I bought a whistle in 2007 while stationed in Korea because I wanted to learn violin and I was reading an article where a fiddler said he plays a whistle because busting out his fiddle every time he felt like jamming wasn’t practical, and a whistle was a good way to memorize notes in songs since most violin pieces can be played on a whistle, or so he said. Anyways, I spent a few weeks learning to play a couple songs and I fell in love with it. However, being in the U.S. Army, my fellow soldiers weren’t the most supportive of my whistle endeavors. Comments like “quit playing your skin flute Glover!” were yelled in the barracks hall. So I eventually gave up on it out of being self-conscience, something I regret to this day.
Fast forward to about a month ago. I landed my dream job in Page, AZ (out in the middle of nowhere with terrible internet). It’s beautiful out here and there is so much to do outside! But I get bored at night when the sun goes down, so I decided to finally stop putting it off and pick up the whistle again. I bought a $10 Clarke Celtic (sweetone), but the thing is a piece of crap and when I checked the tune with a guitar tuner I found that it’s WAY off on most notes. So I started lurking on this forum and I kept hearing Jerry Freeman’s whistles mentioned as an option for new whistlers without breaking the bank. So as of right now I’m impatiently waiting for Bluebird to arrive in the mail:D
My question is; what is the best method to learn a complete song in your opinions and experience? I know everyone is different, but what are some methods you use when learning a new song from beginning to end. I’m going to be learning by ear as I feel like I learn better that way. If I’m reading tabs or notes, I’m more focused on what comes next on the paper than actually playing the note. Plus, back in 2007 I learned to play the Schindler’s List theme by ear and it felt infinitely more rewarding than just playing off of dots on paper. How I’m going about learning songs now is by trying to play the entire thing completely through, but I feel like I lean towards the parts I know and play better than the parts I need to practice on. Is it a better option to say, take a chunk of the song and practice it till proficient and then move on to practicing a second chunk while using the parts I’ve already learned to warm up before focusing on the parts I suck at? Or should I keep trying to play the song from beginning to end over and over? Sorry for the wall of text, I’m a writer lol.
I suppose this is a slight aside, albeit on the same topic …
I agree with you, Peter, on an intellectual level. But sometimes I’ve been lazy and practiced simply by playing things a few times. Surprisingly, there have been quite a few occasions when the initial faults have somehow ironed themselves out.
Anyway, aside aside, do what Peter says. Oh, and practice S-L-O-W-W-W-W-W-L-Y.
Oh, haven’t we all? And tried things we’ve been working on methodically too fast too soon just to see how they’re shaping up. But the principle remains as valid as we both know and the only sensible advice I could offer beginners!
Welcome to the whistle forum. And, thank you for your military service.
The Bluebird whistle is a fine whistle whether beginner or experienced player. I have a few Bluebirds. As for learning… tunes, btw are instrumental, while songs have words. I can only speak to what has worked for me. I too lurked on C&F a long while and then had a special request for help which I received and am still thankful. I’m still here too, and still newbie-ish. Look over to your left that’s me, a penurious, tone-deaf, wannabee whistler.
Some suggestions (works for me): at the top of whistle forum is a list of recordings that focus on whistle tunes. Browse thru regularly and seek out the particular style of whistling you’re interested in. Get some CDs and listen to the whistle tunes repeatedly. Best is to listen live music, but, that’s not as available in many locations. AZ may have the live music you seek, maybe not. Another learning suggestion is to learn the tune in phrases, question and answer and learn to hear it. At the time I began I couldn’t read a note nor the ABCs and learning by the phrases worked best for me. And you can work out the difficult parts, whether a note(s), leap in note or octaves, with breathing points determined. Breathing regularly throughout the piece was difficult for me as I tried to go all the way thru lines on a single breath. I’m learning to put in breathing points which can fluctuate on occasion.
There are any number of whistle tutorials available and a quick search on C&F will identify several. Books, CDs, internet tutorials are all possibilities. A personal lesson with an instructor is best, but, not as available so look around anyway.
Thanks, I’ll keep reminding myself of this when I’m struggling through parts.
As if I could play anything but slowly right now! lol. Do you have any suggestions for exercises that would help increase my speed for jigs that require it? I tried learning the guitar some years ago but I have hand eczema and the constant scraping and callousing of my fingers caused flair ups, but I remember coming across a book that gave a list of exercises I started doing that increased my efficiency and speed of changing notes.
Thanks ytliek, unfortunately I live out in the middle of nowhere, and finding a session, or other players/instructors for that matter, is doubtful. A side note though, I live right next to the Navajo reservation so I could probably find “sessions” of Navajo flutes/drums. I’ll probably pick up a Navajo flute one of these days because they are truly beautiful sounding instruments, but not for awhile because they’re pricey and I’m sticking to the whistle until I feel comfortable enough to branch into another instrument.
I’m not too keen on books, not sure why but I seem to learn better by just noodling and copying what I hear. Funny that I can program in 3 different computer languages, but my attempts to learn to read and play from sheet music have been futile lol.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone and the warm welcome to the forum.
Yes, and this is one of the many paradoxes about learning music. The way to increase speed is to keep practicing very, very slowly. Don’t ever try to speed up. Strangely, one day, you’ll find that you can play faster. But my strong suggestion would be never to even try to play faster. And then one day, you’ll find that, magically, you can. But don’t try.
You’re actually working to learn several different things …
What notes and rhythms make up the tune. I find it easiest to use the dots to learn the notes, and learn the rhythms by ear, but learning both by ear works better for some people.
