I think I'm in a rut.

Whistle
1

So, I’ve been playing since the middle of February, and I’ve read a few books on music theory, and it’s basically all just flooded back into my brain. Which is good and all, but actually remembering that D is fingered this way and G is fingered that way isn’t coming to me. I know where they are on the staff, but because I tend to go by the fingerings underneath as opposed to the notation, I don’t connect the two in my brain. It’s like I know it, but I don’t know it, make sense? I think it comes down to theory versus practice, in which case I just need to practice, practice practice?

Sometimes I cover up the fingerings under the notation, and I can get through it, but it’s so slow, it’s not even funny, and I get frustrated and put the fingerings back.

And I find that every single day I play the same old songs that I already know, over and over and over. I want to learn more songs(well, tunes, ok, people), but I just…don’t. It’s easier to just keep playing Amazing Grace 500 times a day. LOL. What can I do, to make myself want to do more?

2

I would maybe stop using written fingerings altogether until you get used to reading the music. At first, I had a great deal of trouble with that, because it’s ever so convenient to only play by written fingerings. :slight_smile: What I did was make myself look at all the notes on my whistle written out in sheet music, not fingerings, and look and play from low to high and back again several times. It helped quite a bit. I still have trouble finding notes on my whistle I don’t use very much from sheet music, but it’s much better.

I guess anything worth doing takes work and gets boring sometimes. I tend to loose interest when things get boring, but I know persistence will pay off and I’ll be glad I did it in the long run.

My motivation for learning new tunes usually comes from listening to music. When I hear something amazingly gorgeous, I can’t help but go and try to play it. I play a lot of the same songs over and over, though, because I like them. I think, especially at first, it helped my fingers get used to things. Another benefit of playing songs many times is the fact that they are much easier to remember that way.

3

Why do you use sheet music? I use it because I have classical training and can sight read, and it is just damn convenient to quickly write down or “read in” a tune. Can you play by ear, or do you need the written notation? I’m asking this because you might not need to read sheet music at all.

A former piano teacher of mine once told me about a student who didn’t want to learn to read sheet music. He was awfully good at memorizing complex pieces of music and just played them by heart, so my teacher gave him puzzles to solve, to make the sound-notation connection from the other way round: Take sheet music to a tune you know by heart, copy it, cut it into 2-bar pieces and try to reassemble the pieces.

Sing the tune, and just remember where your fingers are for each tone. Move them along with your singing.

Sing the tune, and just look at the sheet music trying to find out where you are.

Colour all D’s in your tune red, and make sure you always remember that D is XXX XXX (I assume you have a D whistle). If you recognize all Ds right away without the colouring in new tunes you learn, move on to the next note and so on.

I admit, I learned a lot of music theory (reading sheet music and finding out which key and mode a tune is in) from the church songbook during services as a child. It did help my soul.

4

Cran, ditch the written music for at least a little bit. My personal suggestion is to ditch the tablature permanently. The sooner you figure out what fingers get you what sound, the easier it will be for you to make music. Exercises are boring, but they would really drill in what fingerings go with what notes.

I don’t know how much Irish or Scottish music you know, so I really can’t suggest what you might learn by ear, or from inside your head, but I would suggest you pick something like Mairi’s Wedding (Lewis Bridal Song) and do it 100% by ear, then when you have it figured out, find the sheet music and look at it there. Try any folk tune you know and like.

5

Why do you use sheet music? I use it because I have classical training and can sight read, and it is just damn convenient to quickly write down or “read in” a tune. Can you play by ear, or do you need the written notation? I’m asking this because you might not need to read sheet music at all.

No, can’t play by ear at all. I don’t need the notation at all, what I need is fingerings, I tend to remember the fingerings, and then play. I’d like to remember the written music. Actually, I can look at sheet music and sing it pretty well, it’s just remembering what fingers go where for which notes that troubles me.

A former piano teacher of mine once told me about a student who didn’t want to learn to read sheet music. He was awfully good at memorizing complex pieces of music and just played them by heart, so my teacher gave him puzzles to solve, to make the sound-notation connection from the other way round: Take sheet music to a tune you know by heart, copy it, cut it into 2-bar pieces and try to reassemble the pieces.

Sing the tune, and just remember where your fingers are for each tone. Move them along with your singing.

Sing the tune, and just look at the sheet music trying to find out where you are.

Colour all D’s in your tune red, and make sure you always remember that D is XXX XXX (I assume you have a D whistle). If you recognize all Ds right away without the colouring in new tunes you learn, move on to the next note and so on.

Those are really good ideas, of which I’m going to try..

