I’ve been playing for a while, but I consider myself a beginner, because I’ve never done anything advanced. I have limited actual contact with other whistlers, so I have a question I was hoping you nice folks might be able to answer.
Embouchure - the books I have on whistling don’t talk about it at all, but I find it difficult to believe that it’s unimportant. I generally try to keep a tight emhouchure, but is there anything specific that should be done/sounds better?
Welcome! You’ve come to the right place with your question!
Someone knowledgeable will be along momentarily, but I wanted to welcome you.
Meanwhile, I’ll just say that I close my lips around the fipple in such a fashion that air goes into the fipple and not elsewhere. I try to keep my face “loose” for the most part . . . relaxed. Too tight and the sound begins to be cramped. Or even screechy. I guess I aim for a nice sound, mostly. Whatever it takes.
Oh, and I sometimes leave the edges open a bit, as it seems to help control drooling into the fipple. But I think that’s a personal problem.
Really, the experts will be along soon . . . just hang in there!
I’ve heard some people say that if you close your lips right around the edge of the mouthpiece, you can sort of control the airflow into the whistle, which helps with something-or-other. I don’t do that. I tend to stick the whistle as far into my mouth as possible and blow.
Play a G (XXX 000) with cheeks out and then bring your cheeks in. Does it flip an octave?
If so, you used your cheeks to control breath and what note you played. Which shows that keeping your mouth area constant produces constant notes.
If not, ignore what I just said.
Thats about as much as I want to know about embouchere.
The improtant thing is to get all of the air into the whistle you don’t have to have a tight embochure just whatever works. If you really want to talk about embochures consider Flute.
A data point: for whistles that need more push in the second octave, I have a lot more control (especially in passages that require rapid octave jumps) when I keep my cheeks tight.
Not really an issue with easier blowers, but when I’m playing something like my old-style Syn D, Serpent Sunsinger A, or Howard Low D I need to keep my cheeks tight if I want stay in the upper octave.
One of the things I’m finding weird about flute is that you don’t have to blow harder for the second octave - just tighten your embouchure.
Someone here once refered to the embouchure question for the whistle as “internal embouchure” for lack of a better term. It is not any kind of official term.
As people have already pointed out, what you do inside your mouth can affect the pitch and quality of tone. You may find that you get a better sound when you do something with your throat, pull your tongue back, do something with your cheeks,etc. I sort of compare this to the feeling inside your mouth when you are whistling a tune just with your lips—you feel things changing in all those places as you change pitch. These things affect the air flow. Probably each person will have his own way of describing it or of doing things.
My tutorial book did recommend putting the whistle tip between your mouth only as far as it has to go for the opening to be covered. That way you can also change the shaping of your lips around the tip, and that can make a difference too. I was just trying it now and I do change my lip shape. I was getting an awful sound and I improved it a bit.
I found on the whistle that I didn’t have to blow particularly harder to get into the second octave but that it’s more a matter of what I do inside my mouth and with my lips. Of course, that could be very different depending on the whistle.
The issue of embrouchure is really not the same as when dealing with some of the other woodwinds. First of all , you are pushing a small column of air a very short distance , compared to other instruments. You really don’t need to develop a “lip” or seal a reed , as you would with sax , clarinet , etc. Simply channeling the airflow through the whistle by sealing your lips around the tip of the fipple is fairly intuitive.
As some of the others have commented , tightening your lips , changing the shape of your oral cavity , or using your tongue to speed up or control the airflow is primarily all that’s needed.
I’m from the relaxed school of playing. The whistle simply does not need to be clenched tightly and playing even the highest notes shouldn’t be that much of a push.
BTW-- Bill Ochs is one of the best whistle teachers in the US, and he’s right in NYC. You might want to take some lessons with him.
Greetings, from rainy Virginia. I happened across your site from a google search and was delighted with the tunes and humor I encountered there.
I had a wonderful visit to Ireland this past August and listening to your tunes brought back grand memories!
I do not (as yet) play the whistle, pipes, drums or harmonica. I did play clarinet many, many years ago! I brought back a tin whistle for my youngest, though, so I may borrow it and see what I can do with it. Any suggestions for the best way to get started?
Again, it is great finding a group of kindred spirits!
Irish-Indian Lass (aka Veronica)[/b]
Personally I play rather relaxed as long as the mouth area stays consistent to better control the notes. The cheek clenching (did that sound right?) I mentioned earlier is good for quickly flipping between octaves without having to increase air flow.
Irish-Indian Lass, since you are in rainy VA I assume you are near Richmond? I live in Southern MD and your rain is heading my way! The best way to start is to pick up the whistle and try to play a scale. There are plenty of posts with links to online tutorials. You can probably find them on the main page. Most important is to make sure you have a whistle that is easily playable or else you may get discouraged easily. Most souvenir whistles (also, BTW, my first one) are not optimized (tweaked) for ease of play.
IF I HAD TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN, FOR STARTER WHISTLES I WOULD GET:
A Tweaked Generation from Jerry Freeman.
A tunable Dixon
Any other tweaked whistle by Jerry
Would be the stuff I would start with. I know that there are others who have modified whistles with great results (ie, Mack Hoover springs to mind) but I have not tried them. Others who have played them are better qualified to answer than I.
Thanks for the advice everyone! And I’m actually in upstate NY, about five hours of driving through cowfields from the city. It makes things (like, say, contacting civilization) difficult.
Irish Indian Lass - Hi! My parents live in Williamsburg - it’s a really nice area, but yeah, quite rainy.
Just adding my two cents. I really have to agree with StewySmoot, at the very least on the Dixon. One of these days when utilities are paid on time and my meager paycheck can support my WAD (I couldn’t put an acronym to my symptoms before finding C&F!) I’m planning on picking up some Jerry tweaks. But having started with a number of Feadogs, Waltons, an Oak and some Clarkes (Meg, Sweetone, and two originals), the moment I received my first Dixon I was amazed at the quality for such a low price. I only wish that I had sprung the extra $10 or so to get a tunable one.
And you say you’re “starting” now, but soon you’ll be looking for your first high end whistle and putting yourself in the poor house like me. Maybe someday when we’re in a disaster free world the Red Cross can put together a Tin Whistle Relief Fund for people like us.
Edit: Irish Indian Lass, unless you’re lucky enough to have a place that carries a good supply of whistles near you, I’d recommend checking out www.whistleanddrum.com. It’s where I got my first Dixon from, good service and nice folks to boot. www.thewhistleshop.com is good as well, but they’ve had difficulties with having things in stock when I’ve tried ordering from them.
