While I enjoy playing ITM and it’s great for learning the basics of playing the whistle including ornamentation, what I enjoy more, or what I would enjoy more, is improvising . . . not necessarily around a known piece but rather relaxing and trying to create something out of thin air, something ethereal, worshipful if you understand what I mean. Troy Donockley together with Dave Bainbridge did an improvised album a few years back called From Silence (I haven’t been able to find the video on YouTube) but the first track was an example of what I mean where Troy just began to create on a low whistle. Obviously not all notes go together well and my music theory is very poor. So can anyone guide me towards ideas or resources that would help me to learn to improvise?
I think there is something inherently funny about wanting to read a how-to book on improvisation.
I’m certainly not an expert, but it seems like learning to improvise is just a matter of doing it, and listening as you go.
Mike, a good stepping stone towards improvisation on whistle is practicing/playing arpeggio’s for more information and video lessons (and most importantly keeping the information accessible to all skill levels) check this thread that will definitely help move you towards your goal.
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Chuckle… 
As has been said, it is mostly a matter of doing it. I learned most of what I know about improvisation in the heat of battle on stage as a teen. Pity the poor audiences. But you learn what does not work and remember well what to avoid that way. Pretty quickly you are a cool jam band fool.
There are other ways to learn though. Yes theory is a large part of it and there are surely books to help but I am not aware of any on whistle certainly. It’s mostly about chords, progressions and what scales work with what. Not too complicated in practice either.
Then there is the school of rote licks, the tried and true method used by rock, bluegrass and blues players. Behind it all is still which scales go with which chords. That involves listening, learning and playing back what other players do. If you can play a strong body of tunes well, you should be able to recognize what motifs go with what chords no matter what the genre might be. Everything anyone should need to know is found in the tunes.
I am not a fan of practicing scales and arpeggios. They are not improvisations but just exercises. If they help you bond with your instrument that’s fine. I’ve worked with too many "classically’ trained musicians that slaved over their exercise books for years and still couldn’t stand on a stage and express themselves (without a written page in front of them). They never learn to conceptualize what they were doing all those years. And that’s the real trick. But yes, others got on just fine with that kind of background. It’s a right-brain left-brain thing I guess.
A good way to learn would be to get a software package like Band In A Box and set up some chord progressions. Play along to find out what works. BIAB (PGMusic) also has learning aids but not necessarily for whistle - more for guitar and piano. The founder of the company is a music educator.
Don’t confuse composition with improvisation. I’ve known a few composers that couldn’t improvise their way out of a paper sack. Creating something ethereal and spiritual can be done without much knowledge of theory or skill at improvising. It is more about discovering your voice and being able to remember what you create either by taking notes or recording your successes. I’ve collaborated with a few players that didn’t know a hoot about music but could write tunes (or songs) quite well but needed some help fleshing things out as far as chords and accompaniment went. At that level it’s more about how familiar you are with your instrument and being able to use it to communicate what you feel and what you need to say.
So just spend your time playing, playing and playing some more. Soon enough you’ll be spitting out your own stuff. Let the spirit move you. Have fun.
Feadoggie
No, neither arpeggios nor Phil’s tutorials are the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything!
Deep man!! go easy on that single malt 
Thanks for the replies. I have been working through some of Phil’s tutorials like the arpeggios because they do build up familiarity with the instrument and I guess there’s no harm in that.
I think that the best musicians play like their instruments are an extension of their bodies. When you talk or sing, how often do you have to think about what your vocal chords do? If you want to hum a tune, you hum.
I’ve noticed that every time I learn a new song, it’s like a particular grouping of notes gets embedded in my memory, and the more I practice, the less I have to think about that particular pattern. The more songs I learn, the more patterns I become familiar with.
When I try to improvise right now, I tend to gravitate to the patterns I know the best, and my fingers follow those instead of what I’m thinking in my head. Eventually, I want my whistle (or flute) playing to be so practiced that I play what I think without thinking about it, or hear a tune and play it back without hunting for the notes. The more patterns I can get down, the fewer gaps there will be in my muscle memory and the more connections I make in my brain, which should ultimately translate into the ability to compose on the fly.
