I have asked here and found some nice resources regarding teaching oneself the whistle. I have purchased a low D and just started the journey. I am learning the D scale and then G and A. Does that make sense? I played Amazing Grace the first day, just to see what it would sound like. Pretty nice for a hack. I would like to learn Dark Island very much. Can’t seem to find the first note. Can one play it in D?
Sorry for the stupid questions, but I have not found anyone in my area yet to give a lesson and just love the tone of this whistle. Really quite appealing to me.
Why not order a book? Get one with a CD so that if you don’t read music you can listen.
One good resource for music to learn is thesession.org. There are lots of tunes listed there. I think if you look up the member there who goes by the name of “dow” and look at his tunebook you’ll get the top 100 session tunes or something like that.
With all those tunes at your disposal, you can then learn them by listening to the soulless midi files, or with the sheet music, or do what I do and search online until you can find somebody with a free download of the tune. Then you can learn it with soul.
Get some slowdown software so you can play it at half speed or so without changing the pitch. I simply play music with Quicktime on my Mac because it let’s me slow it down without changing pitch. Windows media will let you do the same. Then you can play bits of it over and over until you know the whole thing. Then play it faster and faster until you can play at full speed.
Don’t feel bad if you can’t play at full speed. Usually I do 3/4 speed. Sometimes full speed if I’m lucky.
Here’s a list of really good tunes – in various speeds even – you could download that I found today. http://toraigh.com/slowsessions/ It’s all flute, but close enough.
The best way, from what I’m told, is to get CDs of your favorite players and sit down and fumble along until you’re able to play along.
Myself, I started out picking out tunes I know and like. Lots of listening is essential. Then moved on to the faster, more session-esque stuff.
I personally disagree with buying a book. With the wonderful resource that is the internet, and all the whistle tutorial videos and sites out there, you’re better off saving your cash. I bought two separate books at different times, and wound up never using them except for the sheet music.
www.whistlethis.com is a good place to get started, and probably the resource that’s been most useful for me. I also highly recommend Ryan Duns’ Fordham University videos ( http://www.tinwhistler.blogspot.com/ ). They’re very good instruction, and from what I’ve seen of his playing, he’s an extremely skilled player.
There is one big “pro” for buying a book: tunes there are usually arranged by difficulty. Sometimes simple sounding tunes are hard to play, and the opposite. So it is better to know the difficulty of the tune before you start learning it.
If you’ve got a D whistle, you can start it on the first octave A. You loose the bottom note doing that, but the tune is still quite recognizable. That’s the best I can find fiddling around quickly. I suppose I should look at the sheet music in the Ryan’s Fancy songbook and find out what’s going on with the tune, it seems like I’m playing it with C-naturals and C-sharps and it’s minor but ends on a G? Weird but beautiful.
Thank you for the kind replies. I don’t think there is instruction in my area, but I think I can get this going via the web for now. May move towards books etc. I figure I can play some hymns and music that is very recognizable to me until I get the feel to more towards more difficult music. I gravitate towards more melodic pieces of music anyway played on a low D. Really like Dark Island that is played by James Galway on a Chieftains recording Celtic Minstrel. I am not even sure what instrument he is using. Pardon my ignorance. I am piper and really don’t go beyond that at this time. Seems the whistle’s range would be much greater than the pipes and “Dark Island” fits on there well. Am I wrong?
I’m talking about the song “Dark Island” by Silver and Maclachlan. I’ve got no idea about James Galway and the Chieftains, I don’t listen to either of them. I’ve pulled out the Ryan’s Fancy songbook, and that gives their key for it as Am/G, which is perhaps why I gravitated to that (start it on A). If you do that, there are no C-sharps, my ear must have been off. The lowest note is middle C-natural, which cannot be played on whistle, but other than that the tune sits very well here.
You can also play it in Em/D by starting on the second octave E. That makes it a bit on the high side for my taste, but all the notes fit comfortably in the whistle’s range.
Yes to books and CDs. I find it useful to listen to a tune until I pretty well have it by heart. Then, I go to the book and CD for reference, but depend on memory.
Afterall, you will sooner or later have to get the tune by rote, so you might as well start there.
On “Dark Island”, the instrumental (an old piper’s tune) you can start on the low D for one note, then go directly to G and noodle around a bit
The best way to progress is to never ever give up and to consciously improve upon every aspect of your playing during practice. In my experience, books, CDs, sessions, this Forum, Web sites, youtube, talking with other players, teachers, workshops, recording, performance and feedback, beer, etc. all seem to help.
Have you tried the Irish pubs in the area? If you can find a session, you can find ITM players. If you can find ITM players, you can find whistlers. Etc etc etc.
As long as you have internet access, there is instruction in your area. People say that the whistle is easy to learn. This is a load. It may be easy as compared to the fiddle or piano, but no instrument is outright easy to master. All take dedication and practice. But be patient and avail yourself of resorces like; www.tinwhistler.com www.whistlethis.com (including the Ryan Duns video series)
and Brother Steve’s tinwhistle pages (google that phrase, I don’t remember the URL.) and work hard and you’ll get it. Don’t give up. Don’t let frustration discourage you, everybody went through the difficulty of starting out. Just work through it and keep practicing. One very good resource is this board. It is full of people who are very generous with their time and advice. The members here are always willing to help with any problem you may come across. As am I.
The whistle and Irish music in general are easy to play, but difficult to play well, if that makes any sense…I started on the whistle a long time ago, and while it was easy to pick up and start playing simple stuff, it took a long time to do it well. Patience is key…
As Houstonwhistler says…to play it well, the whistle requires the same effort as any other instrument. The poor whistle also gets a lot of short shrift sometimes in the ITM world…it’s often viewed as a beginner’s or dabbler’s instrument only and not a serious instrument. In reality, although it may not be as “sexy” as others, you can make beautiful music on a whistle. Especially if it’s lower than concert pitch! Listen to Mary Bergin, Sean Ryan, Mick O’Brien, Doncha (sp?) O’Brien or others to hear what can be done. A lot of people don’t realize it, but in a sense, the whistle is a very traditional Irish instrument. The whistle as we know it now was developed later for a different target audience, but in the 18th and early 19th centuries Flagolets, cousin/predecessor of the whistle were commonly played in Ireland by trad. musicians.
