I played saxophone and clarinet for many years before taking up whistle so I’m inclined to use a good bit of tonguing articulation. Feels very natural to me. But I make sure I can play all of my tunes without tonguing, just using cuts and taps for articulation. Once I can get the timing and tempo right without tonguing I’ll add in some tongued notes for some extra punch and to make certain phrases a little easier. But I try not to overdo the tonguing.
Just go to Brother Steve’s site. All you
need to know in a beginner-friendly prose.
http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/tonguing.html
This sounds like a very wise approach to me.
Usually people who come to Irish whistle from any sort of “legit” woodwind background, be it sax or clarinet or Boehm flute or Baroque flute or recorder or whatever, tend to tongue in the wrong places. To my ear, Mary Bergin tongues in all the right places. It’s often not a matter of how much tonguing there is, but rather of where it’s used. Anyhow these “legit” players can instantly be recognised by how they phrase Irish jigs and reels, until they’ve done enough listening and playing and get to the point where they pick up an Irish accent so to speak.
Tonguing help me to pass rapidly from the 1st octave to the 2nd one without shrills. Mainly from the 1st octave to the 2st octave 1st note because I used to fingering XXXXXX…this is one reason to use the 0XXXXX fingering instead…but it is difficult to me…
I’m still confused about tonguing, too. I’ve been trying to pick up new tunes from TradSchool and TradLessons at YouTube, and also relearning any older tunes I have from those sources. Seems like I tongue at completely different spots, and their versions sound so much better, but I cannot seem to reproduce this in my own playing.
I’m at a point where I’m wondering if I need a real, live teacher. Not certain how I’d come up with one, though.
Interesting, and it brings to mind a type of phrase that I played differently on the flute and high whistle, the “rocking” phrase such as:
B2eB f#BeB
that on the flute I’d do with no tonguing, but on the high whistle I might tongue the attack of all the upper notes e, f#, e but NOT the back end of those notes, not the low B’s, in other words high e and f# would go legato back to low B. Somebody coming from classical/baroque flute or recorder would tongue both the attack of the upper octave notes AND the attack of all the intervening low B’s, thus breaking up the flow of the phrase into a series of detatched notes. I can imagine an Irish whistle player tonguing everything, but somehow the flow of the phrase would be preserved.
To my mind that rocking phrase will sound a lot better if you do in fact tongue the pedal notes, the Bs, and not the higher notes. Using the tongue very softly, for separation rather than attack, and using the breath to make the higher notes stand out more.
This is my usual technique for such passages. It’s akin to cross-bowing used by fiddlers and is in line with the frequent practice, on fiddle and whistle, of slurring across the beats. I just can’t make that passage sound how I want it to by tonguing the high notes.
Discussion of the same topic from five years ago: https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/question-about-bouncing-notes/26070/1
The sound clip I put up in response to a request in that thread is still there, but the new forum software doesn’t link to it. It’s here.
BTW RPereira, if you work at it you’ll soon be able to change octaves without tonguing, unless you are using a particularly recalcitrant whistle. There’s a tip on using taps to help you here.
There are many kinds of tonguing.
Learn to be more subtle with it.
It is too easy to be rude with it.
Tonguing depends on what kind of music you are playing. New England fife, lots of tonguing, traditional Irish, not so much. Having grown up with the NE fife music, I have spent years learning not to tongue when playing Irish music. You are right to listen a lot. Joanie Madden has some nice whistle CDs available, and the young girl who sings with Danu plays some nice whistle, as does Julie Fowlis when she is not singing. And of course some good ones already listed above.
BTW RPereira, if you work at it you’ll soon be able to change octaves without tonguing, unless you are using a particularly recalcitrant whistle. There’s a tip on using taps to help you > here
Yes, some times I do that, however not all the time. There are some faster tunes that I can jump to the higher notes whiteout tonguing. However there are somes tunes that it feels better to tonguing. I listen to some players and it is interesting to ask yourself why they tongue in some parts and not tongue in others, and some times they are tonguing all the way up.
[quote=“pancelticpiper”]
Interesting, and it brings to mind a type of phrase that I played differently on the flute and high whistle, the “rocking” phrase such as:
B2eB f#BeB
that on the flute I’d do with no tonguing, but on the high whistle I might tongue the attack of all the upper notes e, f#, e but NOT the back end of those notes, not the low B’s, in other words high e and f# would go legato back to low B. Somebody coming from classical/baroque flute or recorder would tongue both the attack of the upper octave notes AND the attack of all the intervening low B’s, thus breaking up the flow of the phrase into a series of detatched notes. I can imagine an Irish whistle player tonguing everything, but somehow the flow of the phrase would be preserved.
[/quote]
Interesting because when I thong I tend to attack the upper notes. Nevertheless, there are some tunes that we can tongue at the higher and the lower ones too. I can see that the subject of this topic is very appealing and the question is very well constructed: “Tongue or not to tongue, that is the question”…Now I am starting to pay more attention to the players tonguing! Moreover, I have noted that there are some parts of the tunes that I tongue when some players do not do that! I’m getting a little worried about this!! 
Hi
Just a suggestion to get you started!
