I just bought a Walton Irish brass whistle. ?????

monkey · Post by **monkey** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:49 am

It seems to skip to the upper octave way too easily, even when i am playing a scale!

Could this be just down to the fact i was playing a sweetone before, which had to be blown much harder? or is this a common thing with this make ?

thx

Dazzle1 · Post by **Dazzle1** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 11:02 am

I have a Walton too , blue head Re on the label, no problems once I got familiar with it , maybe a lttle bright if you regularly play a Sweetone.

D

monkey · Post by **monkey** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:17 pm

It's getting to me!

I think it must be my blowing, as its fine for a moment, the note sounds lovely, then SHREEK!!! it jumps again.....

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:46 pm

monkey wrote:It's getting to me!

I think it must be my blowing, as its fine for a moment, the note sounds lovely, then SHREEK!!! it jumps again.....

It's almost certainly your technique. Remember, don't "blow" into the whistle...just breath gently into it. Experiment one note at a time until you have a feel for just how much breath you need to give it to get a good tone without jumping.

Redwolf

OnTheMoor · Post by **OnTheMoor** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:00 pm

Yep, the Walton's a different beast. I think I made a thread like this when I started and Peter (rightfully) pointed out that it was the whistler, not the whistle. Keep at it. You can shout into the Sweetone and it will still sound about right, need to be a little more careful with the Walton IMHO.

monkey · Post by **monkey** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:51 pm

OnTheMoor wrote:Yep, the Walton's a different beast. I think I made a thread like this when I started and Peter (rightfully) pointed out that it was the whistler, not the whistle. Keep at it. You can shout into the Sweetone and it will still sound about right, need to be a little more careful with the Walton IMHO.

I'm tempted to put it away and just keep on playing the Sweetone until i am improved as a player. it seems a bit beyond me ATM to get any consistency with it. And it seems very LOUD playing it indoors, which i'm sure the neighbours hate

monkey · Post by **monkey** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:55 pm

Redwolf wrote:
monkey wrote:It's getting to me!

I think it must be my blowing, as its fine for a moment, the note sounds lovely, then SHREEK!!! it jumps again.....
It's almost certainly your technique. Remember, don't "blow" into the whistle...just breath gently into it. Experiment one note at a time until you have a feel for just how much breath you need to give it to get a good tone without jumping.

Redwolf

It's odd, 'breathing' into it sends it into the upper octave, whereas 'blowing' plays the lower one..

talasiga · Post by **talasiga** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 5:32 pm

monkey wrote:.......
It's odd, 'breathing' into it sends it into the upper octave, whereas 'blowing' plays the lower one..

I do feel your questions are premature. Play all your whistles almost everyday for 6 months. Be open to your own experiences. Play and play. Sick of ITM one day. Then just doodle about on it that day.

Play by the pool. Playing is the tool.

Play and play and then one day you will be able to pick up any whistle and play it well because your experience will drive an intuitive adjustment required to play with the differences. It is then, and only then, that you are ready to ask questions and they will be questions about musicality.

Lambchop · Post by **Lambchop** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 5:49 pm

talasiga wrote:
monkey wrote:.......
It's odd, 'breathing' into it sends it into the upper octave, whereas 'blowing' plays the lower one..

I do feel your questions are premature. Play all your whistles almost everyday for 6 months. Be open to your own experiences. Play and play. Sick of ITM one day. Then just doodle about on it that day.

Play by the pool. Playing is the tool.

Play and play and then one day you will be able to pick up any whistle and play it well because your experience will drive an intuitive adjustment required to play with the differences. It is then, and only then, that you are ready to ask questions and they will be questions about musicality.

Excellent advice!

One thing I think we forget is that we may be adults, but we still have to learn, and we'll sound like children do when they're learning.

We see adults playing, mostly, and we think that we're adults, so we should sound like that. Well, we won't for a while. You just have to play and play until you've gotten in the hours required.

One day you'll notice that you aren't having problems with the whistles anymore. I have whistles I thought were garbage early on, but they all seem to play fine now.

monkey · Post by **monkey** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 8:09 am

talasiga wrote: I do feel your questions are premature. Play all your whistles almost everyday for 6 months. Be open to your own experiences. Play and play. Sick of ITM one day. Then just doodle about on it that day.

