For those of you who had never played a wind instrument before. How long did it take any of you to aquire a reasonable degree of skill with the whistle. I mean before you could play a few tunes quite well..I have been playing about 2mnths now and dont seem to be making much progress with things like ornamentation and rolls..I just recently picked out my first tune by ear that anyone could recognize. Normally I have to hear the song and then see the notation in order to play the song..I cant just play by reading the music without first hearing it.And I cant hear it and play it without having the notation in front of me..I hope that makes sense. Anyway I guess I just need some encouragement..I am tired of the kids snickering in the background when I play..
Mr. 4,
Take heart and encouragement. You’re right on track. My advice would be to not even concentrate on ornamentation right now. You’re still in the stage of keying your finger positions to sounds in your brain. Call it muscle memory or simply the result of practice, but by pressing on you will see progress. Make a recording of yourself now and then another in 6 months and you will be pleased. In my experience, developing the skills related to the playing of music is measured in years, not months.
I’m glad that you’ve been able to stick with it for a few months. Keep playing and send the kids to their room (without supper, if they snicker 
).
Erik
My advice would be, first, stop worrying about ornamentation…at least for now. It’s a lot to think about when you’re still trying to get the hang of a new instrument.
Why not get away from written music (or even unfamiliar recorded music) for right now, and just focus on picking out songs you already know how to sing. Think of things like Christmas carols, TV tunes, campfire songs, hymns…whatever you can hum the tune for. Pick those out on the whistle and just focus on playing them smoothly and at tempo.
Once you’re comfortable with those, you can toss in a trill here or a cut there, wherever it seems comfortable and natural, but don’t sweat it.
Practicing like this will give you confidence. Then, when you turn back to the written tunes, start with ones you can hear recordings of first…get to the point where you can hum them, and THEN start picking them out on the whistle, using the music as a guide rather than trying to “cold read.” You’ll probably find that all the practice you did on more familiar tunes will make the new tunes come all the easier.
When you’ve got several tunes comfortably under your belt, THEN start thinking about ornamentation. Don’t jump right to rolls…focus on trills, cuts and double cuts, all of which tend to come pretty easily. Move on to the more complicated ornaments as you get more comfortable and confident.
When I started playing the whistle, I didn’t HAVE a tutor. I just started picking out songs I liked to sing, or simple melodies I’d picked up from my Irish Rovers albums. It was a very satisfying way to get comfortable with the instrument.
Redwolf
P.S. If people snicker, hand them the darned whistle and say “let’s see if you can do any better!”
[ This Message was edited by: Redwolf on 2002-11-14 16:28 ]
It took me quite a while to learn my first tune. It’s good that you can’t play a tune just from the dots, don’t try to either. Always listen listen listen to what you want to play.
My advice would also be to forget rolls. Completely. Practice getting a good rhythym and use cuts (and taps) to separate same-pitch notes or to accent important notes. (In jigs, use the Slur-tongue-tongue appraoch.) DON’T try to learn the melody first, the rhythm second. It really doesn’t matter how painfully slow you go as long as you keep the (slow) beat. These are all mistakes I made, by the way.
This really helped me: learn to sing/lilt a tune (maybe a barndance or a clear jig) and then try to pick it out on your whistle. For the first 30 minutes it will seem like you’ll never get it, and then it’s going to be there, except for a few rough spots. Fun!
One of my very first “solid” tunes was the theme song from the old Pippi Longstocking TV series (the one that was filmed in Sweden and dubbed in the U.S.). I was home for several weeks from school, laid up with strep, and happened to be watching the show (which I normally wasn’t into at all). After, I couldn’t get the darned tune out of my head, so I picked up the whistle, and it just kinda flowed out (this was after a couple of months of struggling to pick out campfire songs and such). Funny thing is, it’s still an important part of my repertoire (kids especially love it, because it’s so bouncy, even if they’ve never heard of Pippi Longstocking!).
Keep noodling away, and facility will come.
Redwolf
Well, I’ve been playing whistle for about six years now and flute for about 3.
When I first started on the whistle (a superb Clark original in D - even better after an accidental slam in the car door tweak) I had no idea that the whistle played in two octaves. I played for probably 3 months that way, just noodling around working on tone, trying to play melodies I could sing, etc, until finally I decided I was really going to learn to play the dang thing.
So, I went on the internet and found this dang website, long before the Chiffboard existed and even before Dale’s newsletter. That got me started buying whistles. I also decided I needed to hear how the whistle was meant to be played, so I chose one CD from Amazon.com - Mary Bergin’s Feadoga Stain 2.
