Hello!

[SAWhistle]

Hopefully I posted in the right place! I'm new to the Tin Whistle, and new to the forum! A great player informed me about the forum and it's abundance of useful info. I started by buying the Clarke D Whistle, and out of curiosity I ended up grabbing a Feadog and Oak D in the process.

I look forward to learning and reading your posts in hopes I can become a decent player eventually.

Anyone from San Antonio, TX?


Thank you,

Chris

[Feadoggie]

Welcome to the neighborhood, Chris.

Anyone from San Antonio, TX?

Yes, I believe there are a few from that area. We'll let them make their own introductions.

Enjoy your whistles.

Feadoggie

[jbowen507]

Greetings from a few hours down Interstate 10. Welcome to the forum.

Jeff

[ytliek]

Welcome to the whistle forum, enjoy it and your whistling!

[SAWhistle]

Thanks for the responses! Question; where can I ask some possibly posted nooby questions, and not upset everyone? Few things I'd like to find on my journey to learning.

[benhall.1]

Thanks for the responses! Question; where can I ask some possibly posted nooby questions, and not upset everyone? Few things I'd like to find on my journey to learning.

Here. Ask away!

[SAWhistle]

Awesome! So after taking some advice from my whistlin friend from across the world, I decided to toss aside the sheet music and try to learn by ear to play. The reason for this, and what I agree with him on is that while learning the sheet music, I noticed it was harder for me to memorize a song, and play it without having the sheet music in front of me. I know my notes (albeit, some times they shrill when I attempt to play them), and have a decent understanding over the different techniques such as cuts, rolls etc. So next up I'd like to find out, what are some of ya'lls opinion on great starting songs to practice by ear.

I love some Mary Bergin, but that isn't happening anytime soon. So basically my first question is, what are some great slower paced whistle songs that I could listen to, to help train my ear to learning music by ear?

To clarify. If you were to teach a new person to learn how to play by ear, what 3-5 songs in order of easiest to most difficult would you tel them to start with? (Still in a nooby category for the last song. Maybe a slightly higher tempo each song)

The only reason I ask this, is that I do find myself deeply sunk into Irish music since picking up the whistle, but my natural reaction is to find myself listening to the fastest, craziest songs as opposed to looking for great slow ones to keep me entertained.

Note: I'm pretty sure I could win all of your hearts over with my Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at this point, but those types of songs aren't going to keep the Whistle-itch going lol. So if you know of songs that aren't our childhood favorites, I'd be very happy

[ytliek]

BTW, I am still newbie-ish with a long way to go...

I would have thought that some of the Texas whistlers would have chimed in by now. There are many ways to learn the music and you have to discover what works best for you. Twinkle, Twinkle isn't a bad start because it is a start. One of the best suggestions I found on the whistle forum was to practice up and down the scale with minimum blowing and then maximum blowing to learn when the breaking point occurs between octaves, whether starting minimum breath and increasing blow until note jumps to upper octave, or likewise starting in upper octave and decreasing blow until note drops to lower octave. Over blowing and under blowing the whistle is common beginners issue.

I would ask yourself what kind of music do you want to play? Trad? Who do you like for influence, (Mary Bergin, Joanie Madden, etc., the list is vast)? Who or what brought you to the whistle to begin with? At the top of this whistle forum is a list of recordings from whistlers, which I would select a couple names, get the CDs and listen away, a lot of listening until you get the tune or two into your head. Or if you already know a tune or two that you like hearing when played, practice those. You must have heard something to get your interest going.

I would always suggest as a starting point, find your local session or musician that can help get you going. Live music is a great way to start. Go listen often, ask the whistlers (flute or piper) for help.

A popular suggestion here on the forum is Ryan Duns tutorial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0Xf1Um ... DA5B8B32AF

There was a recent Texas event that you could bookmark for future announcements. There was a whistle workshop there.
http://www.oflahertyretreat.org/

Keep your whistling fun! Its not a chore... enjoy it!

[SAWhistle]

I could definitely continue to dig through and try to find something. I was just hoping for some suggestions.

[ytliek]

I could definitely continue to dig through and try to find something. I was just hoping for some suggestions.

It depends on what music you want to learn. You do have to dig. Here is a tune suggestion as it has been suggested in past threads. 'Down By The Sally Gardens' or another 'Dawning of the Day'. The possibilities for suggestions are endless. What do you like?

