am I allowed the less PC title?] and the Frieze Breeches as well as I could and used all the ornaments I was taught , the cranns the triplets and all he fancy bits. ‘Fine’ said Padraig when I was done, ‘you have all the notes, maybe it’s time now to think about playing MUSIC’.
Now there was a new concept! But he was right ofcourse and I am still working on it.
I would probably have found out in some way or other but it needed to be said and I am glad he did at that point in time. Learning this music away from where it lives without good players around you on whose playing you can measure your own playing it is very easy to get solely focussed on learning techniques.
But by the end of the day, your crans may be great, your playing crisp and your rolls well executed, it doesn’t mean anything if they are not there to underline your grasp of the underlying structure and rhythm of the tune you’re playing.
That’s why.
Well, thanks Peter. It takes lots of courage in here to comment on someone else’s playin’. The “wow, that’s amazing” are accepted, but then negative comments arent. For me that doesnt make any sens. If you’re willing to post public stuff, you have to be willing to accept positive as much as negative.
Technically, James is great, from my point of view. His playing just doesnt sound right when it comes to ITM. It’s hard to describe, and I think Peter did a good job at it. The phrasing seems rushed, and there’s something kinda “robotic” in it, it’s too perfect in some ways, a little like a midi file would sound like. It kills me, especially on that hornpipe. Alexander’s is sooo great when played the “right” way (personnal taste).
I think this is what happens when you find out about irish music with some CDs from the Chieftains and Lunasa.
Anyway, no matter what we say (that posting online sometimes is just for comparing whistles and blablabla) you end having newbies being totally amazed, you are influencing them, you want it or not, and I think that in many cases this isnt a good thing.
Edited: By the way, I think Peter would be distastful of 99% of ITM stuff out there, so don’t take it that bad
Oh, dear. You sounds like you are describing my playing! 
In my experience, learning music is something that shakes up the entire person. Better players have have said things to me in the past that were very hard to swallow at the time. But each time, it was like some window or door opened for me and I have been able to see something that had escaped me before. (Doesn’t mean I don’t like being complimented on my playing. 
)
All comments are welcomed, of course…when you put your music in the public eye, there is a tacit understanding that you are open to both compliment and criticism.
I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to listen, and especially those who have posted comments.
–James
I saw a program about up and coming pianists at a musical retreat in Spain. The teacher was getting them to live the music and create space within it, forgetting bar lines and finding the flow inherent in the music.
I already knew this but was glad to be reminded.
Then yesterday I was playing in a pub with some people and played a couple of jigs. I thought, while I was playing, “there is nothing but notes coming out, no flow no nothing” At the end there was some polite applause but I knew it was crap. To hammer the nail home someone (not very technically proficient) played a simple tune on whistle, this was played without all the added “stuff” with the actual tune getting the love and attention. It of course came across very musically
So even with the idea that (I think) I know what should be, I still prove to myself that I know diddley-squat. But really, thats the good thing about playing music, if I knew it all I wouldn’t need to do it anymore.
Dave.