Hi all, I just got my first whistle last week (in d). Several songs I’ve tried learning are in g major, which would be fine, but they seem to all have quick movements that pass through b and c. From my understanding this requires lifting my first finger and putting my second and third finger down at the same time, but I’m finding it hard to do that without getting a second note in between, either c# or g.
Is there some trick to getting that to sound right beyond practice?
Thanks.
Every wind instrument has its “blippy” bits, and here’s how I work through them.
Go slow. Slow enough that you don’t blip the C#. Go B to C a zillion times perfectly and slowly, then add the A. A B C B A etc, again slowly and perfectly. Then add the D.
Little changes to hand position will help, and you’ll find them. Keeping fingers curved and low will help, and you’ll get there.
Next time you pick it up, do it fractionally faster, but still perfect. Remind your hands of all the good things they learned last time. Don’t push it, don’t make it hard. Play some simple airs in G for fun.
Rinse and repeat. Wherever you’re at in the process, it shouldn’t go backwards… if it does, slow it way down again. Quick fingers comes from slow and accurate.
Anyways that’s what works for me. No magic bullet, just something that brings me confidence on many different instruments.
There are two ways of getting clean transitions between b and c, but both take a lot of practice. If you’re going to use that fingering for c, you need precision of timing that only comes with lots and lots of work to train your neural nets to get it right. It’s a programming task where you create a device driver for it in your brain that handles this specific skill, and it takes a lot of time to build and perfect that. The alternative to it is to half-hole the c, but that still takes a long time to learn to tune that note precisely by getting the angle of the tip of your finger just right and repeating it reliably. Unless I’m playing a rapid sequence like g c g, I always half-hole it because that’s what I learned to do first.
Yes going from B to C natural is one of those transitions where all three fingers of the same hand switch.
xoo|ooo B
oxx|ooo Cnat
Or, if you use the lower-hand ring-finger “anchor finger”
xoo|oox
oxx|oox
As people have said above it’s simply a matter of practice.
I suppose a couple of those old maxims apply:
“Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.”
“First the impossible must become habit, then the habit become art.”
What’s strange is that, for me, the key of G with its C natural is more facile than the key of D with its C sharp. And I’ll oftentimes use an “A” whistle to play tunes in the key of D; they seem to “sit” better on the instrument.
Years ago a friend and I were listening to an uilleann album (played on a “D” set) and my friend pointed out that every single tune was in G Major. On a “D” uilleann set the regulators are in the key of G, not D.
About the “blips” that can happen going from B to C natural, the famous Irish flute player Matt Molloy uses one intentionally as part of a triplet.
The B-C-D triplet is very common in fluting, whistling, and uilleann piping, and many players will often throw them in to decorate a tune.
With many whistle players, for example Mary Bergin, these will be played “open” using C# whether the tune is in D or G. She throws them in all over the place.
Mary Bergin & Garry O’Briain | Tigh Hughes, An Spidéal | Geantraí 2006 | TG4
On the uilleann pipes the B-C-D triplet is generally played staccato, the staccato C being C#, whether the tune is in D or G.
But Matt Molloy flips this, generally using a C natural whether the tune is in D or G, and putting in a G “blip” or “crossing note” as Highland pipers call them:
xoo|ooo B
xxx|ooo G (crossing-note)
oxx|ooo C
oxx|xxx D
Irish flute : Matt Molloy - “The Independence” Hornpipe / Jim Donoghue’s / The Gravel Walk"
Thanks everyone. If the answer is just practice that’s no problem, it just seemed a bit tricky and I was worried I was missing something. I practiced as slow as my patience allowed today and it’s feeling a bit easier.
@pancelticpiper Interesting about Mary Bergin. Her playing has such a bright quality, the lydian 4th would fit right in. I haven’t heard Matt Molloy; I’ll have to find an album of his to compare and try both ways myself.
This may not be the specific problem that you have, but while you work on this it might help to pay specific attention to how you stabilize your whistle while playing.
A key difficulty with these BCd and BC#d transitions is that there is a moment when no fingers are on the tone holes, and this can leave you feeling momentarily unsure about the balance and stability of the whistle if you are not stabilizing it properly. This can really mess up the fluidity of the movement and inhibit fast transitions. I really notice this myself when I play whistles (especially low whistles) because, as a flute player, I am much more used to a different way of holding and stabilizing the instrument.
One advantage of the Matt Molloy BCD approach mentioned by pancelticpiper, which uses a G crossing note rather than a C# crossing note, is that it avoids that moment when no fingers are in contact with the tone holes. This can help with stabilization issues as well as produce a different acoustic effect.
Paddler brings up the important point of stabilising the whistle.
If you pay close attention to Mary Bergin’s fingers you’ll see that she’s using various “anchor” fingers as she goes along.
