Hello, I just started playing the tin whistle recently, and I could really use some wisdom on tonguing and slurring, any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Welcome to the whistle forum.
Even searching here on the Chiff the debate whether to use tonguing or not could seem confusing. You have to listen to a lot of whistling to determine whether you like it or not and how to do it your self. Look for the middle ground.
Enjoy your whistling.
One of the best pieces of advice I received when I started was to avoid tonguing - just slur all the notes. I came from recorder where tonguing is pretty dominant, and slurring every note got me out of that habit. It forced me to learn cuts from the very beginning at least for adjacent same-notes. Most importantly, it required me to develop efficient and clean fingering.
One philosophy is that a whistle owes more to piping than to fiddle styling The pipes don’t have any tongue articulations, so the whistle should emulate the pipes. It’s only one truth, but I can appreciate that point of view. My present project is sort of the opposite, i.e. trying to emulate fiddle, but that’s just me.
I’m using more tonguing now than when I started, figuring that I should take advantage of all available options.
But, I still return frequently to all slurring to see if my finger articulations are clean.
One philosophy is that a whistle owes more to piping than to fiddle styling The pipes don’t have any tongue articulations, so the whistle should emulate the pipes
It’s only one truth, but I can appreciate that point of view.
Unfortunately, this is one of those myths that keeps on coming back. The Irish pipes are very well capable of stopping the chanter between notes and there’s a whole range of note separation/articulation available on the pipes, even if it may seem they produce a long, unbroken legato stream of notes in the hands of some players.
I think that people who are brought up in a certain genre often carry with them a set of assumptions that they’re not aware of, forming as they do fundamental parameters of the genre. Sometimes it takes somebody coming to the genre from without to bring notice to a stylistic feature that people within the genre take for granted.
Articulation is one of those things. It took me going around teaching at Irish flute workshops, the attendees nearly always being from a Boehm flute and/or recorder background, to make me aware of just how fundamental the dichotomy of approach is.
ITM players will hear a whistleplayer tongue all over the place and often not be aware that, compared to Boehm flute/recorder style, the playing is in fact fundamentally legato. The tonguing is accenting and articulating chosen points in a flowing style.
This is at odds with so-called “Classical” playing on Boehm flute, recorder, and especially the Baroque flute (where every note is articulated, even if the score shows slurring. I was a Baroque flute Major in college for a while).
It was often extremely difficult to get people in the Irish flute workshops to approach the music in a legato flowing way, to get them to stop giving each individual note a separate existence.
I’d have them listen to Paddy Carty.
For people not used to a legato approach, and digital articulation, on flute and whistle I’d begin with stressing that they play fully legato at first. After that becomes comfortable/natural it’s time to start figuring out when to articulate.
Thanks everyone for the helpful advice!! Based on what I’ve read, and how I feel most comfortable right now, I’m going with a more legato approach. Thanks and God bless!!!
Me too! Paddy Carty will do you a powerful lot of good no matter what ails you.
Tonguing and slurring are both tools. Learn both, listen to a lot of different players, then decide for yourself how and when to use each.
Playing with no tonguing is a good way to learn ornaments as a way to articulate a tune. Tonguing should usually be used subtly. I came to whistle from lessons from a classical Boehm flute player, then recorder playing. It took me a long time to tone down my tonguing. Now I use both techniques as the mood and tune strikes me.
As a rank beginner, I have nevertheless found all this advice to be pretty spot on.
Jason:
As a token whistle anarchist, my philosophy is just to articulate the way that sounds best to you when you are playing. Your are not Joanie Madden or whoever so why should you play like the . Have fun playing!
As a token whistle anarchist, my philosophy is just to articulate the way that sounds best to you when you are playing. Your are not Joanie Madden or whoever so why should you play like the . Have fun playing!
Not particularly helpful advice. The whole idea there are no rules and you should do as you please does not lead you towards playing music well when given as advice to a beginner. Learn, listen, understand and then formulate your own approach from a position of knowledge and understanding of the aesthetic, by all means. But 'do as you please’ as a beginner (which is effectively what your saying), that’s really not going to put you on a road to musical satisfaction.
The idea of eschewing all tonguing until one at least somewhat masters cuts and taps etc proved/is proving to be a very helpful one for me.
I can see where everyone is coming from with their comments, and I just want to say thank you very much! I am starting from scratch. I am not from a recorder background. I am from a rock guitar background, so my only temptation has been to want to hook an amplifier to my tin whistle! Lol 
Want to expand a bit on something off topic here? I’ve a PhD in Musicology and was at one time a decent player on recorder and student of Baroque music. I don’t recall anything about “Every note is articulated.” Could you point me at some sources so I can look into that a bit? I will admit to using some articulations that were very smooth in the place of some slurs, but certainly not all…assuming the fingering issues didn’t seem to demand an articulation.
I suspect this is another case of a “rule” taught to beginners until they are far enough along to break it. Tongue every note. Never tongue notes. Always write in complete sentences.
The practice of serious student of Baroque recorder is a long way from that of a Grade 3 class learning Hot Cross Buns on the recorder. That doesn’t mean the rule isn’t useful … for a while.
See The Clarke Tin Whistle Book from The Pennywhistler’s Press for tonguing and slurring. I have found various approaches pro and con on the subject.
Hi, new here, but I’m a long-time, non-professional recorder player just picking up whistles and wind-related instruments, and I find that clean finger technique combined with precise timing when blowing helps a lot with the transition. I don’t articulate everything with tonguing. I play lots of styles of music with my recorder (Asian or Native American style music, as well as modern and classic European), and articulating everything would make the music sound too choppy. I remember the that the beginner books saying I had to “du, du, du” all the notes, but I never did it for everything because it sounded wrong for some things.
So, I don’t know if you know how to use vibrato techniques, but one thing I do, when I want my slurred notes to sound more distinct but still soft, is to use vibrato in time with the notes. Does anyone else do this? I’ve never taken formal lessons in recorder but I’ve formal music training in other instruments, but I’ve trained vocally as well, so I tend to mix and match techniques across the board if they seem to work. And I read lots of forums and technique books for other ideas.
I think it depends on what you’re going for. If you wanna play in the traditional whistle styles there’s more than enough great advice in this column. However, if you love the whistle and use it to play a variety of styles, tonguing and slurring may become a vehicle for wonderfully unique self-expression. Personally, I think both approaches are valid and deserve respect.
Tongue every note… Slur every note… I have this degree and that… In my 100+ years of piping and whistling… Blah… Blah.
I have long held that absolutes are suspect, at best. A couple people people here gave the best advice. That is… Listen. Listen to a lot of whistle players… Good and bad. In the beginning, you may not know the difference. So what? Listen anyway. When you hear something you like… Try to get close to what you heard. Record yourself. Listen to yourself. If it sounds the way YOU want it to sound, then count it as a success.
I don’t play much for others. In fact, the only person who has heard me every single time I’ve played is me. As long as that guy enjoys the music, there is a fair chance I’ll stick with it.
First rule… It is supposed to be fun. If it ain’t… Do something else.