Fine, I have been playing the Tinwhistle for merely 2 months now and it is a somewhat difficult instrument. Although I can play a couple of tunes damn near perfect minus rolls and such. I took it to work 2 days ago and a co-worker walks in and we discuss music for a moment and I play a tune or two. He then proceeded to say “How hard could that thing be to play, looks pretty easy. Hell, the thing only has 6 holes.” I would have let him try it, but hes not worth having his “Condensed lung vapor” in my whistle. This makes me wonder how many of you guys and gals hear that?
I guess it depends on one’s definition of “play.” It’s easy to get a sound out of, and because it’s diatonic (plays a particular scale), it’s easier to hit all sweet-sounding notes than on a chromatic instrument.
But the very things that make it a “simple” instrument make it difficult to sound good, and make it more limited than other instruments. You can’t really change its sound like a sax, which can be made to growl, or a flute, which is sensitive to the least change in the way it’s blown. So, really, any variations in sound must be done with the fingers.
Concert-flute players often have trouble changing to the Irish flute, the whistle’s big brother. All the extra holes and keys make the concert flute easier to play for some. Simple doesn’t always equal easy.
A fiddle only has 4 strings, so that must be easier to play!
A piano has about a gazillion keys, so that must be really hard to play!
As Chas says, it’s not how complex the instrument is that determines the quality of the music that comes out. Many people here have chosen the whistle after (or as well as) playing other instruments, all of which are generally more complicated, others come to it as their first foray into music. It’s the apparent simplicity of the instrument that attracts, but variety of things one do with it that keep us playing!
I think your co-worker is a dork and you should ignore him. (I’d personally feel inclined to beat him with a whistle, but it wouldn’t be ladylike and may lead to legal trouble. 
)
Yeah, but when I tried to play fiddle it had an infinitely large number of notes.
Steve
It it’s own way, the whistle is a harder instrument to play than the Irish flute is; similarly, the Irish flute is also a harder instrument to play than the Boehm-system orchestral metal flute.
I don’t really think there are any “easy” instruments to play, actually.
Best,
–James
Autoharps are often the target of such narrow observations.
i HAVE HAD THAT SAME EXPERIENCE TWICE. BOTH TIMES IT WAS MY SONS..WHO I HASTEN TO SAY ARE BOTH FULL GROWN MEN OF 26 AND 31. ON SEPERATE OCCASIONS THEY CAME OVER WHILE I WAS PRACTICING AND SAID ALMOST THE SAME THING…“GEE, THAT LOOKS LIKE IT WOULD BE REAL EASY TO PLAY”. I JUST SMILED..HANDED THEM SOME SHEET MUSIC WITH TABLATURE AND THE WHISTLE. THEY HANDED IT BACK PRETTY FAST WITH ABASHED LOOKS ON THEIR FACES AFTER HAVING MADE A TERRIBLE RACKET.
ME AND THE WHISTLES GET ALOT MORE RESPECT NOW!
JUST REALIZED THIS IN ALL CAPS. SORRY…TO LAZY TO GO BACK AND CHANGE IT! I PROMISE…I AM NOT SHOUTING!
CHEERS…ANDREA Z
I think your co-worker is quite right. The whistle has to be one of the easiest instruments in the world.
I’m not belittling the heights of sophistication and artistry that can be achieved with the whistle, nor the amount of work it takes a beginner to start to make nice music.
But we should face facts: the whistle is very simple. No physical difficulty or strain involved in playing it, and most people can get a nice sound of it in the first minute of trying it and master the entire basic scale in an hour. Compare that with a violin, uillean pipes, and many other instruments.
Its simplicity is why most of us are playing it, myself included.
Easy to begin, difficult to master. Sort of like the saxophone that way.
I’ve observed something about people: Everyone likes to think that their instrument is the hardest, that their problems are the worst, that their job is the most stressful, and so on. I catch myself thinking this way occasionally, but it’s so annoying in other people I try very hard to avoid it. The Golden Rule, I guess.
Woodwind players say brass instruments are easy because they only have three keys; brass players say woodwinds are easy because they don’t have to worry about all those partials. Neither of them know what they’re talking about. Sort of a microcosm of society.
I guess if it comforts someone to think that the whistle is really easy, let them think that–it doesn’t keep you from enjoying a good tune. 
Or as Garfield once said, “I used to be annoyed. Now I’m amused.”
Tom
p.s. For what it’s worth, it is my experience that the most difficult of the wind instruments to play are the oboe and F horn. Saxophone, as I said, is easy to start on but difficult to master, partially because there are so many great sax players in the world that the bar is set pretty darn high. Trombone is on the hard end; clarinet is on the easy end (although I can’t play the things to save my life). Trumpet, tuba, and flute lie somewhere in between.
I’ve never studied violin/fiddle, but it doesn’t LOOK easy…Guitar isn’t too bad if you have quick fingers.
