Making legato whistling sound better

Whistle
1

First, a confession. I started with the Bill Ochs tutorial, which has you tonguing all your notes for at least the first half of the book… and I mostly just kind of kept the habit. Well, most days I’ll play a few tunes legato, but they don’t sound very good to me. So when I play to please myself, I go back to tonguing.

I can’t seem to get my legato playing to get over that horrible wailing beginners’ sound – not the cool bagpipey wailing that a good legato reel can have, but something reminiscent of that bad warbly wailing that a kid gets when wiggling fingers over the whistle’s holes without knowing how to play a tune.

I’ve tried pinpointing contributing factors to this horrid sound. Here’s the ones I’ve come up with and am working on remedying, but hopefully you can think of more, 'cos my legato playing still needs help.

First, there’s the blips and bleeps that happen when the fingerings of notes is sloppy, like when bits of fingering overlap or have gaps between them. On the bright side, I’ve been persistent enough with my daily legato practice to notice and correct most of this, which is good – it’s definitely made my playing more precise.

Then there’s the rhythm thing. When I play with tonguing, I’m basically keeping the beat with my tongue, and in the microseconds when my tongue blocks the flow of air and sound, my fingering has a bit of leeway for rhythmic slop. And when I take away the tonguing, that bit of rhythmic sloppiness comes to the fore and drives me mad. And while I’m not super talented musically, one thing I do have is a good sense of rhythm, and music with a sloppy beat is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.

So I’ve figured out that I need to move my rhythm-keeping from my tongue to my fingers, but this is more easily said than done. When I’m unconsciously lilting a tune under my breath, I’m keeping time via a sort of lingual (quasi tongued) subvocalization, unless I literally bite my tongue to prevent it.

I’ve started consciously visualizing keeping time with my fingers when I listen to music, or annoyingly tapping my fingers to the beat as I listen… any other suggestions? Or any other factors that you can think of that make legato playing sound crisp and clear and rhythmic, rather than reminiscent of cats exchanging insults?

2

I’m no expert, but two things come to mind.

First, not all tonguing is bad. Listening to good players, you’ll see that they still use tonguing. It’s not a case where your choices are tonguing every note or never tonguing at all. There’s a mix.

Second, when you’re new it’s always a good idea to slow down. Most new players try to play too fast too soon (myself included), and that results in sloppy playing.

Jason

3

i am a beginner myself but maybe i can help. When i was around 13 i learnt to play the recorder back in school, thus developing the habit of tonguing (as teachers taught). It’s about 3 weeks i picked up the whistle, willing to learn.
The first difficulty encountered was just that, not to tongue notes.
You could try and force yourself to play any tune without tonguing any note, and by separating them just by using cuts or taps. You’ll notice that if you want to play fast, tonguing will become an obstacle.
This is what i did in the beginning, and then moved to inserting a bit of tonguing with care, where i thought it would fit well (i.e. i tongue in “the boys of bluehill” but i don’t in the “morrison’s jig”).

PS. just tried to play something and i noticed i almost not tongue anymore, it really depends on the tune..

4

sometimes you gotta tongue-miss squid :smiley:

5

Being a beginner myself with a recorder history and a tad of the silver flute, I know exactly what you are saying squidgirl about the difficulty keeping time with your fingers instead of your tongue. It’s really hard to put the finger down or up exactly when it’s supposed to. But it can be done. You just have to practice a lot.

I find it helps me to play into Garage Band (recording program on my mac) and then play it back to hear how awful it is, then try to consciously do better on the parts I could hear were awful. (Now if only my screaming parrots would be quiet I could post one of these recordings.)

I rarely play very fast, either. And my tune choice is mainly tunes with really nice melodies, not reels which for some reason don’t sound like they have a melody at all to me unless they are played really fast. Also, using cuts and taps really helps crispen it up and get my fingers to learn rhythm while allowing me a little purposeful sloppiness.

6

I had these exact same problems :slight_smile:

I moved to a more legato playing style by first tonguing only on the beat, rather than every note. That helped me keep rhythm with my tongue, but got me in the habit of playing short strings of notes without tonguing.

Then, I started tonguing at the start of phrases. Eventually, I got to where I could keep good rhythm with my fingers, and only tongue where I like the feel of it.

So basically, i just kind of weaned myself off of it slowly.