If meditation or worship is what you’re going for, the less you have to think about your whistle, the more you can focus on the moment.
That’s my opinion, at least.
That makes a lot of sense to me.
A nice thing about whistle is that it is hard to play
a wrong note. Because you are limited in the notes
you can play, there are fewer potentially “wrong”
notes. For example, if you have a backing track in
the key of D, you can play any note on the D scale
and you can be pretty sure it will fit. Now, that will
not necessarily sound good, but it will fit the key.
The reason it might not sound good is that our ears
are trained to expect certain things with regards to a
chord progression. Our brains have been trained by
the music we grew up with to have these expectations.
So, for example, while the backing track is on the G
chord in the progression, you might want to avoid
sitting on an F# for too long. These things become
internalized pretty quickly as you experiment and listen
to what you’re doing.
One good strategy is to print out a tune you know and
scratch out every other measure. Then you can play
one measure from the sheet music, then try to improvise
the next measure, then play the third measure from the
sheet, then improv the 4th measure, etc. As you repeat
this, try to get your improvised measures to flow better
into the written measures. This will show you how your
ear expects the tune to move from one chord into
another. Then you can try replacing more of the written
measures with improv so you are improvising longer and
longer.
There is only one real “trick” to improvisation: Knowing your instrument - because when you improvise, it becomes not an instrument of design, but an instrument of the mind. Any exercise which better familiarizes you with the whistle will help, but your ability will only ever be as good as you make it. While I agree that some styles of music are better learned by ear, the learning of an instrument itself does require some structure if you want to be able to play it properly. As I am sure you are already aware, execution is everything - I think even more so in improvisation. Arpeggios and scales will certainly help with this. Plus, you are less likely to plateau if you are working toward the mastery of something definite, as opposed to something abstract. I always think of improvising as being less a matter of getting something out, and instead being more a matter of knowing when and where to hold it back, and/or wrap it up altogether.
Thanks for the ideas and thoughts.
Not at all! I work with a load of excellent jazz musicians, and they study and work very hard at their improvisation skills. One sax guy told me that that is what he spends nearly all his time, hours a day, practising.
And many books have been written on it.
A quick search and I found this University course on it… read through this outline of the course, and tell me if improvisation is simply “feeling the music”
The starting point is a thorough knowledge of chords, chord progressions, and harmony. You can know yourself and know your own instrument, but if you don’t know music theory your improvising is unlikely to be any good.
An interesting post. Many thanks. The link provided a useful bibliography at the end which included this book: The Blues Scales Essential Tools for Jazz Improvisation by Dan Greenblatt (http://www.shermusic.com/new/1883217385.shtml) which is for all instruments, rather than just the guitar although it is in C rather than D.
I have a further question for you. I’ve never liked jazz at all though I love blues music and used to fiddle around improvising (badly) on the guitar. I wonder how much common ground there is between blues and jazz improvisation such that a book like that would be useful?
Also interesting is that Davy Spillane is my favourite low whistler and he loves blues music. I believe he spends time at home with his collection of guitars playing blues. According to Donal Lunny, in an interview on the Moving Hearts Live in Dublin DVD, he says Davy’s love of the blues has given him a unique tone and style on the pipes and low whistle. I would like a little of that kind of improvisation..
I come from a jazz (saxophone) background. Blues is jazz but with some limitations to simplify things. The 12 bar blues uses a standard chord progression:
I I I I
IV IV I I
V IV I I
The issue with blues on the whistle is that the blues scale for D major contains F natural, and that’s a very difficult note to half-hole. In the key of G major, it contains Bb. This has prevented me from playing blues on the whistle. I was searching for a keyed whistle but that didn’t lead anywhere (piper’s grip & keys aren’t a good match), which led m to flute and ultimately violin but that’s another story. So I’m not sure how to do blues on a whistle.
