First all hello all After many years of telling myself I was going to pick up a whistle and learn to play it I finally have. Yay me hehe..
Anyway I have a question about holding the whistle. Was reading in an earlier topic about supporting it with the thumbs and the pinky of the right hand.. My question is this… the pinky fingers goes on top ? I have had a problem when I go to play a C# for example that is all holes open that the whistle wants to drop. Sometimes I can get my last finger back down onto the last hole since this doesn;t change the tone but it often feels quite awkward to get there. Is it just me? Is it just a matter of more practice? Hehe I know these are probably silly questions but I would like to at least hold the thing properly
hello, WELCOME and you have come to the right place: where all the other weirdo’s are
Your question is easy to answer: when you hold the whistle there are anchor points.
Anchor points are there, to avoid when you have all six fingers off, the whistle to drop.
These are the following: the bottom pinky, bottom thumb, top thumb and your lower lip.
You may already have discovered the last three ones, and your bottom pinky goes down when you play notes higher than G, to keep the whistle more balanced.
Pinky should be on the whistle below where the D hole is or a little bit near it (depends on whats most comfortable).
Try it and then lift your six fingers off the holes and hey, presto! The whistle stays in place!
Enjoy your whistle and great you now realizing your dream …it is a lot of fun and not hard to learn.
Opinions on this seem to vary (as they do on every other possible subject here on C&F).
I keep my right (lower hand) pinky on the whistle at all times now. I was happy to read Grey Larsen’s endorsement of this in The Essential Tin Whistle Toolbox (which I strongly recommend).
Before I started doing this, my brand new (at the time) Burke flew out of my hands and bounced off a tiled counter onto the floor. It wasn’t damaged, other than the slightest nick, but it made me start keeping the pinky down. I find it very relaxing to do it that way.
I don’t get it.
This comes up again and again.
How can you drop a tin whistle,
what with two thumbs and the lower pinkie
doing its thing as necessary ?
Hmm? How?
Oh! and a mouth too.
Admittedly some have thicker lower lip than others,
but how, pray tell, how do you drop it?
I don’t use my bottom pinkie on whistles. I use the bottom hand ring finger (sometimes bottom hand middle finger when playing in AMix) on the bottom hole when I am playing with the top hand.
It does take a few drops of the whistle to remember that “Oops! I am playing G and above, better get that bottom finger down before I drop it” thing working right.
Harvest Home was my worst dropping tune as I was almost getting the hang of the whistle, relaxing the fingers, listening to what I was playing and starting to say “darn that sounds good” when all of a sudden I was playing “air whistle”.
My little finger doesn’t reach the whistle when my hand is in playing position so I just let it wave in the air. I use my right ring finger as a stabilizer when it’s needed. I also avoid lifting any fingers that aren’t needed whenever I can. Brother Steve (I believe) talks about this on his site which I recommend highly. http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/
Mike
Depending upon the whistle, I believe a good general rule of thumb is if at least 3 holes are open below the fingered note, no or very little variation in tone can be heard between 3 and 4 holes open. If only 2 holes are open below the fingered note (except for D and E of course), the note will probably be slightly flat unless blown slightly harder.
You really need to learn how your whistle responds, but it is a good habit to have the ring finger down when fingering G and above, so it may be a good idea to get used to having a minimum one finger down on each hand on the whistle at all times, but at no time should any of your fingers leave your hand.
Sometimes the whistle has a lot to do with it. I find the Clarke Original particularly unstable; that ridge along the bottom of the thing seems to make it want to roll off the thumbs to one side or the other, and the wood fipple design doesn’t lend itself to being clamped in the lips; in fact, that wedge-shape seems to encourage it to want to fly out of the mouth until you get used to it.
Shadoe42 didn’t mention what whistle he (or indeed she) is playing. A low D Overton is easily drop-able if you’re relying on a pinkie and lips to keep it where it should be… holding it closer to the horizontal at least lets gravity assist with skin-friction on the thumbs to keep it up.
Shadoe42 didn’t mention what whistle he (or indeed she) is playing.
oops sorry That would be the aforementioned Clark Original. And yes it does seem to want to simply leap out of my mouth at times Hopefully that is not from my playing ability hehe
edit : I was out at lunch today and found a Clark with a resin fipple on it. And while it doesn;t have the same seeming desire to jump from my lips I notice there is a marked buzzing sound in the tones produced.
Solutions I use on my polished aluminum low or nickle plated high whistles that I tend to drop (but I don’t drop Clarkes much, just put them in a seat or back pocket and make bananna shaped whistles):
Scrub some beeswax or press a bit of poster putty where your thumbs rest.
After many years of telling myself I was going to pick up a whistle and learn to play it I finally have. Yay me hehe..
That would be the aforementioned Clark Original. And yes it does seem to want to simply leap out of my mouth at times 