Exercise: Try tonguing the first note of every bar, then every second bar, then every fourth bar, then possibly try 8 bars
A 32 bar reel would be set out as follows
1st Part - 8 Bars
2nd Part - 8 Bars
= 16 bars
Repeat the pattern above
Total 32 Bars
You will have played the whole tune 2X through
There are endless views over tonguing however this should get you going
If you feel that you need to tongue twice in a bar then fine
Hope you find this helpful… 
pkev
pKev, I know you are suggesting the above as an exercise but I don’t think it’s a good way to tackle the problem of when to tongue at all. Musical considerations must determine where you tongue, and arbitrarily mapping out where to tongue based on bar lines will give you a very unmusical result.
Your advice could be improved by suggesting that people stop tonguing altogether, rather than tonguing x times every n bars.
I tongue for emphasis and/or clarity. There are many other ways to create emphasis, as well.
I usually emphasize phrases, which tend to start on bar lines, so exploring along pkev’s exercise could be a useful route (never tried it that way).
Hi
Stevie J ; You are kidding with your response right!.. 
As your post states you prefer to swing the other way and come out batting for the other team ie not to tongue at all!
As Highland-Piper highlighted and I’m sure there are others as well, he / she uses tonguing for clarity
and to emphasize phrases which tend to start on bar lines or on the first beat of the bar!
Thats not to say you don’t or can’t tongue in different places within the bar..cos it would depend on the tempo, length of note, breathing
and other ornamentation etc you explore when playing a tune..for example you may want to syncopate and place emphasis on different beats!.
Musical notes are divided into bars / measures / phrases so it would make perfect Musical sense to break a tune down and find appropriate
places to breath, tongue, clarify, emphasize etc
An example tune to try the exercise on would be the Humors of Glendart a Jig in D
You could easily tongue the first note of every two bars and make it sound Musical
or even tongue 2X each bar and not interrupt the rhythm and flow of the Music
The OP queried the issue and I suggested a method of tackling the issue
The exercise I suggested will not in any way harm their musical learning so don’t worry!
They can on the other hand just follow your airy fairy suggestion to not tongue at all
which I think is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard!!
If you want to swing back and Bat for the Musical side again your most welcome!!
Tongue in Cheek!
Pkev
Not kidding at all, pkev. The night before I wrote my post I had corrected a student of mine who, in a the second part of a certain jig he had learned that week, was systematically tonguing 2x per bar, i.e. first note of every group of three. I don’t know why because he doesn’t usually do that and he didn’t do it in the first part. It sounded dead and monotonous, and as soon as he stopped doing it after I pointed it out, the tune came back to life. That’s why I thought your approach was the wrong way to go about things.
If you want to play Irish music well, you can’t do it by looking at a tune on paper, or conceptually, and deciding where to do things - tongue, put rolls, or whatever. My opinion, of course (what else would it be?).
Listen to Steve, and reserve tonguing for more ‘intimate’ moments… 
Hi
Just my luck 
Steve, didn’t realize you were a teacher of Irish Music!!..I confess I ain’t a teacher!
so you must be right 
Plus I play all kinds of Trad music not just ITM so perhaps that makes a difference
I’ll promise to keep my tonguing silent…with immediate effect!
On a side note but still on topic…
To anyone reading this, why is it with so many Irish music teachers frequenting this forum
and others like the session.org site and the now defunct whistlethis site do the teachers
always argue about articulation, tonguing etc, phrasing, style etc to achieve that sought after sound?
It must be extremely confusing and frustrating for beginners to learn anything!
pkev
That’s a fair question. Part of it is that music is art, style is not an algorithm, and people aren’t robots. Different players, different emphasis and taste within a broad consensus of what sounds good. That’s hardly unique to ITM. The proof is in the playing, and teachers recognize one another as good players when they hear it.
But part of it is also not to confuse pedagogy with argument. When you’re teaching, you can’t throw the book of your entire range of technique or knowledge at a student, unless you want to guarantee discouraging them instantly. You divide up what you know into digestible, artificial chunks in a particular order. And different teachers will do that differently and have different ideas about what’s best. But ultimately the goal is the same: to give the student the listening and playing skills they need to make their own decisions.
Different tactics, same strategy. Students don’t always understand the difference. But teachers should.
If you take StevieJ and me just as an example here, you might find that that we disagree on some details of presentation. For instance, I’m probably not quite as averse to unmusical “mechanical” exercises as a stepping stone to musicality. Maybe it’s all those years I think I benefitted from playing Hanon, Klosé, Baermann, Carcassi, and umpteen other étude studies. But I’m sure that one on one, you’d find a very high level of agreement between Steve and me.
This is why I think it can be valuable for beginning students especially not to pick and choose sources at random like a Chinese menu. Find a good teacher or mentor (who’s also a good player, of course) with a consistent approach, and let them guide you. Or if you’re using multiple sources (books, recordings, internet), try to absorb and internalize one lesson before moving on to the next, with a possibly different approach.
In fact, this is one of my misgivings about the free-for-all comment approach of resources like WhistleThis. Or, yes, the Chiffboard. I’m sure it can be confusing for some. At some point you just have to hope that the marketplace of good advice will win out, and that people can learn to separate the wheat from the chaff on their own.
Cathal McConnells homespun tapes discuss tonguing. He says that some whistlers do a lot of it and others not at all. He explains both normal tonguing and double tonguing, and leaves it to the student to listen to lots of music and tongue when they feel it’s appropriate.