Play by the pool. Playing is the tool.

Play and play and then one day you will be able to pick up any whistle and play it well because your experience will drive an intuitive adjustment required to play with the differences. It is then, and only then, that you are ready to ask questions and they will be questions about musicality.

The thing that puzzles me, is that the music that came with it is things like scarborough fair, sally gardens, danny boy. Are these considered beginners tunes? because if they are i am a slow learner indeed.

I was trying to play jazz on my sweetone the other day, some of Miles Davis' 'Milestones' tune i got the first few notes anyway

What i really hope to instead of playing too much traditional music is to be able to eventually add some whistle to my guitar tracks.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 1:14 pm

talasiga and Lambchop have it pegged...

Just keep practicing, practicing, practicing... play whatever suits your ear, but play... switch whistles now and again... find where you and the whistle meet, not necessarily where others think you should be, and certainly not berating yourself for not being somewhere other than at the beginning.

You will eventually not only improve, but as was said, find that you *know*" the way to handle the whistle... just about any whistle, because you will have learned to adjust.

Above all... enjoy!

Lambchop · Post by **Lambchop** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:05 pm

monkey wrote:The thing that puzzles me, is that the music that came with it is things like scarborough fair, sally gardens, danny boy. Are these considered beginners tunes? because if they are i am a slow learner indeed.

I think the premise of those tune books is that you'll already know how to read music--I mean, really, they DO tend to hope you CAN do that, because they certainly don't teach it!--and will already know and love the tunes, so all you have to do is follow along with the notes, humming in your head, and play along. In that way, you get used to the instrument, discovering where the various sounds are and how to make them come out.

If you cannot read music, you're stumped. If you don't know the tunes, either, you're pretty much dead in the water. The tunes are too complicated! Or, the notes in them don't match the tune you know in your head. And they invariably use octaves you can't play yet, even if you could figure out where they were.

If you need to start out at a better level, do so. It's really easy, and you don't need a book.

Just play nursery rhymes. What do you know from childhood? Just play that. Play one over and over until you figure out where the notes are going to be. Play it until you can do variations on it. With each tune you try, the next will be easier because you'll be learning. And you don't need to be able to read music to do it.

Sometimes, the most difficult part with this is deciding what note to begin on. Row, Row, Row Your Boat can begin with all the holes covered or with only the top 3 covered. So can Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Begin This Old Man with the top 3 covered. Begin Clair de Lune with all of them covered, then uncover the bottom 3 for the next note.

Whatever little songs you know, just play them. Little songs! They have to be simple tunes that will "fit" on a tin whistle without half-holing or cross-fingering, because unless you're a musician already, you won't be able to "find the notes."

When you do use a tune book, be sure to use one that has a CD! You absolutely NEED to be able to hear the tune in your head before you play it! Play the CD tune or an MP3 off the net until you find yourself humming that tune. Then try to play it.

monkey · Post by **monkey** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 4:10 pm

I took my sweetone up to the park earlier and i blew & blew and Blew & BLEW!

finally i could get to play scarborough fare in the upper octave, seven times out of ten. I was freezing when i got home though...

for an instrument that everyone says "It's easy to play" the whistle can be a deceptive little thing.

Lambchop · Post by **Lambchop** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 5:09 pm

monkey wrote:I took my sweetone up to the park earlier and i blew & blew and Blew & BLEW!

finally i could get to play scarborough fare in the upper octave, seven times out of ten. I was freezing when i got home though...

See! We knew you could do it!

There are worse things than freezing. If it's cold, it's dry.

If you were here, you'd be complaining that it's 26 C (79 F) with 54% humidity . . . and you'd be asking us why no sound came out of your whistle after the first 3 notes . . . and why your feet keep getting wet.

Dazzle1 · Post by **Dazzle1** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 2:40 am

monkey wrote: The thing that puzzles me, is that the music that came with it is things like scarborough fair, sally gardens, danny boy. Are these considered beginners tunes? because if they are i am a slow learner indeed.

I had one of those tune books as well with my Walton, you'll eventually find you will cope quite easily with them all. There has been some good advice in this thread, trying affordable whistles is a good idea , Generations, Oaks, Feadog are all readily available.

BTW Ye Banks and Braes is a nice tune to try in that book.

D