When I hear Laurence Nugent and Fintan Vallely play whistles, they attack notes a “huff” sometimes, and on the whole it sounds rather flutey. I think I can immitate that sometimes, by producing a “huuh” from the throat and palatte. Is that a proper whistling method, or is that “bad” - producing bad whistling habits later on in my playing?
A digression, but I think I like trad flautist’s whistleplaying especially. Their whistling style is especially interesting because they add all sorts of subtle breathing nuances and interesting ornaments like triple tonguing. I guess since the flute is much harder than the whistle, you’ll sound very good when you come back to playing whistle after majoring in the flute for some time.
The nice thing about trad whistle playing is that the player is pretty much free to experiment and develop his/her own unique style. In the past many trad musicians were self taught, and so had to simply play whatever sounded good to them.
All of the trad techniques we know and love were new - and therefore untraditional - at one time or another, so why not keep trying new things? If enough players like them, they’ll become traditionl eventually.
It all adds to the fun and fascination of the WWW.(Wonderful World of Whistleplaying)
At the Chris Langan weekend in Toronto last January one of the flute teachers, Jon Goodman, called it the “huff & chuff” school of playing. I’ve only heard Fintan Vallely play one tune on whistle but I thought it was really nice to hear his flute technique transferred to whistle.
I’ve been cruising around links for
woodenflute, especially those concerning
how to play Irish flute, and learning
a lot about whistle playing, breathing
techniques, articulation, arcane
ornamentation. I think you’re right that
learning trad Irish flute is a good way
to improve one’s whistling. These flute
folk really know a lot of good stuff.
Joke: What’s the difference between a
flutist and a flautist? 50 dollars an hour.