Alrighty… I know relatively little about the Tinwhistle… I’d like to change that fact in an extreme way.
What tips would Y’all give to a guy just geting into whistles with a great passion to learn. Where do I start? What do I need?
Elsewhere
Get the Bill Och’s tutor that he wrote for Clarke. Fact is, get a Clarke set with the book and CD and a D whistle.
Also pick you up an Acorn D, and, if you want the sweeter sound you hear in some recordings, a Susato VSB D.
Later you’re going to want to add the L.E. McCullough whistle tutor.
Also, you are later going to hunger for more whistles, and then you can join the rest of us crazies! 
Best wishes and best of luck,
-James
http://www.flutesite.com
The main site chiffandfipple.com is a great resource, and that is where I started. My next stop was thewhistleshop.com. I started with a tweaked Clarke D and Mel Bays Fun with the Tin Whistle Tutorial book and cassette by William Bay.
Yup, I agree. Just dive right in! This is, fortunately, an instrument that you CAN learn from books and recordings…the more you listen and the more you play, the easier and more fun it will be.
The Bill Ochs book is good…I also recommend Robin Williamson’s “The Penny Whistle Book” as a good beginner’s tutor with a wide variety of tunes.
One thing you will find very quickly (if you haven’t already realized it from browsing this board) is that there is a wide variance in whistle tone. Some people love very pure, almost flute-like whistles, others love a more “chiff-y” sound. I mention it only because it’s easy to buy your first whistle and, if you don’t like the way it sounds, either conclude that whistles aren’t as nice as you thought or that you have no talent for playing them. If you buy one and, after practicing with it for a while, decide you don’t like the way it sounds, don’t despair…get a different one! They’re cheap enough that it’s easy to own several (in fact, they’re a little like potato chips: it’s hard to stop at one…or one hundred!). Find one that does sound good to you and keep playing. And keep that first whistle…someday you may come back to it and discover you like it a whole lot more than you thought you did
Welcome to the wonderful world of whistle-mania!
Redwolf
What instrument do you already play, if anything? i.e. what is your musical background?
What style of music do you want to play?
What sort of music do you listen to?
Can you read sheet music?
All that asked, I second the Bill Ochs suggestion. That’s where I started, and I’m not the only one on this board who did.
Try to get a CD to go with any tutorial you get. REading music and hearing it are totally different, particularly if you plan to play Irish/Celtic style whistle.
I’m new to the whistle too. I’m also using the Bill Ochs book. I like the fact that you can build up a repetoire of simple tunes very quickly and then progress to more complicated stuff. I just wish the ornamentation came sooner. I really want to play Fraher’s jig along with my Chieftans 8 CD. With Bill Ochs you’ll have to be satisfied for a while with English folk tunes and fife music.
I really like my Clarke D original. I’ve tried the Meg and it sounds too pure. I’ve grown to like that breathy sound of the original. However I’m sure I’d never be heard in a session. Hmmm, that might not be a bad thing. Best of luck to you. When are you getting you’re flute 
?
Hello,
As a beginner myself (been working at the tin whistle for 5 weeks now) I would definately say give the Clarke Tin Whistle book by Bill Ochs a try. I am fortunate to live in the NYC area and have started classes with Bill Ochs but I can honestly say that he is a great teacher and you won’t go wrong with his tutorial.
I am very partial to my Clarke Original in D right now, it has a very nice woodsy sound to it that I like better than most of the plastic fipple whistles I’ve heard but the volume level is low. Great around the apartment at night, not so great when trying to hear yourself around other people playing. I have a Feadog D as well that I’m not too happy with but in the WhoA of things (see Whistle Obsessive Acqusition Disorder) I have just ordered a Clarke Meg ($3) and a Walton Little Black Whistle ($5) to try as well. Fortunately there is a good selection of whistles available fairly cheap (under $20) so you can try quite a few without going broke unlike most instuments. And if you happen to lose one or sit on it or something, not a big loss.
Good luck and welcome to the family
Bill Ochs books and cd are the way to go. Other whistle instructors like Jerry O’Sullivan say that there are no books out there except Bill Ochs for the beginning student with no other musical experience.
All others books seem to assume that you have 10 years of musical experience and start you off at about the 3rd year level for playing the whistle. The first book I bought “The Complete Irish Tinwhistle Tutor” by L.E. McCulough is like this.
Don’t forget DazedinLA’s beginner’s annex to C&F which is here
http://www.geocities.com/whistleannex/index.html
(I mention it because it’s easy to get distracted with the treasure-trove of whimsy which is the C&F main site)
On 2002-10-25 12:12, TomR wrote:
I’m new to the whistle too. I’m also using the Bill Ochs book. I like the fact that you can build up a repetoire of simple tunes very quickly and then progress to more complicated stuff. I just wish the ornamentation came sooner. I really want to play Fraher’s jig along with my Chieftans 8 CD. With Bill Ochs you’ll have to be satisfied for a while with English folk tunes and fife music.