7

The most important element to playing a good legato line (IMHO) is breath support, ie. breathing and supporting from the diaphram. Low octave notes especially require very controlled, even breath. Notice I am using the word “breath” and not “blow”. I have found breathing excercises I learned from singing lessons to be very helpful.
I feel for you in regards to the tounging issue, it is very hard to untrain and then retrain your body, but as a previous poster said, not all tounging is bad (keep your mind out of the gutter boys). Indeed, if you listen to Brian Finnegans playing (Flook) he’s tounging almost as much as Ian Anderson!
And as you’ve already noticed, the other important aspect to legato playing is fast, accurate finger movement/changes between notes. I still have to concentrate going between a B to a Cnat to make sure I put both fingers down at the same time, otherwise I get an extra note! All of this adds up to, you geussed it, practice, practice, practice!
This subject also highlights the point that just because it’s slow, it’s not necessarily easier to play an air (well) than it is a fast reel.

8

A: Try playing with a metronome.
B: If you play in a band you’ll find the guitar helps a lot
C: When I was a teenager I noticed a whistler playing with his tongue under the beak of the mouthpiece. I tried it and found it helped keep my tongue under control. An unintended and positive consequence from this was that it “forced” me to find a way to replace tonguing. When I inadvertently ended up doing was using a glottal stop. I noticed I was doing this when I decided one day to put in heavy duty earplugs. I could notice a little blip in my head now and then and I traced it to inadvertant throat closing similar to the motion that creates a K sound, but without the “ay” sound that usualy follows the “k”. This creates a very quiet stop that has the desired effect from tonguing, but is much more silent. (Sorry if I drifted off topic).

9

This was the first thing that occurred to me, too. My flute teacher (who advocates total-legato playing, and anyway, Irish flute playing generally involves much less tonguing than whistling) found that my breath wasn’t rhythmic enough. So he gave me a couple of exercises that Squid might benefit from. First is play with your breath perfectly even – you really can’t do this on the whistle, but try to give the whistle as even an amount of breath as possible. Don’t worry about how you sound; if you do everything perfectly it will still sound like shoot. Try this for awhile each time you play. Once you get proficient at keeping an even breath stream, then try accenting the first note of each measure. Again on the whistle this won’t be the same as on the flute, but through some combination of stronger breath and maybe holding the note a few milliseconds longer, you can do it. Once you can do both of these you have the beginning of breath management. After that it’s all about the music – finding the important notes to accent and taking breaths in the appropriate places. Those are really the hard part.

10

Mmm, but that basically is tonguing, just with a different tool than the tongue. It still creates the same staccatto-ish effect, tho not as pronounced. Also glottal-stopping too much and too fast- I knwo this form harmonica- can create some ugly grunting sounds that don’t complement the music at all. THough yes, it’s definately a useful technique that ahs its place :slight_smile:

11

Definitely work with a metronome. Tonguing the downbeats will improve your sense of rhythm. In addition…notice that the down beat is extended a little longer than the following notes. Try exaggerating that to further a feeling of rhythm. So, for instance, play a jig with a drawn out waltz feel by really dragging out the first of each 3 notes. Something similar can be done with a reel, even infusing a touch of hornpipe rhythm to it. If you do that with your fingers, legato-wise, you’ll get a better feel for the rhythmic pulse you’re trying for. As a matter of fact, I’d work on some hornpipes before tackling reels. And if jigs are a problem, work on some slides. And go slow!!
Tony

12

Why are slides easier than jigs? (This is s genuine question and not a challenge to your statement).

13

I would suggest you not follow this advice, nor the similar advice offered by Wanderer. There is no point in getting into stylistically bad habits that you will later have to unlearn.

Slur into strong beats and tongue only off-beats. This is a rule of thumb, of course, and there are many exceptions etc etc. but at least it will get you sounding right.

The most sensible advice offered so far is to slow down. Slow down to the point that you can consciously not tongue. You have analyzed your problem correctly, and you will take a big step forward in your playing as you learn to keep a steady beat with your fingers and not your tongue (which I don’t think will take long). A good thing to work on is tunes with runs in them like The Cup of Tea (BAGF GE~E2 etc.).

14

Wow, I couldn’t agree less.

The most sensible advice offered so far is to slow down. Slow down to the point that you can consciously not tongue. You have analyzed your problem correctly, and you will take a big step forward in your playing as you learn to keep a steady beat with your fingers and not your tongue (which I don’t think will take long).

Agreed.

15

Interesting! I do notice a grunt thing on the Clarke original, but not on others. It may have to do with the air requirements, and that sort of relates to the harmonica, which is also very “open”.

16

Oh, I think this may well be the missing factor, the problem I’d failed to account for. I think some of the warbly wailing that bothers me when I play legato is my blowing not being even enough.

And I’m sure my breath support is absolutely lousy (although better than it was) – in a more roundabout way than you might imagine, my whistling led me to quit smoking just a few months ago, back in the beginning of March. So I have 20-something years of lung abuse to make up for…

Does anyone know if there’s a web site out there somewhere with a few more breath support exercises? I vaguely remember one, but I can’t seem to find it… my notes-per-breath ratio has gone up since I quit smoking, but not as much as I would like.