I can remember getting the album in the mail, putting it into my CD player and practically falling over in awe and dumbfoundedness. That was the start of it all!
Like most beginners, I had no idea about how Irish music worked; rhythm, phrasing, articulation, ornamentation, scales - the whole lot - were completely foreign to me. Listening to Mary Bergin, since I had no idea about whistle technique or that there was even such thing as a “cut” or “roll”, I just figured she was simply playing the notes extremely fast. So here I was, trying to decipher ever single note, including those micro-notes that make up the little blips in a roll, cut or cran (though Mary doesn’t use crans )… the worst part was, even if I had known what a roll, cut or cran was, my brain was so unfamiliar with Irish music that it sounded a bit like a crazy, yet beautiful, jumble of notes anyways.
Foolishly (though you can’t blame me, or any beginner for doing so without proper guidance), I assumed that the secret to her playing was speed and so I practiced playing as fast as I possibly could. I played with spirit, which is an important thing, but nomatter what anybody tells you, a bad whistle player with a lot of spirit is still a bad whistle player.
Needless to say, my playing did not improve as a result. I had lousy or nonexistant rhythm, crummy tone, zero (or made up) ornamentation, lots of missed notes, wrong versions of tunes, etc, etc… It was a bad situation.
At some point, in my frustration, I decided that the answer to my crappy playing was that I had a crappy whistle (I didn’t). So, like many of the Chiff and Fipplers over the years, I started spending all my money on the most expensive whistles I could buy - especially by makers whose whistled were played by famous musicians. I guess having better instruments made my tone a little better, and it may have even helped me play a little better, but not very much. I still had lousy or nonexistant rhythm, crummy tone, zero (or made up) ornamentation, lots of missed notes, wrong versions of tunes, etc, etc… It was a bad situation.
Finally, it dawned on me to see if there was anyone in the area who played Irish music. I was in luck! Just ten minutes away was a Comhaltas group that had a session every Thursday night. I called them up , telling them that I was a whistle player and I wanted to come play some Irish music :roll: They must have gritted their teeth so hard when I walked in, sat down, and played non-Irish tunes, very poorly, on my little tin-whistle.
Unfortunately none of them played the whistle, but they did play good Irish music and they were very nice and patient, so I slowly began to learn what Irish music was meant to sound like. So, slowly, through imitation, I began to understand the basic rhythm and structure of Irish music. I still had no idea how ornaments worked (or that they even existed), and I just figured that they were “really fast playing”. So, as I started to learn tunes I would come into the session and play them at ungodly speeds, with crap rhythm, poor phrasing and no ornaments.
The advice of the session leader, time and time again, was - “Slow down. Take your time. Get the rhythm and the tune right.”
If, at that point, I had simply taken his words to heart I would have saved myself at least a couple years of practicing time, but, of course, I didn’t.
The experience that finally got me headed in the right direction was going to a party at which there was a 14 year old boy who was a brilliant whistle player. He was 14 and he played just the way the big shots did on the records. How, I wondered, did he do it? I asked him all sorts of questions - How do you hold the whistle? How do you breath? What techniques do you use? How fast do you play the tunes? I asked everything I could think of.
His first advice to me was this: “Slow down. Take your time. Get the rhythm and the tune right”.
Then he showed me cuts, rolls and taps…
Now, if I had followed his advice and slowed down, this would have all been fine, but instead I went home, played just as fast (or faster), and tried to insert cuts, rolls and taps into tunes in places they most certainly did not belong. Now I had one more thing to mess up - I could screw up the rhythm of ornamentation!
Some people are just slow learners :roll:
The young whistle genius had mentioned that he took lessons with an older gentleman named Mike McHale, who had won the All-Irelands in 1958. I decided to give him a call and arrange a lesson. That’s one of the best things I ever did for my music. When I went for my lesson he sat me down and said, “Play a tune”. Guess what his advice was after I played? “Slow down. Take your time. Get the rhytm and the tune correct.”
This time, however, it was different… he was a teacher and he insisted, time and time again, that I slow down. When I played wrong he showed me the right way. He was patient but firm about how it was meant to be done. I am SO thankful to him for not just saying, “Oh, yeah, that’s okay… carry on”.