I started with Cathal McConnell’s tutor with CD which leaps straight into Irish tunes and gets to ornamentation rather quickly. But I did have 30 years background on other instruments and extensive sax experience—the fingering is quite similar. I’m not sure how you’d handle that one if you don’t have similar experience. I didn’t need a tutor for simple tunes because I could play them by ear as soon as I could stop the whistle from squeaking. But, if you want to jump in quickly, that’s a good place to jump IMO.
I’ll add my vote for the Ochs tutor. Here’s why: This book is a full-fledged graduated lesson plan. It starts you off gradually, learning the top three notes of the whistle (BAG) and a tune you can play on them (Merrily We Roll Along if I recall). As you go along through the 10(?) major lessons, you’re introduced to more complex pieces, more music theory, and more information on how to play the whistle. When you’re done with the main lessons, there are 80-some-odd tunes inthe back of the book, along with a couple short chapters on ornamentation. It’s an excellent starter set in my opinion. I started out knowing only the music theory taught in grade school (FACE, Every Good Boy Does Fine for the spaces and lines ont he staff). Now I can fluently read sheet music and am in a local Irish band.
Greg
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Learn ABC notation. Download ABC’s for tunes you already know so you can get the hang of it.
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Put on a favorite CD and a set of headphones. Get a pencil and paper. Find a tune you really like (slow ones at first) and transcribe it into ABC. If the tune is not in the key of G or D, pretend that it is. This is where good relative pitch comes in handy.
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Turn off the CD and play the tune from your transcription until you can get through it decently.
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Put the CD back on. If the tune is not in G or D, change whistles. Play along. Congratulations! You just learned a tune!
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Repeat the above process for increasingly more difficult tunes. You’ll be on your way in no time!
also a beginner. started 4 months ago. if you have not bought an ax yet, also consider the clark sweetone. easy for a beginner in both registers. paid $7.99 for mine. darn near unbreakable.
as you get hooked, and you buy more whistles, do something creative with each one. i keep one in my car, one in my backpack, and one at work. the one in the car makes the red lights go fast.
have fun
meir
Re ABC notation, I should note that, if you already know how to read music, there’s no need to also learn how to read ABC. There are free downloadable programs that will transcribe ABC to standard musical notation.
One of the nice things about learning from any of the decent tutorial books is they will teach you to read music along the way, if you don’t already know the basics.
You’ll hear a lot about the benefits of learning by ear vs. learning from written music…IMNSHO, both are useful. To get a feel for how a particular style of music should sound, there’s no substitute for listening…and being able to pick tunes up by ear will allow you to increase your repertoire relatively quickly. I also happen to think that being able to read music is a real boon as well, because it allows you to acquire tunes you may not have a chance to hear, to note down tunes the way you like to play them, and to share them with other instrumentalists, who may not be able to read ABC notation (which is basically just standard musical notation written in ASCII for transcription by or playing on a computer).
Redwolf
I second the advice to read everything on the Chiff & Fipple main site. Of particular help to me were the whistle guides and the interviews (as well as all the rest of the great info) when I first started out. Also, do check out Roger’s link to the Chiffboard Matrix. There you will find helpful message board posts arranged by category, subject, etc. instead of having to wade through pages and pages to find things.
(Speaking of the Matrix, where is Dazed lately? I haven’t seen him post in quite a while…very strange for him!)
I can’t say enough good things about the Ochs tutor book. If learning from scratch, this one is great. I learned to read music and play whistle just working through this book.
Get a tunebook for the Irish tunes. I have the Mel Bay 110 best Ireland’s Tinwhistle Tunes. It has several total beginner tunes in it and those are handy, since they also have the tablature under the notes.
Also, I have been told that The Fiddler’s Fakebook is loaded with good session tunes. I don’t have a copy yet, but I probably will be getting one in a few weeks.
-Patrick
I’ll say that reading through every single corner, nook, cranny of Chiff&Fipple would be nice. Whether it’s serious or not, just read everything. You’ll find it useful later on. Especially the whistle photos
Get the Bill Ochs book and CD, and no matter what anybody else sez, don’t be afraid of learning standard musical notation. The only problem is that it is very limited and and cannot display the nuances required in trad. Listening is the only way to get that.
I was going to second the Bill Ochs recommendation, but by now, I must be the twentieth person to recommend the set that includes the book, cassettes, and Clarke whistle. I think also, many current Board members opinions notwithstanding, the Clarke original is a great starter whistle because its look, feel sound intrigued me and was definitely part of the experience that first got me started. (Sometimes on some whistles, the seam on the underside can be a bit uncomfortable if it’s too sharp). As I recall, Bill initially included a C whistle, but later included a D whistle in the package.
I would also suggest “Irish Pennywhistle” taught by Cathal McConnel, which includes a a tune book and three (3) cassettes with a good range of tunes that go from beginner through advanced.
Good luck.
Philo