LOL. Very good, Zoobie-Doobie. 
I was fortunate enough to room with Bill Ochs the first year I attended Irish Week in Elkinâs, WV.
He, out of the blue, gave me a video of Miko Russell just for being a ânice roommateâ! What a great (or is he just one of those crazy whistle players?) person Bill is. I wish I had been able to hang with him more then, but you know how frantic the schools are.
He is very free with his complements, however. He heard me fooling around on my pipes before the reed making class started and he told me âYou are a great piperâ, so I do question his sanity and/or judgementâŚ
BTW, those of you having trouble with rolls, listen to Miko Russell for some great whistling with mimimum rolls. He plays very simply, but uses every technique sparingly. He is the antidote to Mary Bergin.
Okay. Pray tell, how does one do a C natural roll? Is it a multiple finger thing?
Thanks in advance,
Aldon
Iâm curious, too.
At a guess, do you half-hole the Cnat and roll it Cnat(C#)Cnat(B)Cnat?
Or if youâre blipping the tap fast enough you might use the 2-finger Cnat and go Cnat(C#)Cnat(G)Cnat, which sounds easier to execute for us mere mortals.
OXX OOX - first note, play C natural with this fingering
OXX XXX - the âcutâ to d: pat the fingers on the bottom hand (blip)
OXX OOX - the middle note C nat
XXX OOX - the pat to G, pat the top finger (blop)
OXX OOX - the last note C nat
Now, you can do that troublesome bit on Banish Misfortune.
How many can do the C# roll now?
Yeah, thatâs a serious flaw with us Neuro-peons.
At time, weâll take kids with us to hear music in a [gasp] PUBLIC HOUSE [/ungasp] where, who knows, there might be even [faint] public women [/rise] and [shriek] TABAKEY 'N LIKWOR FUMES [/shriek] instead of,
like any seeveelaisled people,
leave them home, so they can watch late TV, complete with the live war sequences, or get decerebrated by some series (should I quote them? or do you think the sight of a decent musical pub crowd is always worse?), while the baby-sitter smokes pot on the porchâŚ
Wake up, dude, or just travel a bit: a European public house nowadays is what its name says. A place where people can meet people. And listen to live music, too. Difference is, we donât need grids here to protect the musicians from the bottles a-flying (just to protect the barman after last call ). A session pub has nothing to do with a honky-tonk saloon.
And, BTW, yes, kids are allowed, if with their parents. If you prefer them totally isolated from the grown-ups life, itâs your problem. Weâre out of Victorian timesâŚ
Was that post for this thread? 
C# roll
OOO XXX Finger C# this way, now roll the top hand fingers toward the fipple, ring, middle, index until it sounds like a roll.
I think c-nat rolls and c# rolls have been discussed a few times, it might be worth running a search on that. If I recall correctly the prevalent view was that while those rolls are possible they are of a low priority and stylistically questionable. In other words they are probably not worth bothering with. Which doesnât meant that you arenât welcome to practice and use them if you feel like it (and have got your A rolls down pat). 
Once I got over the fear of a C natural, the C natural roll is as useful to me as the crann or any other roll.
I canât really think of a tune needing the C# roll, though (except when using a low G or A whistle, of course).
Hey fancypiper! I tried the C natural roll, and it worked well on my D Burke composite. I just read the post for the C# roll so havenât tried it yet.
Thanks Bloomfield! Iâve got my A rolls down purdy good, though Iâve been thinking about doing that S???trad (canât spell it or say it) thing just to get a professional talking down to. (Has this thread somehow come back to the original topic?) 
<-My, and many otherâs favorite smiley.
Maybe You should get Billâs clark tinwhistle book a read it, as most of what he told you is in there 
But you are a lucky SOB for having the chance to have one on one with Bill, :roll: but you know that all ready donât you Bloo
I do know I am lucky, Bill is great and just having a teacher is a big difference. Perhaps Iâll be struck down by lightning for my hubris, but at this point my rolls are tolerable; the original post is 18 months old.
Monster, I have nothing on clips & snips. There are a couple of old & embarrassing clips on my webpage, but thatâs it.
Just wanted to say thanks to Bloomfield. Even though I know this thread was started quite some time ago, itâs full of very good advise and gives renewed hope to one old guy still trying to learn how to play these infernal devices.
Make that two old guysâŚ
PhilO
Aâh. 
The problem is being old is just thatBeing Old 
But the good thing about learning to play whistle is yer never done Learning,it donât matter how old yer are yer never done learning.
Lets compare!
Iâm 63 (will turn 64 Dec 30), started uilleann pipes at 5 months past 54, started whistle about 14 years before then.
I know 2 pipers that started later than I did.
I think that rolls sound better when played with a half-tap. To me, they sound more like the rolls that uilleann pipers play. For the tap, I usually aim to hit the bottom half of a hole, except for the top-most hole (used for rolls on C-nat & C#), where I aim for the top half.
Ed
Ha, Edward. I made a similar observation and was âcorrectedâ on Chat by a 20-yr old that it wasnât the ârightâ way. Of course, fingertip players arenât ârightâ either, but I forgot to tell the young feller to be the one to inform Mary or Joanie (which is the one who fingertips?) that they arenât doing it right, either.
Basically, for me, I struggled because the tap popped out in volume louder than the cut. I found if I 'winged" it about halfway, it worked on my particular whistle. This is mostly on the A and B roll on lower octave and upper E, A and B on a Burke D. But really I think that when you are playing with piperâs grip at speed, you donât always seal the notes as it is. So many are now fingertip players that it might be more of a problem. I am sorta in between. I do cover upper half tho, not lower.
Some people strongly feel that there is only one way to do things, and sometimes, I guess their right. I read about some famous fiddler who taught himself to play with the instrument tuned in fourths (ADGC or something like that). He started taking lessons (from another famous fiddler; I donât remember that one, either), and the first thing the pro did was re-tune the instrument. The young man had to start over, but I might concede he was better off after that lesson. Then again, if he compensated for the smaller range by shifting more, and still sounded goodâŚ
I think Iâll keep using half-taps.
Ed