I’m a relatively new whistler. I piddled around on a cheapie Feadog for a few months and recently bought a Sausato. I have pretty much gone through the two books I have – one that came with the Feadog and the other a Mel Bay book – “Teaching Yourself the Tinwhistle”. I’m just at the point where I can play the slower stuff nicely.
My question is: What should I do next to start developing the skills to play the faster stuff? Are there exercise books that I can get? Are there method books people recommend? I realize that my current limiting factor is lack of finger coordination, which requires lots and lots of practice. But as a musician of other instruments, I also know that poorly directed practice is barely better than no practice at all.
Thoughts?
Thanks in advance.
[ This Message was edited by: FJohnSharp on 2002-06-10 11:18 ]
Hey-
I’d say that the best thing to do would be to get some albums of some Irish bands with whistles, and do your best to play along with them. It always works for me. Get like the Chieftains or something.
Good luck!
-Ross
I would second that, or get a tutor with a CD. You really need to hear the music to play it, even if you’re confortable reading off the sheet.
Or, if you’re lucky enough to have one, go to a local session and just sit and listen. You’ll learn a ton, and you can relax with a drink at the same time!
I agree with the cd/book tutor idea. There are several great ones, my favorite being Bill Ochs’ The Clarke Tinwhistle. You will hear all of the tunes in the book played slowly enough that you can comprehend what is going on. When you practice a tune, start out VERY slowly. Once you can play the tune accurately at that pace, try it a little faster. If you come to a passage that gives you trouble, just play that passage slowly over, and over, and over. In time, your muscles will learn the pattern of notes, if you don’t drive your family and friends crazy first…I disagree with the suggestion of getting a record and trying to play along, at least at this stage. You will be making too many mistakes, and teaching your fingers to play those mistakes. By all means get those records and listen to them a LOT, getting the tunes into your head, but don’t try playing along at the records’ speed. Eventually you will be able to do this, but not as a beginner.
If it’s irish music you want to play then in my opinion you have to get someone to show you how to do a roll. None of the tutors can explain this ornament correctly and without it you will not be able to play the faster stuff. But make sure you are shown by someone who can really do it, all this you play the note, the note above and then the note below ect that you see in tutors is rubbish!
Hello
You could check out the Scoiltrad site at http://www.scoiltrad.com
We provide multimedia based classes downloadable over the Internet which include personalised assessments of your playing.
Beir Bua
Conal O Grada http://www.scoiltrad.com
…the virtual music school
Hi! Here’s my 2 cents ~ If you want to work up to speed, memorize the tune! I have found that if I play something slowly, but accurately, many many times my fingers will automatically start playing it almost by themselves. Don’t get too caught up in ornamentation at first, IMHO. Once you find that you can put away the music and still play the tune, you can start working on speed, then start adding a few cuts here and there. My first clue that I have actually memorized something is when I am playing a tune, lose my place in the music, but my fingers keep playing it anyway!
Mary
A couple months ago, somebody posted this advice: Tape a practice session or two, and then listen to what you did GOOD instead of the bad stuff. This has been one of the most valuable pieces of advice I took from this board. The “bad stuff” goes away with practice, but just noticing the “good” imprints it and really speeds up playing better.
I don’t worry about HOW I did the good stuff, I just notice that I did it and what it sounded like, and then let my subconscious and fingers do the work.
I agree that trying to play along with the pros is less than ideal. After playing whistle for several years, I still can’t play fast enough to do that usefully. But singing along with them might be helpful, since once the tune is in your head, slowing it down or speeding it up is no problem.
I was at a guitar camp on the weekend and received some advice from a great teacher. If you take one small “bit” that you want to learn - maybe just the A part of a tune or a technique, like rolls - and practice it for exactly three minutes every day for three weeks, you will know it forever. Take five to ten of these small bits, write them on a practice schedule, and do tham every day. It will focus your practice time amazingly. The rest of your playing time can be spent just having fun, but you need to be disciplined about those three minutes. It’s a way of learning to learn. Well, I’m going to try it, anyway.
P.S. I probably don’t need to add that you start each bit very slowly and accurately, working up speed and maintaining the accuracy over the three weeks.
[ This Message was edited by: Blackbird on 2002-06-12 14:28 ]