I play fairly often at a local pub with an open mic (or mike, if you prefer) night. The “mic” is imaginary; there isn’t one. But “open no-mic” is just too Zen. The rules are simple: 2 tunes/songs or 10 minutes, whichever comes first. I’ve been doing this for about a year, and mostly I play the ocarina. I play all kinds of music on the ocarina; occasionally I bring along a whistle or a recorder, or even a sax. There’s no accompaniment, unless I arrange something with a guitarist before it starts, which I haven’t done. I’m sometimes asked to sit in with others, but that’s different.
My question is: If you were going to play some ITM on the whistle in this sort of venue (and maybe you do this often), what would you play? What whistle would you choose? Are there certain tunes that you think work better than others, played solo?
Any suggestions or observations you may have are of interest to me. I enjoy performing, and will continue to play my ocarinas, but I’d like to work in more whistle music too. I currently have high D whistles, a Gen Bb, a couple of low G whistles, and a low D. I’ll probably pick up an A sometime soon.
The open-mic format is a funny animal. It’s tough to grab an audience with just a two song set, but if anyone is going to remember your performance, that’s what you have to do. My advice: play what moves you. Play what’s tugging at your heartstrings. When you do that, you can’t help but convey some of that emotion to the audience. If they feel even a little of what you’re feeling, you’ll have corralled their attention and that they’ll remember.
“A cappella” quite specifically means (and only means) unaccompanied human voice(s) singing. So how you gonna do that on ocarina or whistle??? I guess you mean “solo instrumental”.
Pedantry aside, I can’t quite understand why you’re asking this - I mean, you’re clearly a seasoned performer - just play whatever you feel like from your whistle repertory that you can fit into the venue’s criteria, just as you do on ocarina or whatever. If you are “introducing” the audience to ITM and they have little familiarity with it, it really does not matter a jot what tunes you play as long as you compile a satisfactory set. If on the other hand they know their stuff on ITM, well, do a mixture of one or two well known standards with some less familiar tunes. Hell, just play sets you “have” - check timings and go for it!
The suggestion of air into a pair or trio of reels is a classic, and a good one, of course - gives variety of “feel” for the audience and you a chance to shine in both fast and slow material and demonstrate the varied capabilities of the instrument… but if you do a lengthy unified set without an accompanist to bridge an instrument swap, I’d stick to the one toot. But 10 mins is plenty long enough to do two sets of tunes if you don’t babble about them too long. Something along the lines of a set of two jigs each played 3 times, maybe on one instrument (say a Bb), then swap to either low or high D and do an air and 2 or 3 reels each played twice. If you have a good one, reels on low whistle shouldn’t be a problem, though the air demands of one for an air when you have stage adrenalin pumping might make a high D a better choice.
I haven’t played an open mike night for years, and when I did occasionally do so I found it tended to be unrewarding because, in GB at least, such events tend to be dominated by would be singer-songwriters (usually of the soft pop navel-gazing doggerel variety), unplugged rock band members and the obligatory student flat trios of three-chord guitarists with no voices doing Oasis covers… and the audiences mostly simply didn’t get instrumental music or dance tunes at all - they’d be initially impressed by instrumental rather than vocal competence, but tend quite soon to lose interest. Give 'em a Pogues song cover with a short fiddle or whistle interlude and they’ll love it. Play them sets of reels, be you ne’er so good, and watch their eyes glaze over.
I just like the sound of “a cappella ocarina” so it sticks in my head that way.
@jemtheflute – I’m not all that seasoned. My ITM repertoire is small, and I’d like to expand it. I thought it would make it interesting to work on tunes with an eye to playing them at open mic. It’s a way to keep it interesting. I don’t have many opportunities to perform, so I try to make the best of this.
Yes, most of the performers are guitar-playing singer/songwriters, and for that reason my playing is generally well received, since it’s different. In any given evening there are only a few instrumentalists. I don’t chat too much before I play; we get enough of that from the songwriters.
In a session situation, there’s “cover” if one needs to take a breath at a random point, I guess (never having played in a session). In an a cappella situation (can’t resist), it seems more important to have the breathing points absolutely nailed. A couple of weeks ago, I tried “The Bachelor’s Walk” on high D whistle. This tune is pretty difficult for me anyway, but I practiced it with variations each time through, so it wouldn’t be too monotonous. But it was very difficult to get the breaths in without breaking the rhythm. So another consideration is tunes that are perhaps a little more forgiving, as far as breathing is concerned–at least until I’ve improved.