Listening Recommendations

Whistle
1

Hi
It seems to be a general consensus on this forum that you need to listen to a lot of ITM to play ITM well.

So I was wondering who you guys (and gals) would recommend.

Nathan

2

To play pure Irish thoroughbred style, I recommed…
http://www.itm.ie/

3

Sorry, just gettin’ wise with ya. There are lots of threads here about great whistlers. Lots like to start with Mary Bergin, Micho Russell, Joanie Madden, Sean Ryan, bands like the Chieftains, Boys of the Lough, and others. Browse, and ye shall find! :laughing:

4

Yeah, there are plenty of recommendation threads. Look in the Irish Traditional Music forum from the main board here.

I think there are two ways to go. You can look for whistle-specific CDs, like Mary Bergin, Micho Russell, etc., or you can look for ITM with a full band, like Planxty, The Bothy Band, Flook, etc.

You might consider what you want to look for to start out.

Jason

5

In addition to listening to the experts that it can be very helpful to listen to recordings of yourself, not for the same reason of course. I find this to be a very useful tool.

There are so many good recordings on the web now in addtion to CDs.

Happy hunting!

6

There’s a third way too: listen to solo recordings of good traditional players of instruments other than whistle, esp. fiddle, pipes and flute.

Considerably more important than listening to bands IMO. But it’s possible some might need to listen to bands a bit before they’re ready for solo stuff.

BTW the idea that Flook = ITM is stretching the definition a wee bit.

As far as whistle players are concerned, a small number of useful recommendations here: http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/listen.html

7

I haven’t heard a lot from them, but yeah, I guess it’s a little bit of a stretch. I guess I should have stopped at the Bothy Band.

Jason

8

Yeah Flook isn’t what I’d call ITM, but they are awesome anyway. Who says every band has to be traditional? I like Flook, Lunasa, and Kila. (probably the least traditional Irish group ever)

Mary Bergin is awesome, but her music gets boring to me really quickly.

9

Get the feadog stain albums by Mary Bergin.
That should be a good enough start for anybody.

10

A good place to start for a fine mixture of traditional tunes is www.clarefm.ie go to Trad archive and there is a weeks supply of two hour shows

11

A must-have for whistlers is Brid O’Donohue’s Tobar an Duchais.

12

I can’t get this to work. It says I need asf. Does anyone know what that is?
(I admit, I’m no computer whiz.)

13

Ramzy wrote;

I can’t get this to work. It says I need asf. Does anyone know what that is?
(I admit, I’m no computer whiz.)

I am no computer whizz either but apparently ASF is a Windows Media File converter. here is some info on it;
http://support.acmeinternet.com/howtofaqs/webdesign/asf-media.htm

There is another site with more info;
http://www.boilsoft.com/asfconverter/ I think it’s a free download. That’s about all I can tell you, maybe someone else can talk you through it?

Good luck and hopefully it won’t feel like your wading through treacle!!

14

i really like Will Millar, you should check him out.

15

Seamus Ennis comes to mind. Mary Bergin’s great as well.

16

If you allowed duos as well as solo performance, this is my preferred way of listening and learning. There are no whistle albums I like nearly so well as Music of Sligo (fiddle and flute), Fortune Favours the Merry (flute and fiddle), Cooley (accordion and banjo), etc.

17

Will Millar is probably my favorite whistle player. And Flook is awesome, even if they are not trad. I’ve gained much inspiration from them!

18

Thanks everyone.

I wish I had the money to get them all :slight_smile:




Nathan