In a jazz tune, one typically plays through the melody a couple times and then each person takes a turn improvising through the chord changes. This is not hard to do (and even easier in blues because the chord changes are very simple and set), but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to play something that sounds good. One exercise my jazz teacher would have me do is we’d do what’s called “trading fours”. For two people, each person plays 4 bars and it goes back and forth. You can think of it as “call & response”. It’s a lot of fun and I would take my teacher’s improvised 4 and build upon that for mine. She was great at it and would do the same based on my idea. and we could just keep doing that and it was thrilling to do it with a pro.
Band in a box is a great idea, I use it myself. I even type chord symbols in for some ITM tunes and play along. But I think the bigger issue with blues and jazz is the lack of a chromatic instrument. I’ve been limiting myself to ITM for 2 years now since I got into the whistle (except Piano which I play jazz & broadway type stuff, but I can’t improvise very well on piano), so I’d like to be able to play jazz again. I almost got a keyed flute for this but recently decided to see if violin can serve this purpose.
Ok so let’s forget the blues scale since the whistle can’t play it and let’s go back to how to improvise. I purchased two “jam tracks” for the native american flute from Clint Goss (http://www.naftracks.com/). The native american flute plays a pentatonic minor scale which is a subset of the minor scale which means the whistle can play this scale too. For a D whistle the scale would be Eminor. The whistle can play it better than the NAF because the whistle can play a note below the tonic, for example on a Eminor scale the D whistle can play the D and lead it into the E which sounds really good. I have his A & G jam tracks which can be used with a G & F whistle respectively.
I’ve had a hard time improvising with these CDs. I think that’s for two reasons: the first is that the tunes are quite busy and some could even be used as a standalone tune. so I feel like I’m competing with the piano and other parts. The second is because I have no idea what chords are being played. So I often find myself on the wrong note and by the time I can detect the conflict, it’s time for another note (I’m not too fast with ear stuff). I think this is due to my jazz upbringing where we improvised over the chord changes so the chord changes were always known (and on the sheet music!). Improvising with a jam track and not having the chord changes ahead of time is quite different. And because there is no melody to model one has to come up with something entirely on their own. I think this is great exercise and since I have trouble doing it, I should practice it more. I’m glad I wrote about this because it reminds me to do it.
So taking this idea and applying it to the jazz framework of playing through the melody once or twice and then improvising over the changes once or twice and then finishing by coming back to the melody, here is a way that can be done on the whistle:
Pick a slow reel or aire (for example sally gardens, the air). Set up band in the box to play the chords or alternatively record yourself playing an accompaniment on another instrument (guitar, piano, etc.) and then loop the recording 3 times. Play the melody the first time, improvise the 2nd time through, and then come back to the melody for the 3rd time. this is where band in a box is very helpful. with a few mouse clicks you can produce a good accompaniment played on real instruments by pro musicians. it’s not perfect, but it’s very good.
For someone who doesn’t have BIAB, I could make a backing track for a tune and post it here and then you could give the improvising a shot. We could even share our improvising and compare notes. That’d be a fun project. If I have time today I may give it a shot myself just to see what I come up with.
And one more thing on this way too long post.. a book.. there are plenty books about improvising jazz and it gets quite complex. When I took jazz sax lessons, my teacher just had me doing it and not worrying about technique or mistakes. Just do it, observe what sounds good and what doesn’t. Do more of the former and less of the latter. And it’s a lot of fun. So I think a book isn’t necessary unless you’re very serious and past the beginner stage, and even then as I wrote earlier you’ll be stuck if you don’t have a chromatic instrument.
After rereading my post, I realize I got a little sidetracked by the fact that the OP likes the blues. But he was asking about improvising in a more free style, with very little accompaniment or perhaps none at all. I’ve seen the “from silence” video (and I can’t find the link either). it’s quite different from jazz or blues.
For this it may be interesting to mention hindustani classical music. I’m no expert on it but my limited understanding is that in HCM they pick a scale (a raga which is much more complex than a scale but I’m simplifying) and they have a tanpura play 5-8-8-1 type drone using the first & fifth. And they play on this for a long time (like 45 minutes or so). If you want to hear what the tanpura sounds like you can listen to an mp3 of just the tanpura on this page:
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~mrahaim/
it’d be suitable for using as a backing, just pick the right key.
