I gotta say, two weeks into this Bingamon Low D and I am still having a rough time getting the fingers to where they should. How long did you other Low D players take get comfortable with the hole spacing?
It took me about six weeks to feel comfotable with a Howard low D. It started to come togeather after two weeks when I quit trying to play tunes , and just went up, and down the scales for short intervals several times a day. Now I have low d, c, and a bass Bb.
If you miss a note by not covering a hole completly, don’t stop. Let muscle memory take over.
Yes, as simple as a six hole whistle seems, it still takes practice.
I think that is what I will have to do, avoid playing songs and just practice scales on it each day until my fingers/brain adapts. I was trying to play Mark Bell’s arrangement for “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” on the Low D. I love the sound…when I hit the holes correctly.
Yep, scales are good for the start. I found that if I wanted to try and play a tune on the Low D, a good warm up of scales first got the fingers up to speed and meant fewer mistakes in the tune. After two weeks I was still getting over the soreness of the reach. Six to eight weeks before I started feeling really comfortable. It will all depend on how much you practice I would think. I took it real slow, as I was making the mistake of squeezing my thumbs and fingers down too hard, and causing needless pain. I didn’t realise this was the cause of it at the time though. As such I didn’t practice everyday, as, like any exercise I would take every second day off when I felt sore and if I couldn’t help myself, I would only run a few scales and maybe a cut and tap practice before leaving it alone.
My advice is to just relax the hands and to take it in small steps. However you’ve been at it for two weeks already so my advice might be redundent by now.
smiles and nods at caedmon for the kind words
Another thing I found helpful until my hands got used to the finger position on low D: Sometimes my fingers were verrrry close to the right place, but the Colorado air is very dry, and dry skin doesn’t seal as well against the whistle body. I have been known to put a little Burt’s Bees lip balm on the pads of the fingers to help get a good seal and a better sound. Haven’t needed to do so for a long while, but it helped temper my sense of frustration when I was starting out.
Mark
Have you tried piper’s grip? Lots of low whistle players find it easier (although I don’t)
I am experimenting with piper’s grip, yes.
I don’t know if this would be useful to anyone else,
but I finally gave up reaching the bottom hole with
my ring finger while still covering everything else. I
gave in and started using my pinkie instead. Since
the pinkie and ring fingers tend to want to move
together anyway, it didn’t take much to transition
the tunes I knew to between using the pinkie on the
low whistles and ring on high whistles.
Eventually, I started trying the ring again on lows and
it was much easier this time! I think that I had gotten
enough muscle memory in the other fingers that when
I put the ring finger back in the mix, now it was less to
concentrate on simultaneously.
Another thing that helped was daily stretching out the
space between the middle and ring fingers. Touch the
thumb and pinkie of your left hand together. Place them
between the middle and ring fingers of your right hand.
Now spread your left thumb and pinkie apart, pushing
on your right middle and ring fingers, stretching them
apart as far as you can. Hold. Do the same to your right
index and middle. And your right pinkie and ring. Now
switch hands. It’s a deceptively useful stretch. YMMV.
it took me longer then two weeks keep at it.
i still sometimes miss a finger and its pushing six months for me.
The low hand of the piper’s grip was never a problem for me- after all, I’m a piper- but getting the upper hand piper’s grip is still not 100% after several months of practice. (I’m used to using piper’s grip on the low hand, but endjoint pads on the upper hand, on pipes and whistles, but I came to the realisation that I would need to learn piper’s grip for the upper hand in order to play Low D’s with both hands equally relaxed.)
It’s just a matter of sticking with it and spending many hours practicing. The piper’s grip is actually beginning to feel “normal” for my upper hand now!
I practiced in front of a mirror when I was learning. It helped me to have the visual.