There is a great site I use to utilize constantly when starting off with the whistle and it had a huge assortment of music with 'Notation" (indicating what holes to cover).
Is there anything like that on the net hiding away. I have tried to perform a search and come up empty even the whistle site has now vanished.
Any clues out there?
Here…
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2916/chart.html
Although there are variations possible, which is an interesting twist since fingering on most instruments ios fairly rigid.
DJones
djones, thanks but i was actually looking for UPs tunes with the fingerings…“Notations”.
Forgive me if I am misinterpreting your request but:
Perhaps by “notation” you mean something equivalent to guitar tabs and such. Alas, we are not so advanced in the UP world. We are dependent on personal instruction, attending concerts to steal what we can visually, or on VERY rare occasions, reading about it here on C&F.
Sorry, but it sounds to me like you are trying to jump start your education by simply learning the strokes by rote off some great piper. Same with your jumping about from tutor to tutor. Gotta pay your dues, boy. No short-cuts here.
I remember reading about a young samurai who went to a great swordsman for lessons. The master told him it would take ten years to learn all that the master had to teach. The would-be student thought this was far too long a time to devote to lessons. He promised to work at nothing else but the sword 24/7 and asked, if he approached the learning like this, how long it would take him to learn the sword. The master replied it would take twenty years.
In a similar vein (and I’m sure everyone here has heard this a thousand times) Séamus Ennis said it took twenty-one years to learn the instrument and the music and put it all together. The number of years is immaterial. It is the attitude of buckling down and putting the effort in that matters, not counting the hours or days off on the calendar, to bring out your piping.
Take a deep breath, settle down, and forget about the clock. Learn to play pipes.
djm
I might be misinterpreting too, but I think KD is just looking for tunes that aren’t in that ABC or standard notation, but in another notation. I have seen that notation for whistle and it would just help someone who didn’t read music learn the skeleton of the tune. You wouldn’t be able to learn how a great master played a tune from this kind of notation. I’m not sure if djm is saying it is wrong to ever use sheet music. It doesn’t seem that guitar tabs are much different than ABC or any other method of conveying the skeleton of the tune through writing. It doesn’t seem like a short cut. I know learning by ear is very important, but I’m just addressing the written music idea.
I guess guitar tabs and the whistle notation do show fingering for every note, but then you would rapidly internalize that, I think, and the symbols would just stand for sounds, like notes.
Not arguing here, just wondering.
It’s my opinion that you’ll have better success with this:
I’ve seen whistle tutorials with the fingering illustrated under every single note–I think that’s what KD means. It’s helpful if you’re a complete beginner with no experience of musical notation or any musical instrument, but beyond the very beginning stages it slows you down considerably. You could always write in the hole coverings yourself as an exercise, but it’s probably best just to try to learn staff notation or ABC. I’m still very hesitant reading the bass clef (for harp) and the notes on ledger lines.
Best Wishes
Andrew
I don’t believe that the ‘fingering’ notation for the pipes has been published for a musical collection, similar to the tin whistle…grasshopper.
Scales. Work the scales. And then work them some more. After a while, work in a few simple cuts and ornaments.
Is it slow? Yes.
Is it tedious? Yes.
But as DJM says above, “No shortcuts here”.
I believe that if the good Dr. Clarke had felt that such notation were beneficial, she’d have included them in her tutor.
Words to pipe by.
This is really the only way. Beyond ABC and standard notation… there is nothing but your own ear. There are no short cuts in Uilleann Piping. After some time, you will look back at this period and wonder why you thought it was so hard.