any experienced players with some golden advice they wish they had herd when they were starting out?
I’d say my area of expertise is starting out all wrong and having to learn things the hard way, which is one interpretation of “experienced player”… Here’s what I’d like to go back andIt tell my beginner self:
Don’t learn your mistakes along with the tune!!!
When you’re learning a new tune, notice the parts you have trouble with, the places where you tend to glitch. Instead of repeatedly ploughing through the tune from beginning to end, and always tripping over the same rough spots along the way, try to pause to practice each difficult area slowly and thoroughly, staying very slow on the same set of notes until you can play them perfectly, repeatedly. Then speed them up, and finally go back and see if you can insert what you’ve just learned into the tune as a whole.
Trying to play through the problematic areas without stopping first to learn them is a sure-fire way of learning to glitch at the rough spots.
Keep it fun!
Try playing all sorts of tunes you already know well enough to sing or whistle (with your lips). If your brain already possesses the tune, it’ll translate more easily to your fingers. Play TV theme songs and commercials, Christmas carols, folk tunes, nursery rhymes, rock tunes etc.
A practice regime sounds 'WAY too much like work. Play often, but have fun with it.
I regret that no one told me to minimize my tonguing of notes. It was a very hard habit to break.
Also, I emphasized speed over rhythm in the beginning. All wrong! Learn to play cleanly to a tapping foot or metronome. Greater speed will come naturally as you gain competence.
Two Rules:
NEVER practice mistakes.
Have fun.
well not too much fun
it will be fun when things start clicking
just enough fun so that you keep doing it
and play with other people
one more tip.
practice slow enough that you can get the notes perfect
once you are playing faster try varying the tempo, don’t get stuck playing it at one tempo - sometimes you can find that you will go to play something slower than usual and find yourself making mistakes because you are used to playing it faster.
it might seem amazing but if you practice a hard fast passage slowly and accurately and can really play (not just kinda play) it perfectly
at a reasonable tempo you will probably find that in a performance or a session that with the extra nerves that it will play itself at a faster tempo (note I don’t advise this method if you can avoid it but when someone hands you some music that you have to perform say the next day the worst thing you can do is to practice it at tempo with mistakes - you have to play it perfectly 10 times in a row, speed it up, play it perfectly 10 times speed it up …)
NEVER PRACTICE MISTAKES, unless you want to play mistakes
Oh and as you get better practice becomes more fun and you start to enjoy those things that you were told to do as a beginner and would have helped but they were just no fun!
I play all kinds of things. I tried Kung Fu Fighting the other day … with hilarious results. It starts slow, you can see people consentrating hard to figure out the tune and then you hit 'em with those high, peeping Chinesy notes and they realise they’ve been duped. ha ha.
I play lots of different tunes, I pick apart bits I’m not getting, especially when I went to a session and found I couldn’t make it all the way through a tune I thought I knew at session speed.
Keep it fresh with new tunes attempted. When you come back to them in later weeks or months you’ll find some memory of them still lingers making it easier to truly play them.
Now, stop humming Kung Fu Fighting.
GET OUT OF MY MIND!!!1111
but seriouslt, thanks everyone for the advice, i may have fallen into the tounging trap alredy! 
Kung Fu fighting .. hu haaa! Fast as lightning…hu haa!
Im not sure what tongueing is .. I know that a loaded statement .
But if its a bad habit , I hope I dont have it. or if not I dont want to get it
so what is tongueing?
Tonguing is not a bad thing, it’s just a way to play. The problem is that some people get usted to it and do it everytime, when there are tunes that sound much better without it.
So, what is tonguing?
Tonguing is separating the notes “inside” the same breath. Try to run a scale without breaks between notes and then a scale where you play note by note, but without extra breath. This second one is tonguing.
Check this lesson by the whistle tutor for better understandement: http://www.whistletutor.com/lessons/tonguing
Hope it helps! If you want I can send you an mp3 of me doing a scale with, and without tonguing. Just tell me your e-mail.
Cheers!
Tonguing is when you toot toot.
Some tunes are very difficult to play without tonguing - for example Happy to Meet and Sorry to Part, and My Darling Asleep. It can be done, but tends to use advanced techniques beyond the scope of beginners.
When you play without tonguing, it’s called “legato” (technical term).
The tune that the difference was borne in on me was “Father O’Flynn”. This is it:
X:1
T:Father O’Flynn
T:An Taithair O’Floinn
S:Francis McPeake
M:4/4
R:Jig
K:D
A|dAF DFA|ded cBA|dcd efg|fef ecA|
dAF DFA|ded cBA|dcd efg|fdd d4:|
|:g|fef fga|efe ecA|dcd Bed|cAA A2=c|
BAB Bcd|AFD DFA|dcd efg|fdd d4:|
It’s actually easier to play without tonguing. Tooting every note slows it down.
Some people toot all the time, and sound fine. Others play “fluidly” as much as they can. It’s worth practicing to go “fluidly” as often it can take less breath. You can still toot if you want to.
I have a background of playing saxaphone (decades ago), and I was taught that playing without tonguing is “slurring”.
“Legato” was taught to me as a gentler form of tonguing…“doo doo doo” instead of “toot toot”.
I wonder if flute players use any kind of legato tonguing. Or if they use the term legato to mean without the tongue.
I also saw a post here a while back (from MTGuru ??) that really opened my mind to the possibilities of different articulation. Many spoken articulations can be applied to the whistle.
Dah gah kah tah tukutu,
Ed
Legato - smoothly, without breaks between notes - can be slurred or tongued
so legato tongued notes are possible - difficult to do well
slurring - the tongue is not used to separate two notes, on a bowed stringed instrument this would be no change in bow direction, on a piano you just have to fake it
sometimes it is possible for legato tongued notes to sound more legato, smooth, continuous than notes not tongued.
ITM is like baroque music in that the notation often (usually) does not indicate the articulation, you just have to know the ‘right way’ to do it - which of course may, nay will change - except that tonguing every note is probably always wrong. In the case of edited baroque music all bets are off - the editor has probably added slurs and lots of other marks for you to religiously copy in your playing.
I’ve been trying so hard not to tongue, I thought it was a banned action. Everything I was playing was legato - with disasterous results. Each time I felt myself tonguing I was wracked with guilt that I wasn’t ‘doing it right’ but sometimes my playing suffered something chronic.
On Sunday a player I respect a great deal sat me down and explained tonguing to me and you know what, along with what the old boy said, I re-read a bit of Grey Larsen’s Tin Whistle and Flute and now I’m really pleased with myself. I’ve got legato down and I no longer guilty for my bit of tonguing and my playing is far more relaxed and a whole lot better.
Nah! You’re just doing it wrong.
heh! heh! heh!