Julia Delaney B-part. Uuurrrghhh....

Whistle
1

The second & sixth bar of Julia Delaney’s B-part go something like this: ecgc acgc (note: this tune is played on a C-whistle).

I don’t usually have a problem with this type of pedal note (here the c), but for some reason whenever I play this, it comes out really messy and slurry. I play it on a Waltons, Feadog, or Generation C. The Feadog is the worst in this respect, but the others aren’t much better. I often will just play

.e2.g2 .a2.g2 as a result.

Now is it me, and I need to work on my technique, or is it the whistles? Any thoughts?

Here is the tune, fyi:

Julia Delaney

2

Are you using OXX OOO or half holing the Cnat? If you’re cross fingering it the A-C-G-C gets messy. Half holing it makes it much easier and it gives it a nice bounce.

MarkV.

3

No, I am playing it on a C whistle. So the measure is fingered:

xxx xoo
xxx xxx
xxo ooo
xxx xxx
xoo ooo
xxx xxx
xxo ooo
xxx xxx

xxx ooo

I don’t if I am messy with placing my fingers, I think it’s maybe more the difference in breath pressure required between a d and an a or b. It beats me, but I don’t normally have the problem of notes sounding so slurry and blurry. :roll:

/bloomfield

[ This Message was edited by: Bloomfield on 2002-07-30 17:53 ]

4

Bloomfield,

Are you reading the music shown up 1-step?

If you playing on a C whistle you probably need to play it up a step so that you finger it as if it were E dorian minor (on a C whistle it will sound as D dorian minor as written).

That would make it fdad bdad which is a bit easier.

-John

5

On 2002-07-30 17:53, John-N wrote:

That would make it fdad bdad which is a bit easier.

Yup. See my previous post. Still blurry. :frowning:

6

I guess we posted at nearly the same time :slight_smile:

Depending on which whistle you are using you might be able to hold down your pointer finger on your right hand, but it probably won’t help much.

7

On 2002-07-30 17:35, Bloomfield wrote:
Now is it me, and I need to work on my technique, or is it the whistles? Any thoughts?

Well, I can’t speak for the quality of your whistles. But it’s definitely a passage from hell.

At least it sounds better on my O’Riordan C than it does on the D Water Weasel or Eb O’Riordan. But it still has weird overtones half the time.

Probably there’s a technique out there that helps. I’ve tried venting the top hole a little bit all the way through the passage (about a quarter open) and that seems to help a bit.

Honestly, it never seemed bad enough to worry about studying it. Probably no one would notice in a session…

8

Heya Bloomfield dude,

Have you tried the xxxxxo fingering for the high C? It’s a little more work, but seems like a cure for the squeeking problem…

9

Bloomfield,

You’ve highlighted something that I only recently realized is a weakness in whistles - they don’t handle the transition from high a or high b to high d very well. The louder the whistle, the worse it handles the passage, it seems, but even tame Gens and Clarkes don’t like it at all.

You could perhaps get it to sound cleanly by venting the top hole every time you hit d - but you’d need serious practice to play it at speed. If I were a serious whistle player I’d practise that, but as you know I’m lazy.

Being lazy I have developed a variety of “variations” to skirt the problem - before I actually figured out that it was a problem with the whistle and not with my technique.

I tend to play things like:

~f3 a bfaf (my favourite)

fdAd bfaf

fd (3ddd bfaf

fd ~d2 bfaf

fd (3Bc#d bfaf (don’t give me a hard time about the c# OK)

Steve

Edit PS I’m talking about playing it on a C whistle with “D fingering”, of course.


[ This Message was edited by: StevieJ on 2002-07-30 21:08 ]

10

Work on your technique. Take the difficult measure and start with the first three notes and play them over and over, until they are easy to play. Then play the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th notes over and over. Then play the 3rd, 4th, and 5th notes over and over, and continue through the measure that way. You also talked about playing the 6th measure with the pedal tone. Make up an exercise where you play a scale with that one note, the pedal tone, inbetween each scale note. In fact, that would be a good ex. to play with many different notes as the pedal.

Take Care,
John

11

On 2002-07-31 00:40, JohnPalmer wrote:
Work on your technique.

Oh, you’re a cruel man, John. Didn’t you realize that what I wanted to hear was that it’s the whistle’s problem not mine? (Bless you, Steve!) :smiley:

Just kidding, of course. :wink: I worked on the passage quite a bit, John, before ever posting about it. I am pretty sure that my technique is clean on that particular measure and that I cover the holes on the d-pedal (it’s really a c, but xxx xxx or oxx xxx fingering on the c-whistle).

Last night I worked on it some more and what I did was trying to tongue the pedal. That’s quite tricky to do at first. For me at least, and I blame my classical start into music for it, which causes me to instinctively favor ta-ya ta-ya ta-ya ta-ya over ya-Ta ya-Ta ya-Ta ya-Ta.

I got it down eventually but the improvement was not all that significant at speed unless I really de-emphasized the pedal tone and made it really staccato, which takes the flow out of the passage. And even so it’s still mucky.


Steve,

~f3 a bfaf (my favourite)

fdAd bfaf

fd (3ddd bfaf

fd ~d2 bfaf

fd (3Bc#d bfaf (don’t give me a hard time about the c# OK)

I like the idea of using variations (which I guess I have been doing in sessions, with the uninspired .f2.a2.b2.f2, but what you’re suggesting there looks a lot more interesting. I love my office colleagues, of course, but they can really interfere with your whistling, I tell you. I’ll try all your suggestions tonight.

About the C#: you haven’t forgotten, eh? In a triplet like that I guess it’s all right, gives it a pipesy feeling. :slight_smile:

\

/bloomfield

[ This Message was edited by: Bloomfield on 2002-07-31 09:39 ]