Hi. Long, long ago, I used to play classical flute (French key) and even fife. After abandoning music for way too long, I’m back, and want to learn whistle. Unfortunately in the intervening years, I’ve developed “peripheral neuropathy” in my feet and hands. I’m having a terrible time playing whistle because I can’t feel the {expletive deleted} holes under my fingers.
Has anybody successfully modified a whistle to help with a numb-finger problem? I’m imagining gluing something around the finger holes that (a) will make them more feel-able, (b) not affect the tone too much, and (c) not be injurious to fingers. Any ideas?
How bad off are you? Could you feel a piece of masking tape? If you can, you might try taping over the holes with a piece of masking tape and cutting the tape out of the hole opening with an exacto knife. You might even put little nubs under the tape, sort of like braille. You could position the nubs so that when your finger is over the hole properly, your finger is also between the nubs.
Just some ideas that I hope will help you. Welcome to Whistling!
I’ve had a bit of experience teaching intrumental music to people with different abilities. This is what I’d try, but no guarantees:
Stick with one whistle. I’d go with one that has large holes, and no slick coating (nickel Generations and lacquered Waltons would be a bad idea).
Play by ear, and work in front of a mirror. Work slow, slow, slow.
Put some grip-tape where your pinkie(s) and thumbs rest. This will give a tactile reference.
With the visual reference of the mirror, the tactile reference of the grip-tape, and the muscle memory that will develop with slow repetition of simple tunes, the neuropathy should be beatable.
I also have something which presents like peripheral neuropathy. I
only have intermittant problems with my ring and pinky fingers feeling
numb, but it sure can affect my playing! I think the advice that Chiffed
gave about sticking to one whistle is spot on. Your ears tell you when
you are not covering a hole, even if you are not able to feel it with your
finger. Practice going down the scale from C# to D. A lot. Eventually,
every finger should start building “muscle memory” and will go into the
right places after warm up. You may have problems occasionally when
you first pick up the whistle that day, but once you go down the scale
a couple times, your muscle memory will start kicking in again.
Practice every day, even if it’s just a few times down the scale! Your
fingers learn more quickly than you’d imagine!
I find that I still prefer my old conical Clarkes, because when I
started to play cylindrical whistles like Feadogs or Burkes, I have
had to retrain my fingers for the slightly different spacing. But
sometimes, it’s good to shake up the status quo, keep those old
muscles limber. It helped me, at least on the cylindrical whistles, to
use the piper’s grip on my right hand, because that gives me more
play room to cover the hole.
This may be a crazy idea, but you might try the adhesive corn pads with the hole in the middle of the pad, found at local drug/grocery stores… Around the tone holes, I mean…
All of the above suggestions are worth a try especially the ones about sticking with one whistle (for a while).
When folks play the whistle, the fingers fly.
I would thing it all happens so fast that there just isn’t time for the sense of touch to come into play.
I imagine a big part of that is as has been suggested, muscle memory.
Clearly, muscle memory is the most elegant solution. However, If that proves unreliable, you might consider applying finger guides using Fimo or an air-dry clay - something akin to competition pistol grips.
I don’t have any of the above mentioned physical problems yet but my tenor recorder has double holes that are a bear to feel. Practicing going up and down the scale helps and also gives you confidence.
A related topic I’ve not yet seen discussed is what I call flinching. I hit a bad note (finger not covering the hole/poor breath control/the tube slips/etc/etc) and the resulting squawk brings the tune to a screeching halt as the following notes crash together in a pile of cacophony. The next time through the tune, I spring-loaded to flinch on that note and so I do. Practicing that section over and over very slowly until my self-confidence returns is the only way I’ve found to beat the flinch. Once I get a tune “down” I seem to handle small squawks and missed notes better.
If any more experienced players have any thoughts on this digression from the thread, I’d like to hear them. Sorry, for hijacking your thread, JinksB, but I think this topic is sufficiently close to include here.
