I’ve been frequenting the ‘Whistle and Squeak’ site and really enjoy the setup with the pdf sheet music. I’m too lazy to learn to read music so I’m wondering if there are other sites that have the tunes denoted with the holes to be fingered (fingering diagrams) as on the w&s site. Any help appreciated (just don’t tell me to learn to read music, my old eyeballs can’t handle it !)
I won’t recommend learning to read music, I come from that background. What I will recommend is just picking out a tune on your whistle. One day when I was sitting in my car (without sheet music) I was quite surprised to find that I could pick out a tune on a whistle, especially since I could never do this on either the piano or a guitar.
Give it a go. Let us know how it works.
If the synapses in the brain haven’t already made the necessary “connections” between hearing a note and finger placement, start with tunes/songs that are strongly embedded in your mind (even children’s songs or Christmas music). Only glance at tabs/music if necessary to get started or when you’re stuck. After four or five songs learned like this without a reliance on seeing, you will begin to notice your fingers moving to the correct positions intuitively and a budding ability to start picking out a familiar tune just by ear.
I’m sure that what mutepoint and pipe bender say would have been the best way to go for me when starting, but it may seem a bit daunting. An ability to link sounds to fingers started whilst I was working my way through this tutorial: http://www.nigelgatherer.com/whistle/tut.html which for non music readers has note names not tab. Folks will say don’t get to reliant on the note names either, some will say don’t use the names and just do what pipe bender is suggesting.
Just saying that the tutorial helped me along the way.
Yes - I’m getting in ‘automatic’ mode, learning by playing the songs in my head and it’s very rewarding - my brain still works no matter what my wife says ! In addition I’d like to find resources for songs I only know partially, to help me fill in the missing places. Whistle & Squeak was good for a couple of tunes like that. I’m finding I can pick up the slow airs by just listening to them, but the faster tunes are challenging. This forum with all the info is priceless ! Regards to all !
OK, here’s one more suggestion for you. The folks around here are going to get a bit whoozy over this suggestion so some folks might want to sit down.
Here is a link to a “free to try” harping software. I’ve been trying this for 8 years now.
http://download.cnet.com/Harping/3000-2133_4-10252071.html
This program plays midi files and puts them in a visual format (in pretty colors too.) This is meant to be used with harmonicas but if you have a bit of musical knowledge, this works with all kinds of instruments.
Here is a link to free midi files.
http://www.mididb.com/
Download the midi files then open them through the harping software. The harping software permits you to transpose the song (to the key of your whistle), change the speed of the song (so that you can play along) and remove the visualizations of the instruments that you don’t need to make things easier to follow. (The notes in the visualization are labeled “A”, “B” C#, and there are also small visualizations of a piano keyboard and a harmica playing).
Boy this sounds complicated but it’s not.
so what are you using to listen to them?
Windoz Media Player will allow you to change the playback speed. (upper left corner/right click/play/play speed…ya, intuitive, innit)
vlc while not being such a hog will play more file types and allows you to adjust speed. (free & highly recomended)
Great - trying the above mentioned info right now - thanks.
ya just gotta push the right button 
we’ve answers to questions that nobody cares about 