What does it mean when they say “play with your left hand on top?” What part of the whistle is the top and what part is the bottom? The reason I ask is because I saw on a website that you should play the whistle with your left hand on top because most wind instruments are played this way so you don’t want to get in the habit of putting your right hand on top incase you want to move to something else. The only trouble is, it didn’t give a reference for top and bottom. Is the top of the whistle the part furthest from the player, like if you stood the whistle up straight with the fipple at the base the top would be the part up in the air, or is the top the part closest to the player because when you’re playing it points downward so the top is the first hand immediately after the fipple?
The top is the end nearest your mouth. The holes are covered from the top down with Left Index Middle Ring, Right Index Middle Ring, or L1, L2, L3, R1, R2, R3.
Some people switch hands, right on top, but this makes transferring to a flute (or pretty much any other woodwind instrument) later much more difficult.
Top = the end of the instrument closest to your mouth while your playing it. So…left hand would be covering the holes closest to you mouth, just next to the fipple. There are plenty of good players who play with the right hand on top, but don’t go down that road to madness…
Laurence Nugent plays both the flute and whistle cross-handed, says he just picked 'em up and started playing that way and by the time anybody noticed it was wrong he couldn’t switch. It obviously works for him, but I know the first thing he does when teaching a beginning whistle class is tell them not to hold it like he does.
just play however is most comfortable for you. Most people use their stronger hand to cover the bottom 3 holes on a whistle, but that’s just on average.
I’ve always played guitar and bass guitar left-handed. Though different for the teacher, taking lessons, was really easy for me as facing the teacher was like a mirrored reflection. The same thing happened with Tennis and a right handed instructor.
I play woodwinds and Uilleann pipes right handed though, and have lost the ability to ‘mirror’ when taking lessons. I now have to sit to the right of the instructor to orient myself properly.
While coaching Tyghre, at one point he said ‘that’s easy for YOU, you’ve been doing this for a long time’. So I decided to remember just how difficult coordinating two hands can be. I purposefully cross-handed.
What an eye opener! It WAS difficult to do something like go from Cnat to E. I have a lot more sympathy, and the next time a beginner struggles with something I’ll remember that it takes a long time for these things to come naturally.
Tyghress
(who knows perfectly well she put her period outside the quote)
I was pretty close last time we saw Solas, and Seamus Egan definitely played the flute normal (left hand close) and the low whistle cross-handed. I believe he played the pennywhistle normal, too, but can’t be sure.
On 2001-12-19 18:39, chas wrote:
I was pretty close last time we saw Solas, and Seamus Egan definitely played the flute normal (left hand close) and the low whistle cross-handed. I believe he played the pennywhistle normal, too, but can’t be sure.
Seamus does indeed play the low whistle cross-handed because it’s easier for him to make the necessary stretch to cover the lower three holes with his left hand.
I’m sure it would cause my brain to lock up if I did that!
