I came late in life to the tin whistle having gone through adult life wishing I had learned a musical instrument but being too busy with work and family to get around to it. I then retired and thought I needed to learn an instrument. I thought to mself “the tin whistle sounds good and I like Irish music and hey I have even been to Ireland for a visit”. I soon learned I was wrong about the easy bit but by then I was hooked.
A year or so on I am well and truely hooked and I practise often and hard. So much so that my wife wil from time to time say in a plaintive voice “have you been playing your tin whistle again” when I actually have been out mowing the lawn or haven’t been home at all.
My tin whistle journey has confirmed to me my long held understanding that I have no natural musical ability. Any limited progress I make will be from hard work.
That brings me to the point of my post - how can someone with very limited natural music talent teach themselves to play by ear? I read on the web people saying, “ oh anybody can learn to play by ear”. That to me is like Usain Bolt telling me that because he can run the 100 in under 10 seconds I should be able to do the same.
However on the chance that I am wrong and I can actually play by ear where do I start? Bear in mind that I cannot even pick up the whistle and play May Had a Little Lamb by ear. Fortunately I have taught myself to read music and I can manage that at a reasonable speed but if I ever wanted to join a session I’d be in trouble.
So long story short what is the very very first thing I have to do to trigger the switch in my head that will enable me to play by ear?
I am not an expert, but there should be one along soon. I struggle with this too.
Can you hear any melody in your head? Twinkle, twinkle would do. Can you find it on the whistle? Yes? well there is your first step. Now it is all a matter of degree. I can manage simple melodies, and I am slowly getting better - but not good enough to pick up traditional dance music (though that could be my low motivation).
‘Internalising’ the tune seems to be the first stage for me. Then I need to find the right whistle to play along (my current stumbling block).
Disclaimer: I’m no expert and I’m not a “natural” musician - I’m struggling, too.
But I don’t think there is a “magical switch”. Only hard work and small improvements over time. Have you had a look at YouTube? There are six beginner lessons from the OAIM (Online Academy for Irish Music) where the teacher not only plays the piece but also shows very clearly which fingers move and she even says the names of the notes. Playing with her seems good preparation (I hope!) to picking music up by ear alone (now if only I could remember what I played yesterday…). Also on YouTube is Ryan G. Duns (“a jesuit’s tin whistle lessons”).
And of course, as DrPhill said, if you can hear the melody in your head, half the work is done. I find that much easier with songs (as opposed to tunes) - I can more easily remember a melody that’s “tied” to a text (like Duns’s “Roddy McCorley” - a new lesson 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlQYpnLILPc)
Does anybody here have a source (YouTube link…) for tunes played slowly and without ornamentation, but without necessarily breaking them up in sections and especially without lots of talking in between? I’m ashamed to say that by the time I’ve finally played part 2, I’ve sometimes forgotten how the first part went 
Listen a lot, then listen some more.
Learn to whistle a simple tune (with your lips, not the instrument).When that’s in your head it should be easier to get it into the whistle once you figure out which note to start it on. Since you can read music, learn one of the very simple tunes that you have sheet music for and that way you’ll know where to start.
Mentioned this in another thread recently, but just a bit of info… If you click that little gear-like thingy at the lower right of a YouTube tune video, you can slow down the speed to 75% or 50% without changing the pitch. Allows you both to hear the tune played slowly (the ornamentation will still be there, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing) and watch the fingering.
Best wishes.
Steve
It has become a sort of internet dogma that (traditional) music should at all time be learned by ear. While I agree in principle, perhaps it should be emphasised that originally it was meant in the sense that the idiom, the language, the form, the aesthetic or whatever you want to call it is what should be learned and internalised in oral/aural fashion. Music in it’s broadest sense, in other words. I don’t think the trad police (if there is such a thing at all) will come calling when you use a printed source to help pick out the notes you can’t get otherwise.
In, yet, other words, it’s the little inflections and turns of phrase the traditional musician has that the advice originally pointed to. Immersion, lots of listening to good players (a problem in itself, to pick your sources, especially if you learn your music from youtube) is key.
Learning an instrument and music at the same time is hard work. And it’s always hard work, in the words of a welknown musician I often quote here in this context: ‘it’s dark and lonesome work’. Picking up tunes by ear and putting them on the whistle, it takes time and experience. It gets easier once you get more familiar with both the music you’re playing and learn your way around the instrument. Dedication, patience and baby steps at first. Start with what is simple and what you know well.
Thanks a lot - I must have overlooked that tip in the other thread! I just tried it out and am surprised how well it works.
Now I only need to find videos of people worth listening to (I find there’s often just audio for the “stars”) - my search for The Rattling Bog wasn’t very successful…
Learning the whistle by ear is only one of the various ways to learn. You have to discover what works best for your individual learning curve, whether by ear, staff notation, fingering tabs, ABCs, or even the number system. Maybe all can be of help but it does take work. Yes, YouTube is a great source but as mentioned, be careful who and what you’re viewing as there are many poorly done videos that may sound ok and actually are not that good. One reliable YouTube source that I’ve found helpful are the Michael Eskin videos played at tempo and then slowed down while showing fingering.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+eskin+tin+whistle+tutorial
Learning to search here on the Chiff Whistle Forum you can find most of your questions already having been answered.
