For anyone who hasn’t read the ‘young players’ thread, I’m 17 and have been learning since I was 5. Up til now, when I practised i always felt that I was benefitting, learning something new, but now I’m starting to feel that I’m just learning more and more tunes without actually improving my playing. Ornamentation isn’t a problem and I tend to put in a few variations here and there, but my playing still seems to lack something.
Has anybody got any ideas on how I can get more ‘life’ and energy into my whistle playing, therefore increasing enjoyment for me and others? Any suggestions, however seemingly stupid, acceptable.
Jo.
Seeing that you’ve been whistling about 10 years longer than I have. . .take it for what its worth.
But I found that my music was much improved and enlivened when I began playing with others. Perhaps you can find a session, or pull together a few friends to play trad music.
Another thought is…have you ever written songs yourself? Playing something of your own is a bit more inspiring to get the right feel into it. Just a thought, anyway!
I agree about playing with others. Its soooo
much more fun. Even with a c.d. or the
radio is better than just alone.
lolly
How about trying another instrument for a change of pace? Even one of those little electronic keyboards might be fun - or a drum - at any rate, something a little different from a whistle. Those little, cheap electronic keyboards also have automatic rhythms built in; you could maybe accompany yourself whistling with one of those rhythms, maybe something latino or blues-y to break the monotony. I am not suggesting “seriously switching” to learning another instrument, just something simple to get a sense of fun and experimentation/exploration back in your music.
I gather from your post that you whistle Trad Irish, so you might try some other genre, like show tunes, American ballads, or rock songs.
When you listen to a really good fiddler, they can add so much feeling to their music, yet I haven’t been able to figure out how to do that on the whistle… Does anyone out there have any other ideas?
You could take a trip to the states and go to the catskills irish music festival for a week and take expert lessons from Mary Bergin… she might have more to say than we do. 
(Still trying to figure out if he can afford the time or the $ for the much shorter trip to the same festival for the intermediate class…)
–Chris
On 2002-05-02 12:32, staten island wrote:
When you listen to a really good fiddler, they can add so much feeling to their music, yet I haven’t been able to figure out how to do that on the whistle… Does anyone out there have any other ideas?
Listen to other whistle players that you think put feeling into their playing and try to emulate what they do. Emphasize phrases. Hold some notes a tad longer or a tad less. Let long notes trail off or make them louder. Add slurs and/or slides. In general, express yourself through the whistle.
Here are some tunes that I have found help me practice putting feeling into the music:
- Danny Boy (Yeah, I know. It’s overdone.)
- Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
- Amazing Grace
- Sally Gardens
- Scarborough Fair
- Star of the County Down
- Suo Gan
- The Flower of Scotland
- The South Wind
- Hector the Hero
- Plastic Jesus (believe it or not)
[ This Message was edited by: ThorntonRose on 2002-05-02 12:47 ]
What I do when I play, is to think of a really sad song, and while I play, think about what it means(to the person who wrote it, or what it’s about), what it sounds like, the lyrics of it, if it has any, ect.
That can help a lot.
Jo, are you really listening to your playing of tunes, and thinking about the particular tune and what it has to say? Or are you just churning them out on “automatic pilot”? If so, you’d have to ask yourself why you are playing at all.
How do you choose tunes to play? If you are getting them from books, get them from players instead. In any case, choose ones that you really like and want to play, and don’t bother with the others.
How about changing your practice routine? Is there any place you can perform in public? Preparing for a performance and thinking about the audience and how you want your playing to come across may help.
What about going to play in a park or on sitting on a hillside overlooking a lovely Welsh valley, or anywhere you can get a nice natural echo? The extra boost in enjoyment and confidence from hearing the instrument sound great can focus the mind and encourage you to try new things, or just be happy with what you’re doing at present.
As regards what fiddlers do, Staten Island, the hard fact is that whistlers are at a huge disadvantage in the feeling department because of their instrument’s capabilities. I know, I’ve played both.
But there are plenty of fiddlers who play without feeling too. I remember the case of one particularly wooden player. A friend and I maliciously speculated that the rather serious young man needed to get out and get… well nowadays I would say he needed to fall in love, or have his heart broken, to become a more feeling player.