So I went home and played a bit slower, working carefully on a tune he’d given me. The next week I went back and he taught me another tune - The Green Mountain. He also taught me cuts and rolls and taught me that cuts and rolls were not just ornaments, but integral parts of Irish music - that one could not actually play The Green Mountain without them… finally, watching and listening, repeating time and time again, I got it. The trick to playing Irish music on the whistle was not playing fast. It was not having a good whistle. It was not tricky ornamentation.
The trick to Irish music was an even, steady rhythm, proper phrasing, good breathing, careful playing of the actual tune (and not just my interpretation of it) and judicious use of ornaments in the places that they actually belonged. Even more - the trick to Irish music was listening… listening to what was actually being played… listening to sessions, to recordings, to myself, to recordings of myself… listening carefully for what was really there - not what I thought was there, or expected to be there, but what was actually being played… and then I needed to learn to play it back. I needed to accept that I knew nothing about Irish traditional music. I needed to be patient, to work hard, to be focused and to dedicate myself to really learning to play these tunes in the Irish traditional style.
I was faced with a choice - either I could sort of wing it - play the whistle how I wanted, with my versions of tunes, my version of ornamentation, my version of rhythm - and probably never sound like a traditional whistle player - or buckle down and dedicate myself to becoming a real whistle player. I chose the latter.
Over the years since then I have studied with some of the best Irish traditional whistle and flute players on the planet and time and time again they have given me the same advice, even now: “Slow down. Take your time. Work on your rhythm, your ormanentation, your tone and the proper tune. Take your time to do it right”. I’ve heard that advice since I started and it remains just as valid today as it was six years ago.
So, that’s my advice to you. Get a cheap, but decent whistle. Don’t worry about spending hundreds of dollars on a whistle right now. You don’t need it.
Spend the next couple of months just exploring your whistle. Play tunes/songs you already know in your head. Improvise. Explore your instrument until you know what notes will come out depending on the finger position. Practice changing the tone. Just have fun with it.
In the meantime, buy some good whistle CDs. I recommend either of Mary Bergin’s CDs, Gavin Whelan’s CD or Mike McHale’s CD (if you can get a hold of it). Listen to them until you know the tunes well enough that you can lilt them to yourself. Then listen to them some more.
After a month or two of just listening, lilting and exploring your instrument go and buy a whistle tutor book. I recommend Phil Och’s book and CD set to begin with, followed by L.E. McCollough’s tutor.
Work your way from the start of the book to the end. Don’t give up. Don’t skip any of it. Stick with it. Take it slow and steady.
If you make it through those two books and can really play the tunes well, playing along with L.E. with the same rhythm, phrasing, ornamentation and tone as he does, then you’ll be a better whistle player than almost everyone on this board… myself most certainly included.
Also, try and find a teacher, or at least a really good whistle player who can teach you a little bit of the basics. It’s almost impossible to learn ornamentation from a book.
Also, try and find a session… go to it as often as possible. Do nothing but listen for the first couple of months, practicing what you hear until you feel like you have something good to add to the music.
Get as much good traditional music as possible. Listen to it constantly. Steer away from pseudo-trad like Davy Spillane or Joannie-Madden’s solo CDs. They’ll just lead you on the wrong track.
And one of the most important things - learn to lilt! Once you’ve learned to lilt, lilt along with the tunes as you listen to them… soon you’ll have hundreds of tunes bouncing around in your head, and if you have them in your head well enough that you can lilt them, then you can almost certainly play them with a little work. I can not emphasize enough how important lilting the tunes is. It works wonders.
Learn session tunes!!! Don’t worry about fancy, schmancy jazz-fusion tunes. Learn the basics. Afterall, you do want to play with other people in a session, don’t you? Mary Bergin didn’t begin by playing that fancy stuff, so why should you?
Lastly, enjoy your music. If you don’t enjoy it then nothing else matters.
Soon you’ll be whistling like Mary Bergin herself.
So there you have it… my encylopedic answer to a simple question.
Best,
Chris
[ This Message was edited by: ChrisLaughlin on 2002-11-14 17:51 ]
Bravo! Bravo!
*stands up and claps
C4, you have some good advice above, but let me add the words of support and encouragement.
Even when you become a GREAT whistler, your kids will still snicker. Play anyway!
One last thing… whistle playing is FUN!! And the better you get at playing, the more fun it becomes 
Best,
Chris
Doh! I can’t believe I wrote that entire thing and left this out…
LEARN BY EAR!!!
Trust me on this one.