I’m even considering gettting some (anomolous behavior alert) aerobic exercise <>… I’ve gone so far as to visualize myself riding my bicycle up a nearby hill on a regular basis… I do walk and swim, but both are more relaxing than aerobic; in either case, I can go forever without breaking a sweat.

(What exactly does aerobic exercise do for your cardiopulmonary system anyway? Make you have more robust red blood cells or something??? I should know this…)

But back to breath support. What does it feel like to play with good breath support? Are you alway consciously aware of your diaphragm? Does it feel kind of like putting energy into your solar plexus? Please tell me what it feels like, so I’ll know when I’m doing it…

17

Well yes and no. Listen to Seamus Egan’s reel set Eamon Coyne’s/Longford Collector (Brothers McMullen soundtrack). He frequently tongues the (4th) note just before the downbeat, to great effect. That said, tonguing the downbeat is a valid approach as well. At the risk of sounding classically inclined, a highly disciplined musician can tongue and slur any combination of notes, i.e., articulate whatever she wants. Fiddle and box players can accent the middle of a note by increasing the bow/box pressure/speed, such as in polkas.

18

OK, this is alot easier to show/demonstrate in person, but I will give it a go. Start by putting your hand flat on your abdomen, then forcefully say the word “Huh”. You will feel your diaphragm clench and push the air out. Next, leave your hand there and take a really deep breath, try to imagine the air filling your stomach area first then filling up your chest. Do not let your shoulders rise (keep them relaxed) and try to avoid “shallow” breathing in the upper chest, we’re aiming for a deep “stomach” breath. You should feel your diaphragm pushing your hand outwards. Now let out your breath all at once. You will feel your diaphragm quickly release/relax and the air rush out of your body. This is exactly what Not to do when trying to do a “supported” breath. Take another deep breath as before, this time, concentrate on making the air slowly eascape at an even rate. You should notice that now your diaphragm stays tense through the whole breath instead of just collapsing. It should feel almost like your diaphragm is fighting against your stomach collapsing while at the same time pushing the air out of your body as you breath out. Like any muscle not regularly used, it might have a tendency to spasm or shake when you first start doing this. This is what causes wavering or hiccoughs in tone when playing long sustained notes on the whistle (or any wind instrument for that mater). And like any muscle, it takes repitition/practice to get it in shape. Just keep playing long, sustained notes, concentrating on your diaphragm and your breath. Not only will this help you play the long notes of an air, but will also let you let loose a long fluid reel line! You will definately need to concentrate on doing this at first, but it should eventually become second nature, and then you can concentrate on the important part, the music!

On a side note, Shakuhachi (japanese bamboo flute) players practice what is called ro-buki, where you repeatedly play and hold the lowest pitch on the shakuhachi (ro) in one long breath for as long as you can. Some masters will do this for up to an hour. Not only does it help with breath support, it increases your overall air capacity, strengthens your embrochure, and is very meditative at the same time.

19

Hello all,

In my humble opinion, structured exercises and “rules” about when one should tongue or not are a waste of time if one does not first have a feel for how ITM should sound (assuming that you want to play ITM of course!). It would be like trying to learn the correct pronunciation of a foreign language by just studying a phonetics textbook vs. actually listening to native speakers. No matter how well written the text is and how long you study it, you’re going to sound silly.

Put aside the rules and structured exercises for now and listen, listen, listen to good players (on whistle and otherwise). You’ll get a feel for how the tunes should sound and the where’s and why’s of tonguing vs. legato will fall more-or-less into place. Of course you’ll see that there are a wide range of accepted styles. For example, Carmel Gunning’s playing is very staccato with a lot of tonguing vs. say Mary Bergin who plays more legato, but both are considered masters of the instrument. You can pick and choose from the stylistic repertoire of other players to arrive at you own style.

Just about any teenager in the Western world, after learning the bare rudiments of the guitar, can manage to belt out a reasonably authentic-sounding version of a rock song. Nobody needs to teach them the theory, they just know more-or-less how the tune should sound because they’ve spent a lot of time listening to rock music. That’s the point we all need to get to in order to do ITM any justice (I’m nowhere near there yet, but I’m trying!).

Cheers,

SteveB

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20

SteveB, I totally agree with you on one point, which is that ITM cannot be learned from a book or even sheet music for that matter. One has to listen repeatedly to it to learn the feel of it, which cannot be relayed via words or written notes. However, I feel it is a bit to far of a pendulum swing to completely ignore good technique, especially for a beginner. Being shown/taught good technique from the get go can cut down on frustration and even avoid injury. Even your western teenagers probably learned where to put their fingers for their first power chord from a book. :smiley: