Kade1301 wrote:
Ah, but is it still learning by ear when one can see the fingers?
It isn't, it's a combination of sight and sound. My goal sitting at an Irish session is to pick up the tunes as quickly as possible- I can have nearly a whole jig or reel by the third time through- and anything that helps is welcome.
Kade1301 wrote: I'll assume that there's no half-holing required for Irish standard tin whistle tunes...
Reading between the lines this might imply that in ITM there's a body of "whistle tunes" and separate bodies of "flute tunes" "uilleann tunes" "fiddle tunes" "box tunes" etc but this isn't really the case. The basis of ITM is the session, and sessions are most often a group of mixed instruments all playing the same tunes in unison. So the same tunes will be played together on whistle, flute, fiddle, banjo, box, concertina, pipes, etc.
Yes there's a very large number of these tunes- perhaps the great majority- which only require one alternating note C/C#, for which on pipes, flute, and whistle there are standard traditional cross-fingerings.
But there are plenty of tunes which fall outside the one-sharp & two-sharp scales. The tradition has long been based on keyless whistles, flutes, and uilleann pipes and on these instruments F natural (for example) is idiomatically done by bending the note, the actual pitch often being somewhere between F and F#.
And then there are plenty of tunes, many favourites on box, fiddle, and banjo, which fall outside the ordinary gamut of whistle, flute, and pipes (by range, key, or both). Many of these can be more easily played on a different-keyed whistle, say a C whistle, than on the standard D whistle.
Kade1301 wrote: Do I understand correctly, you know two different flutes and three different bagpipes, each requiring different fingerings?
At the height of my craziness it was 5 species of flutes and 6 species of bagpipes each with unique fingering systems, systems of ornamentation, and relationship of fingering to sheet music. That's nothing compared to what Sean Folsom does!
Somehow the brain has no difficulty separating all this stuff. If I have an uilleann chanter in my hands I could not for a moment accidentally play a GHB, NSP, Gaita, Gaida, or Cornish doublepipe fingering, much less a flute fingering from Boehm flute, Irish flute, Baroque flute, kaval, or quena.
Kade1301 wrote: how do people deal with whistles in different keys? Not think about it, just play - like putting a capo on a guitar?
Yes exactly. On whistle it's standard to read music assuming that a D whistle is being played regardless of the actual size of the whistle.
It's necessary when doing 'legit' gigs though to be aware of the Concert Pitch notes that come out of each size of whistle, so if the conductor says something about an Eb and you're playing a Bb whistle you know it's your "G".
I know people who are really good at keeping straight the Concert notes coming out of each size whistle and can fluently sight-read at pitch sheet music on any whistle. Give them sheet music to a tune in F and they can sight-read it at Concert Pitch on a D whistle, C whistle, or F whistle. That stuff is way beyond me.