i’m ignorant & inexperienced with whistles & recorders & music theory (i’m a dijeridu player). however, i have been struck with a desire to make a small (~1’) tough, and easy-to-play wind instrument. So from what i can gather, the whistle fits the criteria. i’ve been reading some faqs and info on this page.
trad. irish music is very attractive, what little i’ve heard of it. however, i like other music too, and would like to be able to play it all.
is it correct that i won’t be able to on a regular whistle, as they can’t easily reach sharps & flats? (ie. diatonic)
if this is the case, i’m wondering why aren’t whistles configured with recorder holes? (if those extra holes make it much easier to do sharps & flats, ie. chromatic)
is playing such diatonic music much more of a hassle or difficult to do that chromatic music?
i came across a post here by a guy saying 7-hole whistles are a good move for ease of playing. would the recorder holes do so as well, or does it introduce to much complexity?
hmm. i think i may be mixing up two issues: ease of playing chromatic/diatonic, and ease of playing whistle/recorder. Well anyway, if you have any opinions i’d like to hear them, it may help sort me out a bit
i have been struck with a desire to make a small (~1’) tough, and easy-to-play wind instrument. So from what i can gather, the whistle fits the criteria.
Watch out - making a simple whistle is actually very complicated and hard work, in my opinion.
trad. irish music is very attractive, what little i’ve heard of it. however, i like other music too, and would like to be able to play it all.
I think there are some types of music that just can’t (or at least shouldn’t) be played on some instruments. You wouldn’t try to play heavy metal with a whistle. At least, I wouldn’t…
is it correct that i won’t be able to on a regular whistle, as they can’t easily reach sharps & flats? (ie. diatonic)
No. You can reach sharps and flats on a whistle, because it’s actually chromatic. The tricky part is what you define as ‘easy’. If you want to put the time into learning and mastering half-holing/cross fingering for accidentals (sharps and flats) you can play pretty much anything.
hmm. i think i may be mixing up two issues: ease of playing chromatic/diatonic, and ease of playing whistle/recorder. Well anyway, if you have any opinions i’d like to hear them, it may help sort me out a bit
The whistle is the good-hearted but very plain and homely-looking step sister, and the recorder is the very beautiful, glamorous, and popular but wretched and terribly mean and bitter sister. I have both and I think since they are sisters they share a lot in common, but you should choose only one if you’re knew to it all because it’s easy to get them mixed up, and they understandably get very angry if you confuse them.
I wonder how fast and how accurate I can half-hole.
The question is very simple but I still can not see the limit…
At least it’s quite apparent that one tin whistle is very limited instrument on its capability unless the player use half-hole with it.
It’s hard for me to half-hole, too, but (there’s always a but) it’s considerably easier on whistles with larger holes. At least for me. If you have skinny spaghetti noodle fingers you’d want a whistle with smaller holes.
A few professional musicians in Japan who play their modern-flute mainly play also tin whistles at their recordings but somehow they dont think tin whistles are chromatic at all. I was shocked with their idea. The fact that they think like that. Really.
All I can guess is that they just dont use half-hole(but is it possible that they dont know using half-hole method? well…). But I like them because at least they are very honest in their opinions. Gave me so many things to learn from them.
p.s.Dijeridu reminds me of John Diamond’s Big Beautiful Brass Dijeridu played by Stuart Dempster.
It’s a trade off. Half-holing isn’t always easy to learn, but the various cross fingerings and proper use of the thumb hole on a recorder take some work to get too (my daughter’s been playing recorder for three years and still doesn’t have the knack of “pinching” the octave hole correctly).
There are plenty of tunes, not only in the Irish tradition, but in the folk tradition in general, that can be played with no half holing, or with minimal half holing. By contrast, most of the tunes I play on my Baroque recorder require quite a bit of cross fingering. Which is “easiest” or “hardest” depends on the individual, I guess.
The whistle isn’t chromatic. Try playing a tune in Eb major on a D whistle. The analogous task on a recorder is difficult, but doable. On a whistle, it is impossible (at decent speed).
