I was going through Brother Steve’s tutorial (excellent, BTW), and there was one simple tip that I found to be great that I thought I would share with other new whistlers.
On a D whistle, you can play C# as either all open holes, or you can cover the bottom three hoels (456). If you are going to play C# and the high D in succession, it is much easier to use the 456 fingering for the C#, since then you only have to cover the 23 holes to play the high D.
This helped my playing so I thought I would pass it along.
I keep finding new variations on this theme. Last night I was showing this little polka to some whistle students (by ear I hasten to add):
There are no Ds in the tune, but there are lots of C#s. In the B section, I just realized last night that the easiest finger to use to stabilize the whistle is the 5th finger (your “E finger”), which you can keep down for almost all the second section, except in the middle and at the end when you need to play an F#.
I, too, really appreciate Steve’s site. The thing is, this alternate fingering aspect is something that I’m simply not ready for yet (it’s about my current location on the whistle learning curve), but there are tonnes of other helpful items there as well.
Thanks, Steve, for your contribution to my learning.
On 2002-10-18 11:51, StevieJ wrote:
I keep finding new variations on this theme. Last night I was showing this little polka to some whistle students (by ear I hasten to add):
Steve
It’s a good job he didn’t show them the sheet music.
John: For me, the true value of Brother Steve’s ‘456’ C# fingering is found at the top of the whistle’s range. When sliding from B to C# and then to D - way up top - the ‘456’ fingering creates a stability that is so dramatic, that I (almost) considered creating a statue of Steve, so I could pay homage to him…(almost)…
If anyone knows of any other gems like this ‘456’ beauty, please post…Who knows…You may also (almost) get a statue…
Well, I don’t know if it’ll be useful to everybody because different whistles react in different ways, but on most whistles, you can get a good roll on c natural this way:
o x x | o o o
o x x | x x x (cut)
o x x | o o o
x x x | o o o (tap)
o x x | o o o
I’ve read other ways of doing it but found this works best for me.
On 2002-10-19 23:46, peeplj wrote:
Well, I don’t know if it’ll be useful to everybody because different whistles react in different ways, but on most whistles, you can get a good roll on c natural this way:
o x x | o o o
o x x | x x x (cut)
o x x | o o o
x x x | o o o (tap)
o x x | o o o
I’ve read other ways of doing it but found this works best for me.
