I have been having a blast trying to learning ITM on the whistle (which is honestly one of the most satisfying musical experiences I’ve had in my life!), but I wondered if anyone here can recommend resources for learning whistle tunes from other cultures and parts of world? I’ve heard incredible French and Italian whistlers, and I know that (versions and varieties) of fipple flutes have played wonderful music throughout so many places and periods in the world, but I’ve had a difficult time finding good learning resources outside of the Irish, English, and and Scottish traditions. To be clear, I would be excited to learn any tunes from other traditions that could work on a high D whistle, not just whistle-specific tunes.
Also, I would be particularly interested in ABC files, as the ability to import them and utilize the MIDI file to learn the basic melody by ear has been indispensable. I have found some big collections of ABC files from other genres, but I would love some specific advice on which genres would work well on a high D.
In any event, I’d love to hear if any of you have explored other traditions and how you’ve learned those tunes (particularly if you’ve used other resources beyond learning strictly by ear, as my own ear is improving but not yet at the point of just absorbing and translating a tune to the whistle).
I don’t know much about it, but I’m always impressed by what I hear. There were a few people playing pennywhistle in jazz: you can find a guy named Les Lieber.
This has been posted before, the ending of “To Have and To Have Not” with Hogey Carmichael playing piano: Dig the time whistle at the end.
Yes I’ve found these huge ABC databases too, and after exploring some of the collections I found some tunes that worked fine on the high D and many others that were either awkward or didn’t work seem to flow well (for me). Plus the format of thousands of unfamiliar tunes was pretty overwhelming when I dipped into some of those collections, so I wondered how other whistlers have gone about exploring other traditions or genres and if any specific ABC settings (or broader collections) could be recommended? I’ve heard mention of some whistlers here playing American Old Time, medieval renaissance music, and other styles - do you just sort through piles of ABC files and see what works? And if so, could you send me some!
Here’s some Newfoundland traditional music played on whistle by Gerry Strong. This is a set of “doubles” from the playing of fiddler Rufus Guinchard. (Normally they’d be repeated a few times before switching to the next tune – Gerry seems to have wanted to make a quick demo here!)
Gerry has a Newfoundland whistle tunebook, but darned if I can find any links to it right now.
The Galician tradition comes to mind right away…check out Carlos Núñez, and other gaita pipers who play whistle. Not sure how to track down ABC format files (or sheet music for that matter), though you could try searching this site as well as thesession.org. Lunasa have done some Galician and Asturian tunes over the years. And the Breton and Québécois traditions are also worth exploring.
The traditional musics in the Balkans have plenty of whistle-like things (fipple flutes) and of course kavals (end-blown flutes) which are the size of a Low Whistle or Irish flute but generally play up in the range of ordinary Irish whistles.
Here’s the small thing very similar to an Irish whistle, the Frula
With my long and broad experience playing
jazz, rock, and blues, I’m eminently qualified
to judge for myself what is or is not jazz and
nu-age noodling by someone who hasn’t
put in the time to study and learn something
out of their experience is easily decernible.
Informed skepticism is always good.
But labeling something with a convienient
name because it’s out of yer scope is quite another.
Kenny G. comes to mind…
It’s good to judge for oneself. Maybe less good to judge for others.
Re: tunes from other traditions… I tend to find for myself that tunes from other cultures are pretty accessible to play on whistle particularly if they share the common thread of being folk tunes. Folk songs, folk dances, folk tunes. Less intuitively do-able are the more formal or disciplined musical compositions of various cultures.
It always surprises me how many similar qualities can be found between say an American Civil War song, Cajun, Swedish folk songs, French 1700s dance, 1800s Irish tune, and 1300s Italian. Of course things do get more complicated when you’re talking African, Chinese, Indian, Bali…
I think at least in part it is because in the past the line between Western “folk” music and “formal” music was much less distinct. Early composers were happy writing music sacred and profane as well as courtly. Music was played by what instruments were available. Eventually the composed music styles got ever more complex (via opera and the evolution of the concerto and the polyphonic style) and the instruments themselves become more complex to suit. Tastes changed and “rustic” instruments like flageolets (an instrument for dilettantes) either fell out of favour or never were in enough favour to be anything other than colour instruments. By the time the actual tin whistle evolved from the flageolet, the classical era had evolved into the romantic, oboes, flutes, clarinets and bassoons had evolved considerable masses of bling and the orchestra was pretty much set. No room for a Johnny-Comes-a-Late!
I also honestly think, now in the 21st century, that part of the issue is the vast majority of people view the whistle itself as a) a “folk instrument” and b) an “Irish instrument” and is not fit or even capable of playing anything other than traditional music. I think the reason here is obvious: penny whistles were made cheap and plentiful and were much less expensive than even the cheapest of “real instruments”. (In 1895, a Clarke whistle in tin was 9c, brass was 14c, nickel plated 18c; while the cylindrical whistles (B&S e.g.) were 25c but came in more keys than the Clarke. The cheapest flutes (maybe comparable to the dreaded Pakistani flute?) was a dollar. A good flute with all the extras was $15!)
Like it or not, the penny whistle was destined for folk music glory!
I learned a tune or two from Tony Hinnigan’s “Peso whistle talk”-series on Phil Hardy’s youtube channel – they are normally played on a quena which is tuned in G but you can of course transpose it or play it on a whistle in G. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=peso+whistle+talk
I also learned the first of these tunes (the names are in the description and there is an ABC-file for it on thesession): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB11nGqxcg
And I played “Take five” on a whistle. It works with some half-holing. Here’s a great version of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=howvPn-RW0I
And if you really wanna push it or just listen to what is possible on a simple D-whistle – this blew my mind (and still does): https://youtu.be/eOmba730e0A
