I’m just learning the tin whistle and not to good yet and had a question. I have two teach your self the penny whistle book with cds and i went to the http://www.madfortrad.com/ site and found their whistle tutor program. Would anyone recomend the tutor program found on their site and would it help me improve faster because the books i have have me progressing slowly and i’m not sure if there are whistle players in my area. any info or insight any of you may have on their whistle tutor would be helpful thanks.
My son used the Mad for Trad tutor and learned how to play the concertina and his wife has the one for flute.
I have seen those plus I watched the uilleann pipe tutor.
All of them seemed very good to me and I was thinking about ordering the whistle tutor (mainly to loan out to beginners) as well although I have played whistles since the '80s.
The MfT whistle tutor is ok, but it’s not a magic bullet. It is always useful to see someone playing, but overall I have found books/CDs more helpful. Progress at first is bound to be slow, so don’t that in itself make you discount books and CDs as learning materials.
Personally, I have found the most helpful tutors to be:
The Clarke Tin Whistle Tutor and CD
Geraldine Cotter’s tutor book + CD + tune CD
Waltons Best Tinwhistle Tunes books and CDs
Although even more than those above, I have learned by listening to Dubliners CDs with The Amazing Slow Downer. Slowing down John Sheahan’s lovely, clear playing has been a revelation (no doubt some of the more trad players here will be laughing up their sleeves at me).
Once you get the basic techniques down such as cuts and rolls etc (and that’s probably where video helps most), the quickest way to progress is probably by slowing tunes down and learning them by ear.
As for those basic techniques, to be honest I find the demo files here http://www.whistletutor.com/tutorials.htm to be more helpful than the video on the MfT CDROM.
Just my own opinion. No doubt others will disagree.
I’m using Walton’s “Complete guide to learning the Irish tin whistle” by Clare McKenna. And find it to be a very good book.
I do play other instruments and can already read music, but the book does seem to me to be very good even if one couldn’t already read music.
Buddhu is right about The Dubliners and John Sheahan.
A peerless whistle player who is very much underated and undervalued by the ITM brigade,probably because of his involvement in a “ballad group”.
John Sheahan was where it all began for me,many years ago,and he will always have my undying respect for his musicianship.
Slan,
D.
Dale Wisely reviewed the MadForTrad tutor in this issue of the newsletter.
Hi pmcaninch—I remember talking to someone here about the Mad for TradCD and she thought it was worth every pennny. I have not seen it myself.
You might be expecting to progress more quickly than is reasonable. It is not at all easy, in my opinion, to play the whistle. Practice some every day and try to be patient. Some notes are harder to play than others, some note changes are much harder to make cleanly than others. Don’t try to play faster than you can—slow and accurate. It is a simple looking instrument but to make it sound good is going to take awhile.
Maybe you could look at the demos buddhu mentioned and see if that gives you a boost. But he is right, there isn’t anything magic except your own fingers every day. 
Don’t focus on the progress part (more easily said than done), just focus on each day’s practice.
I have the whistle and flute MFT tutors. I bought the whistle one when I started whistle and the flute when I began playing flute. Both are very helpful - but one or the other would have sufficed for the basics for either of these two instruments.
My wife has the one for Fiddle and LOVES it.
I think that they are more than worth the money.
Enjoy!
grey larsens tin whistle tool box has tons of stuff on ornamentation and has a cd with it
thank you all for the information and encrougament. I’ve tried the amazing slow downer and that is pretty cool i just have to tune my ear a bit better to pick out the notes. Are there any really good tutoral sites other then the whistletutor.com or in fact any such related sites you might recomend to me? thanks in advance.
Hi pmcaninch—There are 3 other sites that I think are quite nice. Try not to get too distracted by what tutorial you should use. Just decide something and go with it for awhile. I tended to spend more time looking for things to play than actually playing them 
. It can get overwhelming.
http://www.whistleworkshop.co.uk/home.htm
http://nigelgatherer.com/whist.html
http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/index.html
Practice practice practice!!
One more tip if you’re just starting: as with any instrument, don’t try to play anything quickly until you can play it slowly.
I find it good to get tunes down solid with The Amazing Slow Downer until you can play them through without mistakes, then gradually increase your pace. When mistakes creep in stop speeding up until you’ve worked them out.
Play them southern style.
Good advice about playing slow. You can “cram more stuff” in slow playing (and it makes it sound as if you are playing it faster as a result), but in performing/sessions, people tend to go on a “speed trip”.
And, after several years of playing and especially listening, your ears learn to listen faster.
Therefore some tunes will just suddenly appear under your fingers, a mighty pleasing and surprising adventure.
Barney McKenna always says, “If I start to talk too fast for ye, y’ll have to listen to me quicker…”. I’d say this bears out the theory that your ears really can learn to listen faster! 