Due to a sports injury I had to give up the harp and so turned to the whistle - however, it’s proving more difficult than I thought. Basically, on the harp one finger or thumb = one note, but on the whistle all fingers = one note, and trying to get my fingers to comply can be very frustrating; and then there’s breath control and so on. Who was it who said the whistle is dead easy to learn?!
Does anyone have any hints or clues to help? (Maybe a piano player if not a harper who’s made that jump). Many thanks folks
Practice will do it. If there are
passages with which you are having
trouble, play them repeatedly
very, very slowly.
The fingers will get trained.
It’s just a matter of time and patience.
Maybe it’s easy to play the whistle
badly, but to play it as it deserves
takes work. One either enjoys
the labor (more or less) or one finds
another instrument. I took some lessons,
much to my benefit–but you can
play pretty well before you do.
As to the breathing, it comes from
the belly. It helps to be aerobically
fit. Strengthening the belly helps
(sit ups, or maybe playing). Play
long notes, etc. Play with (explore)
the breath. If you’re at the beginning,
this is what it’s like. Best wishes!
Sorry to hear you’ve been forced to give up such a lovely instrument. I have a couple of friends who want to learn the harp, but won’t commit to the time & effort involved.
Someone on this forum suggested starting with tunes you know really well. Simple well known tunes like Happy Birthday to You, God Save the Queen, or Teenage Dirtbag, played by ear, can give you confidence in finding the right fingers for each note, and getting the breathing to come naturally.
You have a great advantage over many beginning whistlers in that you have played music before, and presumably Irish Music, so rhythm, melody, and 1001 other weighty matters, are no strangers.
Nick, you’ve made me very happy. I hacked on the harp for probably three years with very little progress before taking up the whistle. I probably mademore progress in a couple of months on the whistle than I had in all that time on the harp. It’s nice to know that it can go the other way and I’m not just settling for a maroon’s instrument.
The breath control does take some time to learn. There are pieces that still leave me breathless. OTOH, you don’t ever have to relocate your hands, so hopefully that’s a wash.
You can still think of your fingers as one finger one note. First finger, B, second. A, etc. It’s just that all the fingers above it have to be down, too.
I lacked the discipline to learn the harp (it’s now one of my projects for my retirement years). I’m sure that if you have the discipline to learn the harp, you can learn the whistle. It will take some time and effort, though.
One bit of advice, if you’re trying to read music, stick to tunes written in D or G.
Nick,
I played the piano my whole life and didn’t know if I would ever be able to learn another instrument. Well, I picked up a whistle a few months ago, and we all know how it goes from there (I now have 6 whistles and spend the majority of my free time on one or the other of them)…
It was VERY difficult for me at first to get used to moving my fingers differently, breathing right, etc., having never played anything remotely like a whistle before. A couple of things that have helped me:
It was too overwhelming for me to try to memorize the notes on the D whistle from the bottom up, so I started with the top hole and just tried playing it over and over, saying to myself, “B, B, B…” till I could play it and remember what it was fairly well. Then I went to A and did the same for a while, then alternated between B and A. Then G, and so on down till I had the finger positions memorized and could get decent sounds to come out.
Like Martin mentioned, it helps to start with playing easy, familiar tunes by ear, just figuring them out. Things like “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and so on. Having never played by ear before (just reading sheet music for the piano) it was not easy, but it’s gotten a lot better with practice. I can listen to CD’s now and start picking out tunes after just hearing them a few times.
Breathing was very difficult for me (and still is somewhat, though not as bad as it was). I’d never even HEARD of tonguing (my husband was shocked I didn’t know how to do that–he’s played trombone for years and it’s so basic for him), so I had to teach myself how to do that. All I can say about breathing is practice, practice. I found Bro. Steve’s suggestions very helpful (I believe someone put a link to his page above). I especially appreciated his advice about when to always tongue: for the first note of a tune, and the first note after taking a breath. This helped my playing sound much more clean.
As for the basic fingering, it was really hard to train my fingers to cover and uncover holes–so very different from playing the piano, where you don’t have to hold down several keys to get one note. It was really frustrating for a couple of months, but as I read web suggestions and practiced simple tunes, it started to come together. I guess I would just advise you to take it SLOWLY and try not to get too frustrated.
Check out the helpful web pages on whistling. Bro. Steve has been mentioned, and also http://www.sessioneer.com has a tin whistle guide, and the Pennywhistle Workshop at http://www.whistleworkshop.co.uk/ has some good things to say. Reading these helped me a lot.
Well, that’s all I can think of for now. Good luck, and remember there’s a lot of us beginners going through the same thing, so you’re not alone!
Happy whistling,
Kiirsi
PS When things get difficult to remember or work out, I visualize where that particular note or scale would be on the piano, and it helps–sort of a familiar “frame of reference” to work with.
[ This Message was edited by: cees on 2002-01-28 16:36 ]
On 2002-01-28 10:17, jim stone wrote:
As to the breathing, it comes from
the belly. It helps to be aerobically
fit. Strengthening the belly helps
(sit ups, or maybe playing).
I’m not so sure that sit ups will help with breathing. Strengthening ab muscles has nothing to do with using your diaphram effeciently. I also read that overtightening the abdominal muscles is a frequent breathing problem among singers and wind players which prevents them from taking in enough air.
I don’t think this means that you can’t have six pack abs if you are a wind player, but rather that you should be relaxing your torso while playing. A “relaxed” (for lack of a better word) rubber balloon expands more easily than a tough leather basketball.
If you’re having problems with breath control on the whistle, you’ll want to make sure your playing posture is upright but relaxed and don’t slouch. And practise more - one of the best ways to improve your playing is just to play.
[ This Message was edited by: Eldarion on 2002-01-29 04:35 ]
Nick,
No, I’m not Finnish (at least that I know of–maybe there is some way back)–my ancestors come from England, mostly. My parents made up my name----I guess they liked the sound of Scandinavian influences, since all my sisters have Scandinavian-sounding names, too.
