When I first started playing whistle back in the 70’s I immediately noticed that the great traditional Irish players didn’t finger the way it said to in the books.
There are two very different ways Irish traditional music can be approached by an outsider (someone not raised with a lot of trad players around to pick up tunes and techniques from):
One is what I call the “musicalogical” approach or the “descriptive” approach, that is, to accept the way traditional players play and copy it as best one can, trying not to impose any foreign notions.
The other is what I call the “Yankee ingenuity” approach or the “proscriptive” approach, the approach where an outsider attempts to re-make the traditon according to their own notions of what is “right” (notions formed outside of the tradition in question and therefore foreign to it).
The parallel is in linguistics where the contrast is between “descriptive” and “proscriptive” grammar. The first accepts and describes how people actually talk, the second attempts to get people to talk in accordance with clinical notions of how English grammar ought to operate, notions usually originally borrowed from Latin and therefore irrelevant.
So how did all the “real” traditional Irish players play back when I was learning?
They left certain fingers down, fingers that ought to be up according to the Mel Bay whistle book.
The basic notion is called “economy of motion” and allows trad players to play more accurately at the high speeds required.
After playing for a few years it dawned on me that there existed on the whistle “shapes” not unlike chord shapes the fingers assume on the guitar.
There’s a “D shape” thus:
xxo xoo
which allow arpeggios based on a D chord to be easily played simply by moving two units, one unit consisting of the upper ring finger, the other unit consisting of the lower middle and ring fingers.
Try it by playing the D arpeggio
bottom D - low F# - low A - middle D - high F#- high A - and back down:
xxx xxx
xxx xoo
xxo xoo
xxx xxx
xxx xoo
xxo xoo and back down.
An example of the savings in motion and increase in clarity is the beginning of the reel The Mountain Road which if you use the Mel Bay fingering would start:
xxx xoo
xxo ooo
xxx xoo
xoo ooo
xxx xoo
xxo ooo
xxx xoo
but using trad fingering is simply:
xxx xoo
xxo xoo
xxx xoo
xoo xoo
xxx xoo
xxo xoo
xxx xoo
There are many passages in many tunes where ONLY the upper ring finger and lower middle and ring fingers are lifted.
Then there’s the “G shape” thus:
xoo oox
using which a G arpeggio involves only the movement of two units, one consisting of the upper-hand middle and ring fingers, the other unit consisting of the lower-hand index and middle fingers. So the G arpeggio:
bottom D - low G - low B - middle D - high G - high B and back down is fingered:
xxx xxx
xxx oox
xoo oox
xxx xxx
xxx oox
xoo oox and back down.
And there are many situation things, for example as mentioned above what might be thought of as an “E minor shape” thus:
xoo xxo
where the “rocking” passage B - E - B - F# - B goes:
xoo xxo
xxx xxo
xoo xxo
xxx xoo
xoo xxo
xxx xxo
xoo xxo
In general, many trad players tended to keep the lower-hand ring finger down for notes other than E and F#, using it as an “anchor” finger, except when playing a passage which used the “D shape”.
Now this whole approach was used back when everybody used Generation whistles. These whistles, having a relatively narrow bore, are fairly resistant to changing pitch when leaving fingers down and these trad players were able to play acceptably in tune.
Now that so many people are playing what I call “neo-whistles”, which often have a much larger bore (in a misguided attempt to make a whistle sound like a recorder), many of these fingerings produce notes which are not acceptably in tune.
One thing was brought out above: on many large-bore whistles high B must be fingered xoo ooo. The trad way of keeping the lower-hand ring finger down make high B hard to attack or in some cases high B won’t sound at all. This issue didn’t exist in the old days.
I’m using a Burke low D as my main whistle nowadays and I need to be careful to keep the lower fingers off when playing high B.
Oh- you say- what about all those middle D’s played closed??? My Mel Bay book says you must have your upper index finger off!
The “closed middle D” not only is easier to finger accurately, but on flute and low whistle has a wonderful percussive effect that’s crucial to making many tunes sound right. (This effect is lost, admittedly, on high whistles.)
Start the 2nd part of the Kesh Jig using closed Ds:
xoo oox (long roll on B)
xxx xxx
xoo xxx (!) (a handy B fingering)
xxx xxx
xxx xxo
xxx ooo
xxx xxo
xxx xxx
xoo oox
xxx oox etc
