I’m hoping someone can help me figure this one out…I’ve been playing tin whistle for a little over a year and, although I’ve learned lots of good tunes, they don’t seem to have any “texture”, I suppose, to them. I think it could have something to do with the t-t-t’s. (The tonguing on certain notes). Is there a rule encrypted anywhere in the whistle scriptures as to when to t-t-t and when not to? Any additional advice would be great
Tnks!
faydo
tonguing is used only sparingly in Irish music, at least most of what I’ve heard. Most players opt for ornamentation like cuts, etc instead, at least those who can do them (i.e. not me).
Yes, sparingly. I am pretty sure that tonguing is usually done only on the downbeat, too.
Since I currently stink at ornaments, I am working on a way to staple-gun my tongue to the floor of my mouth. 
CLICK-PING
Muck be’er.
If you do want to play Irish traditional stuff, read the section on tonguing (and all the rest) here;
Damn, Bloomfield, you’ve beat me to it again!
Faydo, for those t-t-t’s: if there’s, say a jig with an f-f-f in it, rather than paying it like:
f-(tongue)f-(tongue)f
it’s generally played:
f-(cut)f-(tap)f
where the cut represents lifting one of the fingers, say L3 (the one covering the G hole), and the tap represents tapping with R2 (the E finger). These ornaments are done very quickly so that they sound just like blips. This is called a roll, and it’s one of the bases of Irish dance music.
Brother Steve’s, the site Bloomfield referred to, covers this very nicely.
If you want to hear how it’s done in recorded music I’d recommend Transcribe, a shareware program that slows down music without changing the pitches. You can actually hear cuts, taps, and rolls.
Before you get into technique and all that. You are learning tunes by ear, without sheet music, right? 
And I don’t mean off abc/midi files. If you’re not you should: that will be the best way to get rid of a monotonous sound.
Chas, if you’re going to use cuts/taps on jigs, you probably want to go slur, slur, tap[cut].
If your ego can stand it, you can post a tune to Clips & Snips and ask for feedback. Or, if you like, you can email me a clip and I’ll give you private feedback. There’s instructions for doing this on the clip site.
Tony
Let me second Bloomfield here – that website is great, and starts with the simple truth that there is no single right answer to how much to tongue when playing Irish tunes on whistle.
I think the last thing we need is a second Bloomfield here.
But occasionally you say something sensible!
I wouldn’t worry too much about learning by ear, but I would make an effort to seek out good old solo/duet recordings and spend a lot of time listening to them. Joe Cooley’s album is a great example… style oozing from every pore.
My guess is that your issue is not so much of a textural one than it is a rhythmical one. (ok ok.. semantics) Rhythm is a big factor when playing Irish tunes, and I think its the thing that makes the music catchy and dynamic - instead of dead and monotonous. As mentioned above, breaking away from playing to midi files and over-relying on sheet music will help. Learning your tunes by ear will help a lot too, cos when you do so you are able to pick up a lot more rhythmic detail with these precision audio analytic devices we call, ears. Also as mentioned above, listening to good players often is also very important. It helps you familiarise yourself with the rhythms of the music. Your ears also become more and more sensitive to the nuances of the music with more listening. And what you have left to do, is put in some practice and voila you get lively Irish music.
And I also think its a common misconception that traditional Irish whistling has little tonguing in it. A lot of great traditional players tongue quite a bit and in fact I would think that those that tongue very sparingly would be in the minority camp..
Hey tony that reminds me. My ego tree could use some chopping down and I haven’t posted anything a clips n snips for a while… I’ll have to do that one of these days…
I totally agree with that! Remember, this is largely DANCE music, and you need to make the music dance too. Listen to as much good music as you can, and try to get a feel for the “lilt” or “lift” of the music-- where the accents come, etc. Going to live sessions is really helpful too-- you’ll pick up some of that feel by playing along with good players.
Although I had been playing recorder for about 20 years, and was pretty good at it , by the time I started whistle, this was tough for me to get the feel of.
I played about a year before I started lessons. I found it harder by the way, to break all my bad habits than it was to learn new things. One of the things I was doing was a lot of tonguing. The first thing he had me do was stop. It really helped a lot.
But, I suspect that tonguing is not the only thing that makes you think your music is flat. I recently had my teacher tell me that I needed to be more musical–to give the tune more feel. If I listen objectively, I can hear what he means, but I cannot fix it. The problem is that I spend all my energy on the technical aspect, just trying to get the fingering and the breathing right, that I can’t make it more musical. When I think about learning my other instrument I remember that it took a while before I was thinking less about the technical part and just letting it come to me so I was able to work on the musicality. I suppose that there are people who can do it all at the same time. Not me. I’m just a regular schlub. I gotta work at it a bit at a time.
What do you mean by “slur”?
– Scott
I recommend rereading Eldarion’s post. You can make the music sound interesting with no ornamentation if you put the rhythm into it properly. I’ve heard the music played w/ technical skill but I couldn’t tell which beat the person was on. It was like they were counting to a hundred instead of 1234, 1234.
