I’ve only been playing for 3 weeks to a month now, but I play too fast.
Why just the other day I kicked off a set before I had even decided what tunes I was going to play. That ended badly.
This morning I started off so quickly that I hadn’t taken a very good breath, and actually ran out of Air halfway through the first phrase. But to be honest I had only a vague idea of how that tune went anyway.
Good topic. 
Make a list, then follow it. Change the list each day, or every few days, but if you commit on paper then you’ll have thought ahead of time and you’ll know where to go next.
I only make a list when I’m doing outdoor solo gigs at Christmas where I fear I will play the same three songs over and over again. Having a list taped to a case or nearby post or window means I can glance up for a second to get some direction before heading into the next song. I’ll have a dozen or so ready to go, and have them ordered nicely for effect, and it’d be a shame to skip #8-12 because I was freezing and forgot about those ones!
Jef
Nano, your signature seems tailor made for this thread. 
It does, come to think of it. 
The funny thing is, if you had a group of Irish dancers accompanied by players playing at what many people consider to be session speed, every one of them would probably ask the very question posed as the title of this thread.
Practice playing PAINFULLY slowly. Then when you speed up a bit, you’ll feel comfortable with it.
Sorry, just changed it, what with the holidays being upon us and all. But think of it and assuage your WhOAH thereby.
Hmmm…if you play whistle, I believe that’s what’s known as the Psychotic Songbird Syndrome (PiSS). 
Please don’t be PiSSed. 
–James
It sounds like you entered The Twilight Zone to me 
.
The problem is that you’re spending too much time playing and not enough time reading reviews and purchasing… 
Strange as it may seem, practicing whistle is not unlike going to the gym to lift weights. A lot of young lads don’t seem to follow a particular regime and easily fall into a trap of lifting the heaviest possible weight, which would be okay if the only goal was to exercise the ego. I suspect a few get discouraged or bored when they don’t see any improvement (or don’t get any sugar) or quit after an injury. However, eventually every guy (never gals) will and should test their 1 rep max. I like to do this after training for at least 6 weeks and/or near the completion of a training bout. It is a measure of progress, it defines my limit, and does build confidence.
No real advice other than to begin practice sessions with a conscious effort to start off on the right foot. Let your fingers and breathing re-acclimate to the whistle, i.e., do some warm-up exercises (there’s that gym thing again). Like everyone says, start slow and work up to the faster tempos. When the signal-to-noise ratio starts to drop, give it a rest. Walk away satisfied. Start again tomorrow.
I kinda do this too…get started on a song I’ve only partly learned, and my fingers want to race thru’ the part I know well–then trip over each other when they get ahead of themselves! 
Try this (kinda helps me–tho’ hubby and the pets would disagree! 
):Use your built in metronome…the one attached to your foot. Start tapping your toe to the speed you need to practice at for several moments before you start playing. Take a few deep slow breaths while your doing it, then just play to the tempo of your toe.
I thought the original post was a joke related to the other thread (“Why Can’t I Play Faster?”).
If you’re seriously having problems where you start to play a tune and it comes out that you’re playing way faster than you intended, a good trick is before you start to play, quietly hum just a bit of the tune. This will let you get your speed set without getting “committed” if your first speed is wrong.
–James
To be honest I was just kidding, as you thought. Then the thread kinda took on its own life and I realized the joke was on me. Although I don’t always take an adequate breath and find myself struggling on the last note of a phrase often times.
So I’ll introduce myself.
I’ve been playing a short amount of time. I’ve been reading this board for at least a month, and found it to have an interesting personality, and a diverse group of posters.
I decided to take the plunge at whistle playing and purchased my first whistle. A yellow Acorn (I was surprised they came in yellow, this time of year I only expected to find blue ones). It has been a great little whistle except for the low D and E which require a great deal of breath control (less air) to get at the low octave. For that matter I played in the upper octave for 3 days before I heard an online tutorial and found out there were lower notes.
I’m working on my third song now titled “My First March”, I’ve already learned (kinda) “My First Jig” and “My First Waltz.”
By the way I put a whistle on my Christmas list! I’m not sure if my wife will get me one (eyes bugged out when she saw the price) but I’ve pretty much broke her in over the years.
Ronnie
This puzzles me greatly. First of all the old ‘slow play’ idea, as if there’s one particular speed this music is played at: very slow. In my experience good sessions are rarely ‘very slow’.
There is no reason why anybody wouldn’t be able to play as slowly as they want, given they put a bit of work in. Thousands of people of all ages seem to manage, why not you guys? Just take it handy and work at it, you may surprise yourself although it won’t come in weeks or months. If you don’t start deluding yourself you won’t have to work at it because you’ll never be any good anyway you’ll not get anywhere.
Scott Laban
…With apologies to Peter
I’ll tell you why I thought this was a good topic: it’s actually rather difficult to play slow well. It takes practice to do that as much as it takes practice to play at high speed. There’s usually an innate tendency to speed up from the slow pace you started at, so that’s one thing (being able to maintain a rock-solid pace at will is indeed important. Ask any stepdancer who does the Set - or “Long” - Dances and treble jigs, if we’re talking slow tunes, here), and then there’s eventually the issue of taking the slow approach and making it into something listenable, enjoyable, even, instead of thinking of slow playing as something to slog along at merely because you’re “practicing”. Playing a reel slowly, for example, can open up a whole new world in what it evokes. It depends on what you do with it.
Yes, slow is good for surety’s sake when you speed up later, but it’s a realm on its own, too.