Hello all! I am very new to the tin whistle, and I was wondering if there was any general advice on whistling that you would be willing to give? Perhaps things that aren’t mentioned on most FAQ pages?
I purchased a whistle in Colonial Williamsburg VA because, hey, why not? In the past few months I have been practicing and improvising on and off to the point that I can carry a coherent tune and decent tone. But now I am willing to get serious-ish and I have purchased a D Sweetone. I am a mandolinist as well, so I am hoping to complement my celtic mandolin with some whistle as well. Any advice?
I would suggest making good use of the resources located on the forum, follow the threads that interest you (and maybe the ones that don’t) as there is a load of valuable information here and very knowledgeable people. I’m not the knowledgeable one here… just a welcomer.
Make use of the recommended whistle albums at the top of the page and find a whistler or two to delve into and listen, then listen again.
You may also be wise to stick to your Sweetone and put the souvenir whistle aside as a souvenir. A few years ago a friend of mine bought one of those (Clarke/Shaw type) at a historical museum site like Williamsburg. And as a Chinese-made whistle, it tested positive for fairly high levels of lead. You’d have to test yours to be sure. But with so many better-playing inexpensive whistles around (Generation, Feadóg, Oak, Dixon, etc.), it’s not really worth the risk.
Undoubtedly under the brand name Cooperman. It’s worthless as a whistle, with or without the lead issue.
As for the original question OP, check out the thread about the upcoming whistle tutorial from Mary Bergin. That’ll likely prove to be an invaluable study guide.
Hello and welcome to the whistle forum check out the links in my signature the free whistle lessons is a playlist list I created from Ryan Dunns blog last year and to date has had more than 2500 visits. The other is the high lights of an Irish TV show which tracks the progress of McDara an Irish TV celeb who’s being taught whistle by Mary Bergin. The next is “Learn 20 tunes for whistle” this link contains all the necessary links to documentation, demo tunes and even video versions to get you playing 20 Popular Traditional Irish tunes right away no hunting for anything
The last link is my own recordings, creating your own recordings is both rewarding, humbling and grounding and will help to keep you focused it links to a play-list containing my very first tune with a very typical beginner sound from last year when I started whistling, right up to my more recent recordings. With only a years whistling I’m still relatively new to whistle and have lots more tunes and technique to get under my fingers and that’s for another story. For now, good luck and keep whistling.
Listen a lot, play a lot. Try playing tunes that you already know pretty well-- TV theme songs, commercials, folk songs, Christmas carols, etc. If you have a tune firmly in your head, you’ll be able to get it to come out of the whistle more easily.
check out the links in my signature the free whistle lessons is a playlist list I created from Ryan Dunns blog last year and to date has had more than 2500 visits. The other is the high lights of an Irish TV show which tracks the progress of McDara an Irish TV celeb who’s being taught whistle by Mary Bergin. The next is “Learn 20 tunes for whistle” this link contains all the necessary links to documentation, demo tunes and even video versions to get you playing 20 Popular Traditional Irish tunes right away no hunting for anything