Cran, ditch the written music for at least a little bit. My personal suggestion is to ditch the tablature permanently. The sooner you figure out what fingers get you what sound, the easier it will be for you to make music. Exercises are boring, but they would really drill in what fingerings go with what notes.

I don’t know how much Irish or Scottish music you know, so I really can’t suggest what you might learn by ear, or from inside your head, but I would suggest you pick something like Mairi’s Wedding (Lewis Bridal Song) and do it 100% by ear, then when you have it figured out, find the sheet music and look at it there. Try any folk tune you know and like.

Most of the folk songs I know are Appalachian songs…at least, I’ve heard them everywhere growing up, and I live in the Appalachians, so I assume that’s what they are. I know about 16 Irish Traditional songs from Sinéad O’Connor’s versions, but then, that’s not really tradtional. Oh, and I have 3 Dubliners cds, and I’ve found lots of their songs online, but…I don’t really like but 5 songs out of over 30…

Sometimes, I just think I should be a collector and never play. Then I wake up and keep trying, even though I suck. :slight_smile:

6

First of all, you’ve only been playing for 6 weeks, so give yourself a break!

Next thing is learning all the correct fingerings. Practice the scales (d and g) slowly, and think the name of each note really loudly in you head as you play it. You shouldn’t need the fingering chart to play scales - just lift up one finger at a time (well, except the c nat in the g scale). Once you can do this, start playing arpeggios (broken chords) as well as scales. Starting on the bottom d, play d, f, a, next higher D, back down to a, f, low d. Then play bottom d, g, b, next higher D, back down to b, g, low d. Play low g, up to b, next D, high G, back down to D, b, low g. Then g, c nat, high E, high G, back down to E, c nat, g. Now start on a, up to c#, high E, high A, back down to E, c#, a. All the time, keep “saying” the names of the notes in your head. Practice this every day for 15 minutes and in a month you’ll have burned the fingerings onto your hard drive and won’t need to think about the fingers anymore. You’ll just think of the note and your fingers will go there on their own.

I’ve taught about 9 jillion people to play the fife this way, and a couple dozen to play the whistle, too.

7

Cranberry, it sounds like you might have reached a plateau. It feels like a rut but what happens is that your brain just needs time to absorb everything you have given it. In your inital post you said that your music theory just came rushing back suddenly. That is how it works. Maybe you just need to give it a break and work on something else for a while… like umm, maybe a guitar or a concertina or a banjo… That’s what I do. In a short time, you will want to pick up your whistles again and you will be amazed at what you can do. It’s wierd, but that is how the brain works.

Best of luck
-Paul

8

That’s what I do. In a short time, you will want to pick up your whistles again and you will be amazed at what you can do. It’s wierd, but that is how the brain works.

That sounds about right. I have a guitar, but don’t really want to play it. I have a harmonica, which I mabey could try…but er…I have 3 of the books they teach in school for recorder here(when I was about 10 I borrowed them and just never took them back, and apparently nobody noticed. I’d give them back, but the school is closed down)…I think recorder would just make me confused with whistle, though, because they’re so similar.

9

Cranberry: I had a whistle for a few years and didn’t really do much with it until I finally found someone to take lessons from. I’d play around sounding out American folk tunes, holidy tunes, nursery rhymes, etc…but never really got far.

Two things really got me going for seriously learning bunches of new tunes:

  1. I discovered traditional Irish music.

  2. I got a teacher who would record (once slowly without any ornamentation and then once a little faster with ornamentation) two tunes for me. I’d meet with him every two weeks or so and show him what progress I’d made on the two tunes from the week before. He’d help me with any problem areas and correct any mistakes I was making with the tunes from the previous lesson and then record two new ones for me to work on. I attempted to learn these by ear only, but on many occasions would resort to sheet music if I could find it (or make my own ABC’s from the recording).

A teacher doesn’t even need to be a whistle player…it could be a banjo player, fiddler, etc… as long as they lay down some tunes for you to work on that fit the whistle’s range. This can really be a big help because it will add some outside motivation and structure to your learning.

Along the same lines, if you can find a few people to listen to and/or play with this can help a bunch. It’s really fun to play tunes with others and this will provide a place to find tunes to work on and will motivate you to learn them so you can participate.

None of this has to be traditional Irish tunes…you can probably get by pretty well on whistle playing old time, bluegrass, etc…, but Irish would be easiest.

