Does anyone have or know where to find dots for Whiskey Your the Devil? I’m nothaving any luck finding it. Thanks
I finally found it on O’Neills Music of Ireland website. There are 1850 tunes there!!
You mean this one?
http://www.freesheetmusic.net/oneills18/WhiskeyYoureTheDevil.pdf
That’s a hornpipe known more commonly today as Off to California, if that’s what you’re looking for.
WYTD also refers to the song, with a different melody entirely: “Whiskey you’re the devil / You’re leading me astray …” etc.
This is the Off to California version that I know:
http://www.freesheetmusic.net/oneills18/OffToCalifornia.pdf, but now that I’ve played the other, I can see the similarity.
Honestly, I’m not really sure which version I need. I was just told that was one of the songs that played at the slow session.
Yep, same tune, key of G vs. key of A.
Is this the tune you are looking for TW?
David
I’m not sure which one I need, so I will take both with me just in case. Thank you.
The pogues recorded this one. You’d do better to find a score in D and a C whistle, however.
abcnotation.com shows the “Off to California” version with Whiskey You’re the Devil" as a name and the other tune shown here with the name “The Rowan County Crew.” The latter has umpteen verses.
Now that’s where the trouble really starts. I know this has been asked too many times to count, but I still don’t quite understand. I think I will get it if someone would answer this question for me. If I am playing a tune that’s in the key of C on a C whistle do I use D-fingering or do I change the fingering so that the notes are what’s on the page (like in the case of a C whistle, play an E to make a D)? I was told the other day to play with D-fingering, but it seemed to me that if I did that, I’d be playing one note below what everyone else is playing. I just half-hole when I need to, but I’d like to be able to use my C, G, & Bb other than when I play by myself.
If you play from dots (watch out, some people might jump out and nibble your heels and growl a bit, but don’t worry, the bark’s worse than the bite), and want to transpose, then you have a few choices. If it’s scores specifically for the tin whistle, then they’re usually written i D, as to accommodate the common D whistle. Now, take your C flute, and play the same fingerings, you would end up a whole tone lower. When you finger the lowest note on a D whistle, you have a D. On a C whistle, you have a C. So if the D-score says to play a low D, thus covering all the holes, and you play the tune with the same fingering on a C (covering all holes, producing a C), you’ll end up a whole tone lower, like I said. This is by far the most common one.
Another alternative is to play it on a C whistle to a C score, which would require a bit of thought, as all the notes would be placed higher on the whistle than otherwise. For example, the note A on D whistle, you use the top two fingers to cover the top two holes. On a C whistle, the note A is as such sounded by jut covering the top hole (B on a D whistle), so you’re on the right track with your idea to play an “E” on a C whistle to sound the note D. So a lot mor ethought goes in to this method.
Hope that helped clear things up a little bit, although hastily and clumsily written.
Some instruments, like piano, can played equally well in any key, so piano players learn to read music in any key. After all, they have 88 notes to choose from, & often play several at once, just to show off. So, to get a piano player to play in C, you give him a score written in C. To hear it in D, give him music in D.
But whistles only have 15 or so notes to choose from, so we change keys by changing instruments. This means that we play in C or D with the same fingering on different instruments. Which means we can take a short cut to learning to read; we learn to read the keys of one or two sharps (D & G major & related minor & modal scales), fingering the notes as if we were always playing a D whistle, and then craftily fool our fingers by changing whistles to play in other keys.
Thus, if you know how to read whistle music, scores that are written in C, like the example above, can be a bit confusing, because all the ‘learn to play whistle’ books will have been telling you that the lowest note a whistle can make is D, not C. They lie, of course, but it’s a lot easier if you go along with the convention that all fingers down is D, no matter what whistle you happen to be playing.
Thus, to play Whiskey You’re the Devil in C, if that’s what your mates are doing (it might not be) most whistle players who rely on the dots will find or if need be transpose a score to make it come out of a D whistle, and then switch whistles to get into the right key to play with others.
Short suggestion: If it’s not scored in D or G (or relative minors), don’t bother trying to learn it from the page directly to your whistle. Find a recorded version, or one on YouTube, or elsewhere. Memorize it by ear, and then work it out on the appropriately-keyed whistle.
Alternative: Learn it on a chromatic instrument, such as piano or guitar. Once you have it in your head, play it by ear on the appropriately-keyed whistle.
I’m hopelessly lost on the point in discussion here, so I’m glad it’s being discussed. I feel like I’m so lost I need to do some studying on my own to get the basic concepts in my mind. Would Edly’s book help me get my bearings on this subject?
My experience with Edly’s book was that while, entertainingly written and graphically pleasing, it was too deep after about the first chapter. Previously I read some basic material on reading music, learning about the staff, notes, time, etc. I figured Edly would be a good next step into theory. For me, it is way too deep for me at this point. I had no previous experience with guitar, piano, or any other instrument before the D whistle.
“Music Theory for Dummies” was more useful for me at that time.
Owning several whistle keys and having a fingering chart for the different keys make these adjustments clearer for me and of course understanding the difference between keys in sharps and flats (“The Circle of Fifths”).
I will get back to Edly after a bit more experience.
OK, to make sure I understand…
I am playing Whiskey You’re the Devil (in G). If I play it on a G whistle I have to change the fingering to make the correct notes. Is that correct?
That score of Whisky You’re the Devil is in C. If you play it as written, C is what you’ll get. If you play the score on some other instrument (or midi) and then play along with a C whistle, you will learn fingering that you can then transfer to any other whistle in any key.
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However, when you learn to play whistle, you likely learned this fingering chart:
Which has D as the lowest note. To play WYtD, you need a version that starts, ends, and most importantly goes no lower than D, not C, which is one note too low. You can get a C whistle and rewrite the fingering chart, but that’s not how it’s usually done. Usually, whistle players rewrite the score rather than learn different fingerings for every key. We look for music written in a key signature with one or two sharps. Two sharps is D (& related) while one is G, which is easy to play on a D whistle using oxx to finger C natural. Then, we change whistles to get different keys.