How about a poll of cd’s where there is some whistling w/ feeling: I’d nominate Lawrence Nugent’s Windy Gap cd. I think Paddy Moloney’s playing (The Chieftains) is very expressive. Offhand, I can’t think of any others that stand out for expressiveness as opposed to technical brilliance. (Nugent and Moloney are technically brilliant, however, in my opinion.)
Tony
Here are some thoughts that might (or might not) be helpful:
#1. Listen to and try to imitate fiddler Martin Hayes (I also agree with Tony Higgins that Laurence Nugent is a great model).
#2. Since you already know a bunch of tunes, try playing them all different kinds of ways. Make them sad, make them happy, make them angry, make them funny, exaggerate slides, play staccato, play super legato, try to find variations: use tunes as vehicles to explore what and how much you can find in each tune and, through them, how much you can find in yourself.
#3. Make it new: see if you can play a tune as though it were being played for the first time ever. Be absolutely present in the music and play like an angel or a demon.
Good luck.
Jon Michaels
I find lower whistles, especially
one’s that are breath sensitive,
very expressive. And we have
so many ways to ornament, slide,
vibrate, phrase, let the breath
die at the end of a note…
The whistle is nearly as expressive
as the human voice, IMHO. So maybe getting
a good low whistle (even an A or
a G) and playing beautiful tunes
from the heart,
with lots of attention to interpreting
and phrasing.
Some great ideas - I’ve never written anything for whistle, so that would be interesting to try and the thought of rock music never even occured to me. Nirvana with a whistle - wow!
I do play with others as much as poss - my dad plays concertina and guitar, which is great, but unforunately I’m reliant on him for transport to sessions.
I think maybe I do tend to go a bit on automatic pilot, which is not good.
I play classical violin & viola and a bit of piano and jazz flute. I’ve tried Bach on the whistle & also experimented with sort of mixing trad & jazz - it hasn’t really worked.
I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one with this kind of problem - though maybe some lessons would help sort it out. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford, either financially or timewise, a trip to the States, but I’m hoping to make it to Miltown malbay this year (teachers include Sean Potts, Gavin Whelan, Paddy Maloney and Mary Bergin I think - if you’re intersted
http://www.setdancingnews.net/wcss/wcsst.htm#Top ).
I think the problem is a lot to do with rhythm - tonguing, maybe - but that doen’t really help sort it out.
Jo
Have you got any recordings of your playing that we could listen to?
Play for dancers. Contra, irish, meringue, whatever, I was pretty stuck I thought playing whistle a few years back till a musician friend (who joined the Andean band I was playing in)invited me to play whistle for a contra dance band he played in as well. It has seriously improved my playing. The feedback you get from watching the dancers really get into it is infectious and really lifts up the music.
Just another idea.
Mark V.
No, sorry - I’m not greatly computer-musically skilled. I think there’s an MP3 player on my computer, but I have no idea how I’d get my playing onto that and then onto the web. I have a midi keyboard which is connected if that could possibly help?
Edit: Actually I’m sure I could find this out on the board. I’ll take a look.
Dancers are a great idea - unfortunately, I don’t think there are any in my area, at least not groups.
[ This Message was edited by: Jo C on 2002-05-02 18:18 ]
One really great idea that got impressed into me by my college string bass teacher was to play your instrument like a vocalist would sing. Imagine a story in your mind and express that through your instrument. It really helped my playing. Well, at least until I switched my major to computer science…ARGH! WHEN WILL IT END?! Oh, sorry ahem grins sheepishly
Jim
Wow just checked out that page for the 2002 Willie Clancy Sumer School.. Sean Ryan, Fintan Vallely, Sean Potts, Eamon Cotter and the lot. Wish I could attend though! Definitely wouldn’t mind attending Sean Ryan’s and Eamon Cotter’s lessons especially.
Playing for dancers is a great idea. Or if you don’t feel confident enough, get a videotape of some dancing and play along with that. Tap your foot. Take some drum lessons - I’ve been playing drums a long time, and it helps my sense of rhythm to play the drum part in my head when I play a tune on the whistle.
edited to say: Damn! that’s post #100 for me. And I’ve always sworn that I wasn’t as obsessed as the rest of you.
Don’t you boys know any nice songs?
[ This Message was edited by: jim_mc on 2002-05-04 19:50 ]