As far as technical vs musical aspects, you have to work out the technical first to the point you become comfortable and familiar with the tune and focus less on working the instrument. Then the musicality is free to be expressed. (But to get that out, you have to be able to hear it, so listen to a lot of good music.) If you’re frustrated, focus on one tune you know well and is relatively easy to play and work it into the ground. Then back up and play it musically. Experiment.
Cyf, get busy. I’ll sharpen my axe! 
Actually I’ve got to record something soon. MurphyStout made me learn some of his tunes so we can play them together on Saturday. It got me on a new tune learning binge- all reels. I stumbled upon The Earl’s Chair in McCullough’s and tried it out. I was never wild about it, but now that I’m practicing it, it’s fun to play. The first half, I love with no ornamentation at all. I’ll post that.
Tony
Faydo-
There’s a lot of good advice on your whistling here. I wanted to respond to what I thought of first when reading your question.
I am learning the bagpipes. Talk about a limited instrument! The only dynamics come from ornaments. You have 9 notes, one volume level, a constant stream of sound (you can’t even dress it up by pausing for a moment, the sound continues as long as you are playing). All of a sudden, last night, it was just too monotonous. I had to stop for a while.
I picked up my quiet banjo and started trying to pick out a melody. That gave me some real variety. For me, sometimes stepping away for a day or so makes me want to play the pipes and whistles a lot more. Totally different sound, but still pleasant and musical. (Hey, if I’m gonna call a bagpipe a musical instrument, don’t be dissing my banjo!)
Whistles can be fantastic on their own, but often shine best when played with other instruments (I say often, but it sure isn’t always). Variety is the spice of life and of music. My advice is to try something different for a while. Stop worrying about your technical whistle skills. Try playing a tune without tonguing once. That’s fun! Then, if you are bored with it, pick up a guitar, a banjo, or even a ukulele and try to pick out a tune without looking at any sheet music. Just have some fun with it. Remember that we play music. Don’t make it work.
In a short time, you will probably end up wanting to work on the technical stuff again and getting into the nuts and bolts. But it helps to take some time off and so something very different for a while. Lots of folks here play multiple instruments. There’s probably a reason.
-Patrick
I mean no tongue between two notes. Lilting Banshee: D|EAA EAA …
.D | EA{t}A EA{t}A | {c}BAB…
Slur from the pick-up D to the strong beat E and on to the A, separate the two A with a tap, then slur again to the E, slur to the A, separate the second A with a tap, and cut the strong beat B for emphasis… But don’t quote me on this.
One thing that I’ve noticed about beginning whistlers is the lack of proper breathing, and note attack and note sustain. You’ve got to take a big deep breath before putting air into the instrument, then start the note by striking the tip of the tongue against the upper pallet and releasing the air in a steady stream. It’s like saying “tah” or “dah”, that way the note is started with a definite beginning. To keep a steady stream going you have to ration the air a little, the inclination after you take a deep breath is to waste it at the beginning and let out the air in a wooosh, then you’ve got no air left for the end of the phrase! If you just start blowing into the whistle without an attack on the note you get a oooooh, oooooohh, ooooo, sort of thing, which sounds like a child messing around with a whistle. The first note of a tune needs an attack. After you get the tune going then you can decide where to place subsequent tonguing.
Practice playing whole musical phrases in one breath, a phrase is a complete musical idea like for example Mary and her lamb:
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb, Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow.
Now this little bit of the song is one musical idea, or a phrase, if you put a “dah” before every note you are tonguing every note, it’s a good idea to practice simple stuff like this and make it very fluid, very melodic. Try to make the notes touch each other, in other words have no gap between them, after the initial attack keep the air stream steady, the only interruption being made by the tongue as you raise it up to the pallette to produce the next note by saying “tah” or “dah” again.
I’ve heard more than a few whistlers hacking up phrases simply because they run out of air! Breathe deep, finish the phrase (or well planned portion of a phrase) take another breath and keep on playing. It’s sort of like completing a sentence while you’re talking, before taking a breath.
I think a lot of people get a miscoception about tonguing on the whistle because the whistle really doesn’t require a lot of air compared to some instruments, and good players make things sound really quite fluid, but like Eldarion said, they really are putting a lot of tonguing in there.
It takes a little practice, sitting up, taking quick deep breaths, letting the air out in a steady manner. Getting a good attack, sustain, and release of tones also takes a bit of practice. Some people get this stuff eventually by trial and error, but if you’ve never had any formal training on a wind instrument the going can be a little slow, especially at first. So, if you can find a good whistle player or saxophonist, or tombonist or whatever, see if they can help you out with basic technique, it’ll help things out in the long run if you take a little time to get started properly.
Being an ex tuba player I could go on and on and on about breathing and phrasing and that sort of thing, but I’ll climb down from the soabox now.