Whistle is sort of in a class by itself. It’s extremely easy to pick up the basics because, as has been pointed out, it’s diatonic. But as has also been pointed out, that very thing makes it very difficult to master. It IS, however, undoubtably among the easiest instruments to carry around, which is what got me turned on to it in the first place; that and the Chieftains…
And now I do believe my ps is longer than my letter. What can I say.
All great paintings are only a piece of canvas and a little paint. I find the whistle to be easier than the guitar or 5 string. However, I put more consistent and frequent effort into learning the whistle. This may have some bearing on how easy it is.
Ron Kiley
Have to fully agree with StevieJ. Compared to most instruments
the whistle is very simple and relatively easy to play but it can
and does present challenges for many. Seems that is at least one
the reasons why it is growing in popularity. If you want something
really easy try a bowed psaltery…simplest instrument next to
a kazoo.
Kelhorn Mike
Yep, I see the whistle as the best way to get into irish music. It lets you concentrate on the music pretty quickly without having to spend forever on technique/making a good sound. I just don’t want to imagine how tough it must be to keep on being motivated on an instrument like the fiddle, must take ages to get your first nice-sounding tune running.
The bones are real easy to play and harder to defend. And there’s the banjo…
Mack
I’ve found that some instruments are easier for ME to play then others. For example I had a terrible time with guitars and the mandolin but the flute seemed to flow naturally. Three years ago when I got my hammered dulcimer it was the same thing and more recently the autoharp and whistles. On the other hand I’ve been baffled by my mountain dulcimer. I some people just have “their” instrument(s).
Hey andreaz54, your capslock is stuck!
:roll:
Heck, ain’t no thing to playin’ drums. All ya gotta do is hit 'em, right? And a mountain dulcimer has to be easy with only three sets of strings.
Honestly, for me ALL instruments come slowly and hard. OTOH, why worry about what someone else thinks? Ain’t like you’re in it for THEM, after all.
I think when we talk about how hard or easy an instrument is we are talking about how much time and effort it takes until we can play something that is not painful to listen to. In that sense, a whistle is certainly easier than, say, an oboe or a violin.
Another way to look at it is to ask how much time, effort and talent it takes to completely master an instrument. I don’t believe anyone has ever completely mastered any instrument. Now when I listen to, say, Mary Bergin, it may sounds pretty much perfect to me, but I’m sure it does not to her. She would not have reached that level if she were not constantly looking for ways to improve.
So, every instrument is infinitely challenging, and no instrument is “easy”.
–Jay
Easy to begin, difficult to master. Sort of like the saxophone that way.
Maybe easy to get a “sound” out of it… sort of. But most newcomers to saxophone are in immediate need of some tutoring to get a decent sound, appropriate emboucher, and good intonation. It takes time to get a good emboucher, time to get the fingering to be smooth (no slight hiccups between Bbis and C, high C - palm D, etc).
Woodwind players say brass instruments are easy because they only have three keys; brass players say woodwinds are easy because they don’t have to worry about all those partials. Neither of them know what they’re talking about. Sort of a microcosm of society. >
I started out on saxophone in middle school after having played around with my dad’s cornet as a little(r) kid. Then started playing flugelhorn in high school and trumpet a bit afterwards. I found saxophone easier to progress on, easier to control, easier to speak with. I’d never say brass is easy—IT AIN’T!
But music is about love and craft. As Wm. Blake wrote:
Prayer is the study of Art. Praise is the Practice of Art. Fasting &c., all relate to Art. The outward Ceremony is Antichrist.from Laocoön http://www.blakearchive.org…
Without Unceasing Practice nothing can be done.
Practice is Art.
If you leave off you are Lost
Cheers,
Prayer is the study of Art.
Praise is the Practice of Art.
Fasting &c., all relate to Art.
The outward Ceremony is Antichrist.…
Without Unceasing Practice nothing can be done.
Practice is Art.
If you leave off you are Lost
Part of that went over my head, but the practice part made me think about how a few days of missed practice can throw you off for another day or so. I had the flu and didn’t get much practice time in for a few days. Coming back to it was daunting. It felt really clumsy, timing was way off. I hammered away hating how I sounded, and the next day, things were back to normal (hating how I sound, but less so.)
I originally played whistle just to get the tunes memorized so I could work them out on 5-string banjo (3-finger picking). Eventually, I realized I could play a lot more tunes a lot better on whistle than banjo and decided to focus on whistle. Finger picking ornamentation is workable on some tunes (in G), much more difficult to play tunes in D. (Don’t ask me about Dorian and minor keys. 
)
Lance Weekender commented at his house the other evening that the whistle is a more direct connection to the music as you are able to avoid a lot of playing technicalities. I’d agree with that, though it’s more entertaining to disagree with the guy.
Tony