That said, I’d file recorders under “enhanced diatonic” rather than “chromatic” as well. And I think it’s a feature, not a defect of these instruments.
To me, the whistle fingering is more logical than the recorder, and as it doesn’t need any cross fingering in the main keys (ok, I half-hole Cnat on D whistles), it is, for me, easier to play clean and fast than the recorder, especially as I don’t tongue as much in ITM as I did in baroque music. Cross-fingering sounds messy very easy when slurred.
When I was a younger musician, I was mainly interested in learning chromatic instruments because I thought I would be able to do more (play more styles of music) with a chromatic instrument.
When I started playing diatonic instruments (mainly whistle) I was taken by how much easier they are to play, mainly because they lack those extra notes and the forked fingerings that go along with them. Playing fast passages is much easier on diatonic instruments than it is on chromatic instruments because of that lack of in-between notes. Most songs & tunes stay in only one key and rarely venture out of that key except for the occasional accidental. Playing a diatonic instrument frees the player from worrying about all of the ‘in-between’ notes that aren’t used much, and lets them concentrate more on how the music sounds. I honestly don’t miss the forked fingerings at all. I’m quite happy without them (though I do still play Boehm flute).
My point will be supported by anyone who’s played a tune on a recorder, and then played the same tune on a pennywhistle. The recorder is cumbersome to play. The pennywhistle is down right spritely…
Half-holing can take you into a few adjacent keys (such as G, A, and C on a D whistle), but I don’t think you can really compare it to the recorder as far as being a chromatic instrument.
For instance, if you are half-holing, and need to move up an E-flat major scale, you would need to do a half-holed E-flat, half-holed F, G, and half-holed A-flat. Good luck doing this with any speed.
On recorder this is not difficult for someone who’s been playing for any length of time.
The flip side is that recorder isn’t particularly well-suited for folk music in most players’ hands (there are exceptions), and whistle isn’t particularly well-suited for anything except folk / trad music in most players’ hands (again, there are exceptions). This has more to do with tone and projection, in my opinion, than with the difference in fingering systems.
Of course, the original question, about having a whistle that uses a recorder’s fingering, has been done. Susato is one company that makes such an instrument.
I think I’m thinking along the lines of possibility and theory. In theory it is possible for a whistle to be fully chromatic. But in actual practice, most people can’t do that. I think of a whistle as a chromatic instrument, but one that most people can’t master to get it fully chromatic, so they play it diatonically-ish.
Ok, to me, a truly chromatic instrument would be one that doesn’t favour one key over the other in terms of playability and volume. Purely diatonic would be a harp with no pedal or lever mechanism and 7 strings per octave (as opposed to pentatonic harps…). I can’t think of a purely chromatic instrument right now (as most instruments favour some keys over others at least in playability), but violins, pianos and guitars and their cousins would be quite close.
For instance, if you are half-holing, and need to move up an E-flat major scale,
you would need to do a half-holed E-flat, half-holed F, G, and half-holed A-flat.
Good luck doing this with any speed.
Ok.‘Easily’ is not the proper word.It’s a ‘challenge’ for 6 holes whistle.
Although I have not faced the situation where I want all the half-holed note on a whole tune yet.Personally, tunes in C which require the full range of Low A whistle are what I frequently have to face.
Cranberry wrote:
In theory it is possible for a whistle to be fully chromatic.
And I think the only prob. is how far tinwhistles can get closer to chromatic instruments.They don’t need to be chromatic so badly,however, I like to play as many tunes as possible with my one favorite whistle.For the people who dont tend to deal with so many instruments,it’s important thing to pursue.
I haven’t checked the way how Mary Bergin play yet. I hope she is exceptional on this matter.
Is there a term for an instrument that can continuously gliss notes, like a fiddle, trombone, fretless bass, etc. As opposed to a chromatic instrument like a piano, marimba, harp, etc. that can’t?
That keyed whistle looks excellent!!! Now if I only had an extra $150 lying around…