A tutorial you might look thru:
http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/b ... index.html

[sbfluter]

Is there a session near you? If so, I'd go and bring a recording device and record a couple tunes that you like. That way you can slow them down and learn them the way they are played at your session. The stuff that's professionally recorded tends to be all fancied up way too much. Not always, but often enough that it can be very frustrating. Sometimes it's even been shifted to Eb or something so that it sounds "brighter".

The way I slow down tunes is I downloaded Quicktime Player version 7 (it's older than the current version.) This one has a control panel with options to shift the pitch and slow the playback. Other people suggest a program called "Amazing Slowdowner" which I believe costs a little money.

As for learning by ear in general, I ended up doing this buy joining an American old-time jam. The tunes are a little easier to play and easier to predict. They also enthusiastically encourage you to play even if you are new to the music. I had to learn everything at speed and did so by breaking the tunes into simpler versions. Maybe I could only get the first beat of the bar, maybe only the down beats. Eventually I'd fill in more notes until I could play the whole thing. This helped me become a better musician in general and really trained my ear. I can tune a fiddle without a tuner (on a good day) and I can usually tell you what key a tune is in just by hearing a few notes. I did start out with a mandolin, though, as I was afraid my whistle would attract too much unwanted attention. But as I learned the tunes on my mandolin I could play them at home on my whistle. Once I had more confidence I brought my whistle to the jam.

I can't say for certain this will work for Irish music but having a better trained ear is worth it. Plus it's a jolly good time to play music with others even if it isn't Irish music.

[SAWhistle]

I could definitely continue to dig through and try to find something. I was just hoping for some suggestions.

What do you like?

It's funny you say that, because I have no clue the type of music I am listening to. I guess I am ignorant to their styles like you mentioned "trad". I don't know the differences yet. Ashamed to say that as soon as I started hearing some music I decided "I want to learn the tin whistle!". So I'm pretty much a beginner in both aspects.

I'll definitely check the tutorial out. I was watching the OAIM.IE tutorials on youtube last night and trying to follow along.

Thanks for the suggestions sbfluter. I'll look into Quicktime Player 7. I think that may help too. I have a tough time even trying to memorize the slow songs. You start throwing those fast jigs in, and I just look at my tin whistle and laugh haha.

ytliek mentioned the camp I just missed, but I haven't been able to find anything else locally online. That's why I was hoping some San Antonio or Texas in general whistlers would have chimed in the forum post.

[jbowen507]

After getting past the likes of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,' I found myself learning marches and polkas. They're easy to slow down and have a simpler structure (2/2 or 4/4) than jigs and reels. Try looking up "Foggy Dew," "After The Battle Of Aughrim," "Rattlin Bog," "The Kerry Polka," and "Ryans Polka."

Once you get into jigs, reels, and hornpipes, BBC Virtual Sessions is a good place to find some popular session tunes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/fol ... kmenu.html

Ans as already mentioned, Ryan Duns is a wealth of information.

Jeff

[Feadoggie]

Ans as already mentioned, Ryan Duns is a wealth of information.

That's right! I always like to mention that there is a structure to what Fr. Duns shares in his videos. If you just dive willy-nilly into the YouTube videos you might feel swamped in no time. It does not have to go that way. And we don't wish that on you either. Duns was teaching a whistle course at Fordham when many of the videos were made. So there is a very sensible order to the material that you might want to follow. More information is available along with some notation for the tunes through the blog he wrote at the time. Start here: http://tinwhistler.blogspot.com/2007/11 ... eek-1.html

Have fun and enjoy the journey.

Feadoggie

[ytliek]

A great player informed me about the forum and it's abundance of useful info.

Follow up with the great player who informed you about the forum with where to go locally in San Antonio.

ytliek mentioned the camp I just missed, but I haven't been able to find anything else locally online. That's why I was hoping some San Antonio or Texas in general whistlers would have chimed in the forum post.

I did some digging for you so it shouldn't be too difficult for you to connect with Irish whistlers in your local area.

http://irishculturalsociety.com/
http://www.harpandshamrock.org/index.php
http://dallasslowsessions.com/
http://www.irishtradmusic.org/index.html
http://www.waxyoconnors.com/

Check with your local music store for possible whistle/flute connections.
There may be radio stations playing the type of music you're looking for.