Chris
Chris,
Your words are full of wisdom. I’ve got a similar story, but the person telling me again and again to play slower was Stephen Jones. I have got much of my phrasing from Mike McHale’s amazing CD… Oh well, still a long, long way to go…
Great words of advice from everyone, except I’d like to mention a problem that I have with the “learn by ear” recommendation/command we all receive when starting out.
There are basically two places to hear tunes: CDs or sessions. I for one have extremely limited funds and can buy maybe one or two CDs a year (in a good year). I don’t know of anyone (including the ever-patient Brian Lee) who is patient enough to sit in a session with a newcomer and play the same tune over and over until the newbie learns it. I would have to buy countless CDs to find the approximately 75 tunes on our local session tune list.
Thus, I do what I think a lot of people do. I get the sheet music off the internet somewhere and learn the notes, listen to a MIDI or MP3 if one is available, and then hope I can actually hear the tune played somewhere to be sure I’m getting the feel of it. I do everything I can to learn about the “feel” of Irish traditional music, go through tutorials online, and soak up everything I can at the local sessions.
Learning by ear may be ideal - reality is far different. I say learn any way you can.
(End of rant.)
Susan
I think it takes about a year
to start to be pretty good sort of,
maybe less for some, more for others.
But it never ends, you know. Lessons
and workshops help.
Having musical training already and having listened to a Irish music for some years, when I bought a whistle it only took a couple of weeks before I was hammering out real tunes, albeit in a basic, inelegant way. Now six or seven months later I have gained a lot more facility and confidence; my ornamentation is improving, my stock of tunes grows slowly, a number of friends actually like my playing and ask for it (!).
That said, 1) compared to a real whistle player I sound ludicrous and expect to until I have a lot more time and money to devote to really getting good, though I’m sure I will slowly improve and 2) my little brother started this whistling thing just about the same time I did and with a similar background and he’s made hardly any progress. So you just can’t tell.
Susan -
I understand and respect what you are saying completely.
However, I think it is much better to buy just one CD and work on learning that CD by ear until you can play all the tunes on the album quite well, even if they aren’t tunes played locally, than to work on 200 tunes off sheet music and not play any of them right (which is the case almost without exception).
My point is that it doesn’t really matter how many tunes one has if they’re not played properly.
I read sheet music well, having been in a 60 person touring choir for four years. Sheet music has its place and great value, but I think that with Irish music it works better if you already understand the music and are a good player.
For example, if, before knowing how to play Irish music, I sat down with my whistle and a tune book and played the tunes as they look on the page, it would sound nothing like Irish music. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met who tell me they play Irish music, but have clearly learned just from sheet music and have next to no clue how it really works. I’ve been that person. The sheet music only tells me the basics.
Now, however, being somewhat competent at playing Irish music, I’d know how to interpret those dots and turn them into Irish music. Further down the road, as my ability to play Irish music improves, I’m sure my ability to interpret sheet music will improve as well. As a starting point, however, it is fatally flawed.
Also, if you want to learn the tunes played at the local session, but don’t want to buy CDs with all the tunes, why don’t you go to the session and ask them if you can tape it?
Even if they don’t play ALL their tunes during one session, they’ll certainly play enough to keep you busy for a long, long time. That’s how I learn.
All the best,
Chris
On 2002-11-14 19:23, susnfx wrote:
Great words of advice from everyone, except I’d like to mention a problem that I have with the “learn by ear” recommendation/command we all receive when starting out.
There are basically two places to hear tunes: CDs or sessions. I for one have extremely limited funds and can buy maybe one or two CDs a year (in a good year). Susan
Susan:
My suggestion would be to utilize RTE’s Radio CeolNet. I mentioned this before, and will probably bring it up 100 more times. It’s an incredible collection of trad music, absolutely free. The radio feed doesn’t always work (don’t know what the glitch is), but you can always go to the individual artist, select a track, and listen to your heart’s content. If there’s a particular tune you’re interested in learning, use the search function and see if they have a track. The music just doesn’t come any better than what’s available on their site.
http://www.rte.ie/radio/ceolnet/
Teri
Awesome! Thank you Teri!!!
Best,
Chris
Thanks Teri - I’m trying it right now. That’ll be great!
Susan
Teri,
you had given me the RTE link before I hadn’t got it to work (suspected the firewall), but searching by artist work. Right now I am listening to Mary Bergin playing Bean Dubh a Ghleanna.
Mmmmmmhh…
I still can’t get it to work, but will continue trying. This would be a wonderful thing to have available.
Susan