Bagpipe Tunes On Whistle

[CAMcClellan]

I’ve noticed that some of the bagpipe tunes that I like listening to seem to fit on the whistle quite well. Seems to be good practice for breath control, and practicing cuts.

Here’s my question, though. As there are no drones on a whistle, do you all think I can fire up the weedeater, maybe try to tune it a little….

[Steve Bliven]

do you all think I can fire up the weedeater, maybe try to tune it a little….

Probably easier to tune than the pipes.

Best wishes.

Steve

[CAMcClellan]

In all seriousness, though, being melodies that I know perfectly, they seem to adapt well for practice. Because I don’t play pipes, I’m not really getting into a habit of playing them like pipe tunes, but trying to play like a whistle. Good practice at nice, flowing legato notes and octave and pitch control.

What else might be good for that sort of practice? I’ve got a passible Morrison’s Jig, Foggy Dew, Soldier’s Joy, and Amazing Grace, and I’m working on some of the Appalachian old time music that I play on banjo.

I have a good pulse going on these songs, with the exception of needing to practice and clean up my breath pauses.

I don’t seem to have too great of a problem switching octaves, and am trying to keep the tonguing in check.

[rykirk]

Technically all pipe tunes fit well on the whistle. You can play them all as notated in A, or if they don't feature prominent low Gs you can transpose them to D to keep them in the lower range. I do this a lot as I think the whistle sounds better in its bottom half. I played pipes before taking up whistle and flute and I play a lot more Scottish than Irish music and I tend to do more pipe style ornaments and they work really well. You can definitely birl and a lot of doublings work, modified throws work. And I tend to do my cuts like I would piping using mostly top hand index, or for repeated notes, top hand index, low hand index, top hand ring. Works just fine on both whistle and flute and since I'm not overly into the Irish style I find it fits the music I play better.

[kenny]

Scottish bagpipe tunes work very well on tin whistle - the 9 notes sit in the middle range of the whistle. Here's a set of 3 jigs from a few years back :

https://youtu.be/AZ6QUJw7iyQ

[syn whistles]

I have an ancient 78 record called 'Imitation of a Bagpipe on a Tin Whistle'. The player addresses the drone question by humming while he plays the whistle.

[CAMcClellan]

I think this is something that I may explore more. I love both Scottish music as well as Irish, and it did not really occur to ne until I was whistling and humming some bagpipe tunes at work a few days ago.

Will learning GHB style ornamentation make it more difficult to properly play Irish tunes?

[rykirk]

I think this is something that I may explore more. I love both Scottish music as well as Irish, and it did not really occur to ne until I was whistling and humming some bagpipe tunes at work a few days ago.

Will learning GHB style ornamentation make it more difficult to properly play Irish tunes?

No, they are different but just more options in your repertoire. No reason learning the Irish ones should be any harder.

[CAMcClellan]

I just read your response to rather Whistle Embellishments thread from earlier, and it certainly makes sense. I play bass, both electric bass guitar and contrabass, and I certainly use different techniques when playing bluegrass and baroque, or doom metal, jazz, or funk on the electric. It stands to reason that I would similarly learn to change ‘modes’ on the whistle, depending on what fits the style.