Remembering what the notes are while you’re playing the tune. Some people argue this is easier if you learn the notes by ear to begin with. For longer tunes especially, you could consider the process I learned from a classical violin teacher: work backwards, work on the last phrase first, then the last two, then the last three, and so on. That way, your memory gets more solid as you play through the tune, rather than less. For this activity, I prefer to play through phrases, without stopping within them: stop before you make a mistake, not after, so you don’t reinforce the mistake.
Refining the technique with which you play the tune. This is where Peter’s suggestion comes into its own: isolate the tricky or troublesome bits and work on them.[/list]
Oftentimes beginners will slow down when they hit a difficult passage, and speed up when in an easy passage.
I’ve often, as a teacher, used the method of isolating the difficult bit, and once it’s mastered in isolation add context before and after, gradually extending outward, until the beginner can handle the passage in the context of the overall tune. Quite often a bit that a person stumbles over in the flow of the tune can be played perfectly in isolation, this method attempts to overcome that.
A metronome is key in my opinion. Most of the music is dance music and requires a steady beat to fulfill its function. Not only for dancing, but for playing with others having a rock-steady rhythm will be much appreciated.
I started learning to play the whistle about a year ago, purely by bashing my head against the tunes I really liked and trying to play them.
I’d say what learning method is most effective depends on one’s personality. There’s no way I would have stuck with it doing boring (to me) stuff like drills or playing tunes through super slowly. It may well be that following advice and doing it the way is optimal, but that doesn’t help if it’s not enjoyable enough to stick with.
If you play the whistle frequently and try to identify/correct your mistakes, you should just naturally get better over time. Here’s a little comparison on the tune Old Hag You Have Killed Me:
This was recorded about 2 weeks after I got my first whistle (A Clarke Celtic). It also took a bunch of takes to get a version without major mistakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2po34gxbPVM
This one was recorded at about the 11th month of learning to play. I played it twice in roughly the same time as that first recording. It was also done in one take, I just sat down and played. Finally, I was dynamically adding variations/ornamentation as I played: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbN7USup-70
Really the only difference between those two videos is playing it a whole lot of times and trying to make it sound better each time. Recording progress helps because you can analyze mistakes that you might notice, especially at first when it takes all your concentration to just get through the notes.
My process for learning is to look at the sheet music and then try to listen to someone who plays it well, preferably on whistle or flute. Most of the time I only try to learn tunes I’ve heard elsewhere and liked a lot. Whether or not you primarily depend on sheet music for learning, I think it’s a really useful time investment. It’s easier than you’d probably expect and there’s aren’t a lot of things to memorize. I posted a really simple introduction to it on reddit a while back, could be worth taking a look at: https://www.reddit.com/r/tinwhistle/related/2jiz6e/a_super_simple_introduction_to_reading_sheet/
I really like online resources like http://thesession.org/ for finding/learning tunes. There are usually a bunch of variations for each song, and you can listen to a MIDI generated from the sheet music to just get a sense of the sound. There are often links to performances in the comments too.
Bonus: 42 minute medley of most of the tunes I know on an Eb whistle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKlsO-9ITU
Just to show how far you can get in less than a year completely ignoring the boring stuff!
For the difficult bits, break them down into smaller parts and slowly work on those until you can play them easily. The small part may be as small as two notes with a difficult transition. Play that again and again and again…this is not music, it’s just training your muscles to play the notes. When you have those two notes down comfortably and at a reasonable pace, add one or two more notes. Repeat as necessary until you have that difficult part down, and then insert it into the easier part of the tune.
Thanks for the helpful tips! I got my bluebird in the mail and I’m loving it so far. I love the back pressure difference compared to the Clarke Celtic. It’s crazy how easy clear and perfect the notes sound, it truly does sing like a bird, and reaching the next octave is almost too easy now lol.
A couple off topic things I’ve noticed:
The nice thing about the whistle for me is that I’m a typist, I used to type at 130 words per minute in my teens and early 20’s, but have fallen to 90+ as I’m coming closer to 30, so my muscle memory and finger dexterity are easily transitioning to playing the whistle.
I’m starting to create original tunes in my head when I’m day dreaming or when I’m laying down to go to sleep. This has never happened before when I was learning guitar. It’s sort of exciting to me as I feel that one day I’ll be able to play these tunes for others, something I never even considered when I first picked up a whistle. Now if I could just write lyrics to accompany these tunes…lol.
I’m currently learning some non-traditional tunes because I know them so well, and I figure they’d be something nice to play at campfires next spring. I used this method for some of the note transitions into slides I needed for learning this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxVbKROvZjI and it’s worked great so far, pretty sure my neighbors hate me though lol.
Awesome advice and very motivational to see your 11 month progress!
If you’re in Page, there’s actually a session available in the area.
Not exactly close, but not too far: We have a weekly session in Flagstaff on Sundays at 7:00 - 10:00 at Uptown Pubhouse, 114 North Leroux Street, Flagstaff, AZ. (Reference: https://thesession.org/sessions/1737). You’re welcome to come and visit us, and we’ll be happy if you were able to join in on a tune or two. There are two whistlers who attend regularly (Greg and Nancy) who would love to give you advice (Maybe more than you want!).
I used to live and work on the rez, not far from Page, and I’d pop down to Flagstaff regularly to shop and whatnot. Perhaps you’ll find yourself in Flagstaff on a Sunday evening. If so, drop on by.
Oh, and practice S-L-O-W-W-W-W-W-L-Y.