Well here you go… enjoy!
Thanks a lot, that what what I was looking for!
(Btw., I’m trying to learn tunes by ear because firstly, it’s something I’ve always wanted to be able to do, and secondly, because I have a fairly automatized eye-finger connection for notes on the staff to baroque recorder fingerings, which I don’t want to unlearn.)
Making new connections doesn’t mean unlearning old ones. And, speaking as someone who reads multiple woodwinds from staff notation, I’d say you (sooner or later) just intuitively know which one you’re playing and fingering for. You might go through brief periods of confusion along the way, but you’re not going to unlearn what’s properly ingrained.
Learning to play by ear is a hugely satisfying and useful skill, but protecting your recorder fingerings seems the strangest motivation.
Our gal Kirsten at the OAIM covers this tune and it’s one of the free classes. https://www.oaim.ie/course/1/tin_whistle_basics
It really is just a time, exposure, and dedication thing. It speeds things up immensely if you have a good teacher to show you the ropes. For the average guy like me, self-teaching with videos and such gives underwhelming results.
FWIW, there are a lot of common phrases and snippets in tunes. Learning these and how they fit into the context of the music is a huge help when trying to learn by ear…it takes a long time to teach yourself these things when you haven’t learned them yet. Also learning broken thirds/arpeggios will give you even more building blocks…not exactly the most enjoyable practice, but repetition = recognition.
That’s who I learned it from, but I wanted to listen to another performance. Because the one thing I dislike about the OAIM lessons is that wheras they are brilliant for learning a tune, they are less ideal for just a quick reminder.
I’m happy for you - you are obviously a better musician than I am. I’m having enough trouble with keeping C- and F-fingerings apart, and bass and treble clefs, and the odd note on the odd instrument that needs special fingering - so much so that I have deleted Renaissance and Ganassi recorders from my mental wishlist.
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt my recorder playing to learn to play tin whistle from paper (though I don’t want to take the risk) but it’s most definitely easier for me to play tin whistle without looking at staff notation - I’ve tried both!
I was offering advice based on experience, not bragging!
I didn’t think you were. But I am thinking that your experience is based on you having more talent for music than I have which means that my experience - and the strategies to adopt based on it - will necessarily be different from yours.
It reminds me of the woman I know who plays viola in a symphony orchestra, and Irish fiddle.
She said the two are completely different instruments to her, completely disconnected in her brain.
She said she is incapable of playing Irish fiddle music (learned by ear, BTW) on the viola, and is equally incapable of playing symphonic music on the fiddle.
So it makes a fair amount of sense for you to do likewise, and keep a complete seperation in fingering, style, and learning modality between Baroque recorder and Irish whistle.
I approached things differently. My first instrument was Highland pipes which is usually taught through staff notation, and when I later picked up uilleann pipes and Irish flute and whistle I learned to sightread that music from the get-go.
At University I studied Baroque flute for a time, and I played Boehm flute in church for a time, and I played at various times Northumbrian pipes, Gaita Galega, and Gaida, each having a differnet fingering system, and each having the written notes with a different relationship to the fingerings. (The “three finger note” is D on the Highland pipes, G on Irish woodwinds, C on the Northumbrian pipes, F on the Gaita Galega, and A on the orchestral Gaitunitsa.)
About playing tunes on the whistle by ear, I think the obvious answer is to learn by doing.
Put on a recording of a slow tune, make sure you have the correct size whistle, and just toot along. It doesn’t sound scientific but you’ll soon be able to play along.
Personally I can play along much more quickly if I can see the fingers of the other person, so a YouTube video of somebody playing flute, whistles, or uilleann pipes in the same key as your whistle is ideal. I think watching the fingers of an uilleann piper is best due to Middle D having a dedicated hole, the thumb-hole, so you know for sure whether it’s a middle D or bottom D (which on flute and whistle can be fingered the same).
Ah, but is it still learning by ear when one can see the fingers? Just wondering… At the moment I’m working through the free beginner lessons on OAIM (to JTU - where have you gone? I wasn’t my intention to highjack your thread, just to contribute -: It’s worth creating a free account, there’s much more on the OAIM.ie website than on YouTube) and it works fine. (Except now I can’t get the Rattling Bog out of my head… I suppose the solution is to start on the next tune.) Actually, I find playing by ear on the whistle much easier than on the recorder - possibilities are limited (until proven otherwise I’ll assume that there’s no half-holing required for Irish standard tin whistle tunes) and fingering more intuitive.
Do I understand correctly, you know two different flutes and three different bagpipes, each requiring different fingerings? My deepest admiration, because I’ve found that the more similar two instruments are, the more “interference” there is and the more difficult it is at least for me to keep them apart. Guitar and recorder - not a problem. Two different recorders - BIG problem…
Btw, how do people deal with whistles in different keys? Not think about it, just play - like putting a capo on a guitar?
Yep. Want to play in a different key? Grab another whistle and play as usual (and from the same sheet if you play from the dots). Just play as if every whistle is a “D” whistle.
Well, for most people at least.
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.
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.
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.
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.