Playing Klezmer with a tinwhistle

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Daniel_Bingamon
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Post by Daniel_Bingamon »

You can get brass tubing from specialshapes.com or a local Hobbytown store. And yes, the TWCALC program will do a six hole verision of the Ahava Rabba mode. However, it is better to have that mode in seven holes simply because a lot of Jewish music (and Arabic as well) descend down to that extra lower C note.

Please write to me if you need help with the tonehole positions.

BTW - I'm making plans to have the Ahava Rabba mode whistle available in additional keys. I've done it by special request, but my website will have a 'cart' entry set up for different keys and the how much stretch it is for the fingers.
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Easily_Deluded_Fool
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Post by Easily_Deluded_Fool »

Lunasa played a piece called Frailock
Also known as Frailach or Itzikel

http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/445

In the first Lunasa tune book, it is transposed into D.

If you copy/paste the ABC from the session into
http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html
you can hear the tune.
If you get win2abc, you can transpose the midi file,
or the abc to any key you want i.e. from say C to D,
or Bb to D, etc

If played slower the first time round, then slightly faster
the second, and 'go for it' on the third,
you can really get people dancing.
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Daniel_Bingamon
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Post by Daniel_Bingamon »

Keep in mind that Jewish music can be other modes as well, major, minor, ahava rabb, misheberak, adonai moloch, and others. The modes are named after certain songs.
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bjs
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Post by bjs »

Ahava Rabba (Raag Basant Mukhari's scale)
1:3:1:2:1:2:2
Can be done easily on whistle:
F# G Bb B C# D E F#
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talasiga
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Post by talasiga »

bjs wrote:
Can be done easily on whistle:
F# G Bb B C# D E F#
Yes, of course you can, if you cross finger or half hole to obtain a Bb that satisfies. And if you can do that you will get the other relative modes I mentioned earlier including B harmonic minor.

Can you do this at speed though, great speed? Listen to Klezmer.
Thats the the good thing about a Bingamon tailor made whistle.
Even a beginner will be able to be at it at speed.
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bjs
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Post by bjs »

Can you do this at speed though, great speed? Listen to Klezmer.
Thats the the good thing about a Bingamon tailor made whistle.
Even a beginner will be able to be at it at speed.
Yes I have one with the extra C hole. It is fun to mess about with and sounds very eastern but it is way out of tune and not in any consistent way. I have had it for some time so they may be better now.
Supposedly tuned to:

C, D, Eb, F#, G, A, Bb, C, D

The A is somewhere between A and Ab and curiously the second C (all holes open) comes out as a B. Maybe if I blow harder .....
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talasiga
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Post by talasiga »

Typical of NON-diatonic modes, the Ahava Rabba has LESS than 6 intervals that can be the root of a harmonic chordal triad. In this one, the unrootable ones are the 3rd and the 5th. Thats only two for this. Diatonics have only one unrootable. Bhairav/Hejaz Kar (I think Daniel uses the term Roma) has 3 unrootables.

You can see now why the diatonics under the banner of major/minor key signatures predominate in modern western chordal music. Can't you?
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