-Brett

P.S. sorry to ramble on…and I noticed I didn’t really address your main question about sheet music/tabulature. I bet you CAN learn by ear if you have a patient teacher or just some tunes recorded very slow for you. Go through a tune a bit at a time and make your own sheet music/tabulature. By the time you’ve completed this you probably won’t even need it because the tune will be stuck in your head from listening to it over and over while writing out the tune.

10

Cranberry: I had a whistle for a few years and didn’t really do much with it until I finally found someone to take lessons from. I’d play around sounding out American folk tunes, holidy tunes, nursery rhymes, etc…but never really got far.

That’s about how far I am now…

  1. I discovered traditional Irish music.

I think I should try to discover it. The only traditional music I own is the Dubliners, and honestly, I don’t like most of it. If they were women, I probably would like it. I dont know how that works in my mind, but I think I would.

  1. I got a teacher who would record (once slowly without any ornamentation and then once a little faster with ornamentation) two tunes for me. I’d meet with him every two weeks or so and show him what progress I’d made on the two tunes from the week before. He’d help me with any problem areas and correct any mistakes I was making with the tunes from the previous lesson and then record two new ones for me to work on. I attempted to learn these by ear only, but on many occasions would resort to sheet music if I could find it (or make my own ABC’s from the recording).

A teacher doesn’t even need to be a whistle player…it could be a banjo player, fiddler, etc… as long as they lay down some tunes for you to work on that fit the whistle’s range. This can really be a big help because it will add some outside motivation and structure to your learning.

I live in rural West Virginia, where the only musical person in a green mile is probably the church guitar player (bad, the church hates me) or the school band leader (also very bad, the school hates me, too). I’ve placed ads in the paper before looking for vocal coaches and guitar lessons, but nobody ever called. There’s just not anybody here, period.

Along the same lines, if you can find a few people to listen to and/or play with this can help a bunch. It’s really fun to play tunes with others and this will provide a place to find tunes to work on and will motivate you to learn them so you can participate.

I was actually thinking about trying to find some of the people I took 7th grade band with, and seeing if they still play…even if not whistle, I could convert them.

P.S. sorry to ramble on…and I noticed I didn’t really address your main question about sheet music/tabulature. I bet you CAN learn by ear if you have a patient teacher or just some tunes recorded very slow for you. Go through a tune a bit at a time and make your own sheet music/tabulature. By the time you’ve completed this you probably won’t even need it because the tune will be stuck in your head from listening to it over and over while writing out the tune.

I like it when people ramble to me. It makes me feel special. :slight_smile:

11

I use sheet music and rarely think of the letters assigned to notes at all. I just look at intervals. The note below the staff (D) is all fingers down. If the next note is up a line and a space, I lift 2 fingers. When I first started, I played scales looking at sheet music. By lifting one finger at a time, I connected the dot on the page with where my fingers go.

Other exercises I would do were playing scales tongueing each note and then with no tongueing. Then I would do octave jumps for the whole scale, again once with tongueing and then with none. This did wonders for my breath control as well as connect the written notes with the fingering.

12

I use sheet music and rarely think of the letters assigned to notes at all. I just look at intervals. The note below the staff (D) is all fingers down. If the next note is up a line and a space, I lift 2 fingers. When I first started, I played scales looking at sheet music. By lifting one finger at a time, I connected the dot on the page with where my fingers go.

That’s what I do. In my head I think ‘on first line, three fingers down’, not ‘G’. I’m glad you put that to words, because I didn’t realise that that was how I’m doing it, but it is.

13

From one Appalachianer to another-

you can play lots of the local mountain tunes (old-time for you outlanders)you grew up with-

one of the first tunes I figured out on whistle was “Down in the Willow Garden”,(and it’s almost identical to Down in the Sally Garden), which I’d grown up hearing when the neighborhood got together to “make music”. Red Haired Boy is a great tune on whistle and so is Billy in the Lowground.

So, when you get tired of working at learning the language of written music, think of a tune you already know and see if you can find it on whistle. I bet you’ll be suprised at how many can be done on whistle.

You will also find, that a lot of the music that you grew up with is VERY similar to IRTRAD since that’s where much of it originated.

14

For reference, these are the only songs (tunes) I can play after 6 weeks: Amazing Grace, Silent Night, Old MacDonald, Aloutte, On Top Of Old Smokey, Go Tell Aunt Rhody, Molly Malone, I’ll Tell Me Ma, Báidín Fheilimí, Oranges and Lemons, God Save The Queen, Twinkle Twinkle, Kumbaya, Jingle Bells, and Oh Susanna.

And I need the fingerings for more than half of them.

If this board is still here in a year I will look back at this post and see how much I’ve accomplished in that time.