When I first was learning whistle and Irish flute I straightaway noticed that players weren’t sticking to the Fingering Chart fingerings. It took several years for it to dawn on me that these alternate fingerings weren’t random but were part of a logical system, one which the players themselves probably aren’t aware of.
I did this video demonstrating them. (I receive no money from Youtube).
Excellent video pancelticpiper! Very insightful and helpful!
Only yesterday I was trying to figure out how to play a passage on my flute which required one of these kind of chordal fingering patterns, and it occurred to me that it was pretty much essential in order to obtain the rhythmic, hard D, effect that made it work. This video of the late, great, Frankie Kennedy, is what I was shooting for. You can see how he leaves his right hand ring finger down quite a lot, and slaps the higher fingers down to get the rhythmic effect.
In contrast, the following video of Jean Michel Veillon shows how he anchors his right hand ring finger between the lower two tone holes. Its fascinating to see how much that finger moves left and right to alternate between anchoring and closing its hole.
I can see that has a lot of merit if one became practiced at doing it. Jean Michel Veillon was my pin-up (literally - reversed print stuck on the mirror) flute player for relaxed stance when I started and I never noticed that.
For me there are still many, many new tunes where passages with C natural are the sticking point that takes most repetition to get my fingers and breath together - especially if the D and E above are also involved.
Notice at 0:08 and more clearly at 0:48 that Frankie Kennedy using another one of the “shapes” that I talked about on my video, parking these fingers
xoo|xxo
while he’s alternating A and B with E.
I think of it as an “e minor” shape because I find myself doing it with tunes in that key.
For example the “rocking” phrase
B2eB f#BeB
I’m just moving two factors, the upper-hand middle and ring finger together as one unit, and momentarily lifting the lower-hand middle finger for f#
xoo|xxo B
xxx|xxo e
xoo|xxo B
xxx|xoo f#
xoo|xxo B
xxx|xxo e
xoo|xxo B
Wow that Jean Michel Veillon thing, I’ve never noticed a fluter doing that. Looks like a lot of work for that finger!
Matt Molloy is one of the people who just keeps his lower-hand little finger parked on the flute fulltime. There’s a fluter here who does that too. Personally I find moving my ring finger up and down while keeping the little finger down awkward.
Yes, exactly so! That is the one that allows you to generate the hard E sound that is essential to the drive in this part of the tune. Everything changed for me once I started doing that.
The fact that only two fingers, from the same hand, are required to transition from the B to the E, allows them both to be very tightly synchronized and percussive in their action. They strike the tone holes at precisely the same time, and with some speed, and that is what generates the pressure pulse in the bore that pumps up the volume of that E note. And interestingly, E is normally the weakest of notes due to it being vented by the smallest tone hole on these instruments.
When I study the techniques used by top players I see a lot of this kind of thing, especially among players that have strong rhythmic drive and who make a lot of use of hard D and E notes with such a strong mix of harmonics that it becomes ambiguous which register they are playing in. For this style of playing, I think it helps to start considering the flute to be as much a percussion instrument as a woodwind instrument. Its pretty much impossible to achieve the same sound if you stick with strictly open fingering.
Highlighting your point, and the same goes for whistle - think of it as a rhythmic instrument. See Mary Bergin!
Similar to the points above regarding the B to E using XOO XXO for B:
I find on my flute that the XOO XOOk for B has more resonance & clarity, and it makes for a slightly stronger B roll. Trying the XOO XXOk, I find the B is muffled a little, but agree that it makes a strong B-E pop and an easy E-roll. Now to get Pigeon on the Gate up to speed with all those B-E peddles!
Similarly, using XXO OXXk for A is slightly more resonant and slightly more flat, and also helps with the A roll.
Returning to the idea of B-C D notes, my preferred C-nat fingering is OXO XXXk (normal fingering for the high C) and it gives me a slightly more “poppity” triplet, admittedly with more fingers moving around. It just takes practice, as was mentioned wrt the OP’s problem of B-C transitions using the OXX OOO fingering.
Not only does he anchor with this same finger when he plays his 6-key D flute, but he vents the short F key with it at the same time. And he keeps his right hand pinky anchored, but does not vent the Eb key. You can see it clearly in this clip:
Jean Michel Veillon & Yvon Riou
It is an unusual method, but it seems to work beautifully for him. I love his playing.
We’re seeing a bit of a divide between two styles of fluting, styles which emphasise
percussive effects and strong rhythm
pure clear tone
I’ve always been attracted to #1 which mostly had to go when I had to give up flute and switch to Low Whistle.
I did find that two Low D’s which I didn’t really care for were the best for imitating the “honking’ flute style, the Burke and the Susato, due to both having really strong Bottom D’s.