Then the tabla comes in to provide the some rhythm. All this may sound complex but it’s not that hard to do some simple improvisations. The best explanation I’ve found for this here:
http://www.flutebansuri.com/ragas/yaman
it’s free and there are two ragas with the transcriptions. To read the transcriptions you have to learn the indian equivalent of the solfege words. For example Sa is G aka Sol. It’s actually not that hard, I was able to pick it up and be able to play from the transcriptions. The transcriptions also don’t use a staff, they have their own very simple notation based on note duration. It’s pretty cool and easy to learn.
So the player has his basic motif (kind of like the melody in jazz) and he’ll play it and then he’ll improvise on it, slow, then later fast, etc. so there are some basic structural guidelines there. But after thinking about the “from silence” video I think this is closer to what you want to do than jazz. Listen to the recordings on that page and see. It’s played on a bansuri flute, I think Bb. so I downloaded the mp3 and pitch-adjust them up to the key of D using Transcribe!.
There is computer software (Riyaz Studio) and iPhone software for the tanpura & tabla parts for someone who is very serious. I didn’t get this far. Yet.
So there you go.. two different approaches to improvisation. HCM & Jazz. Lots to learn, so little time.
I’d forgotten your background was jazz. And at the heart of jazz is improvisation. After reading what you’ve written I’m wondering if blues improvisation is what I’m really after. Listening to Davy Spillane again maybe his improvisation isn’t blues based though he uses a lot of note bends. And, as you say, neither is Troy Donockley’s improvisation on “From Silence.” So the question is, how are they improvising? Just within the nomral major and minor scales? BTW the BIAB idea sounds great if you’ve time to put together a backing track.
Whether it’s “Celtic” music or Bebop or Blues, music is music, and improvisation has to come from knowing the chord progression. This knowing can come from reading a lead sheet, or by having a great ear, or even by watching the right hand of the guitarist.
I read somewhere that Paddy Moloney, who is fantastic at improvisation, would hang out and jam with jazz players.
About the whistle not being usable for Blues, it’s easy to play F natural or B flat on a whistle, for another thing you could modify a whistle by partially covering a hole with tape to get the scale you want.
I had a gig years ago, playing with a Celtic/jazz fusion group, where one piece was in a hijaz mode, and I modified a whistle with tape just for that piece, which would have been a bear to play otherwise. (Hijaz mode has a major 3rd but a minor 2nd, 6th and 7th; on an Irish whistle you could play A Bflat Csharp D E Fnatural G A.)
pancelticpiper - Could you write name of the band? Is there on the internet any recordings?
Celtic/fusion is great fusion of the generes
I’m not saying Davy & Toy’s improvisations aren’t blues, I’m just saying the whistle can’t play a blues scale without half-holing and that makes it difficult. But the techniques used for improvising apply to any type of music, from jazz to hinustani classical! That’s why I gave the hindustani music as an example. I was really impressed when I discovered it. How cool is it to have a traditional music going back a long time and based on improvisation.
In one of my sax improvisation books, the author uses the 12 bar blues for the reasons I mentioned earlier (easy, standard chord change). So I think that is the easiest play to start, provided you have a chromatic instrument or you are really good at half-holing. Then you take what you’ve learned and apply it to any scale you want. It’s all about spontaneously coming up with an interesting musical idea and expanding on it, altering it, coming back to it, etc. You can do that with any instrument and any scale. That’s one reason the native american flute is well adapted for it.. since its pentatonic minor scale has only 5 notes, the chances of a mistake are greatly reduced. and as I said, the whistle can play that same scale. try googling for “jam tracks” or “backing tracks”. You may be able to find some free ones.
it’s easy to play F natural or B flat on a whistle
I have a hard time playing F. I play E with a “straight” (slightly lifted) E finger. and I can do it but I can’t do it quickly. I learned how to do it to play an O’Carolan tune that I can’t remember the name of it. The Bb is similar. takes a lot of practice. I’m sure if one was stuck on an island with only a whistle, one would learn to play anything in the world on it. It just takes time & patience.