i am a beginner whistle player and will be playing a part in a renessaince type reenactment of sorts and thought since i am learning this instrument why not play at the reenactment?. However i don’t know that many songs that have a rennesaince type feel to them, please post any suggestions or comment that you have for a noob like me
song i have thus far:
~Greensleeves
~Road to Lizdonvarna
~Scarborough Fair
~I Saw Three Ships
~God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
*thank you for your time and hope to hear some great comments!
Can’t help much with request for renaissance period music, but wanted to say: Welcome, Eireannach. You should find the Chiff to be a vast warehouse of whistle knowledge and lore … as well as a bit of baloney.
Dare I suggest that getting an $8 Recorder might not be a bad idea? It’s a lot more flexible in terms of available key signatures and such. And for the price of a decent cheeseburger, at that.
Actually, yeah… for Renassaince period music, a lot of it was done on Recorders – I doubt there’s any Renassaiance whistle music… stylistically, that period of music was heavily tongued where Irish music is mostly slurred.
If it’s an SCA event, hell hath no fury like an out-of-period performance. if it’s for a Ren Faire type thing where it’s more about entertainment, folks really aren’t going to know the difference. Break out the jigs and reels.
Welcome to the board! I play a lot of ‘early’ music on the whistle. I find that, though recorders were often used, for some of the music at least the recorder was a different instrument to the modern instrument, with a wide straight bore and a limited range (usually less then 2 octaves). Very like a whistle, actually! Lots of tunes work really well and most only need a half hole occasionally. Admittedly I’m no expert on what would be authentic, but I am enjoying playing english pipe and tabor tunes, and music by Praetorius and Susato. When I need loads of chromatics I break out the ocarina!
The comment about heavy tonguing is dead right - because the tunes are often quite simple you can really work on atriculation and breath control.
Try looking here http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/emusic/index.html
The zip file of midi tunes is amazing. Many of them are for 4 part consort or have a percussion track, too, but if you have multitrack midi software - cakewalk, cubase, n-track (which is free) you should be able to transpose to a more suitable key print out the music.
Good luck!
Phil www.phildoleman.co.uk[/url]
