What's the most difficult thing to learn Irish tinwhistle?

Warren · Post by **Warren** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 7:46 am

What's the most difficult thing to learn Irish tinwhistle?
Could you please share your experience?

Warren

Tyghress · Post by **Tyghress** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 8:09 am

Learning tinwhistle is actually quite easy.

Its learning the Irish that's the hard part.

Seriously.

The hardest part about learning the tinwhistle, for me, was learning to not be afraid to push for the high notes. But learning how to make it Irish is an ongoing struggle to grab onto this idea called 'swing'.

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 8:16 am

The most difficult thing is stopping buying the darn things for long enough to actually learn how to play one of them.

Easily_Deluded_Fool · Post by **Easily_Deluded_Fool** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 8:22 am

Warren wrote:What's the most difficult thing to learn Irish tinwhistle?Warren

Actually 'tis prolly the easiest thing to learn,
just the hardest to accept.

Buying the latest state-of-the-art whistle that
'X' (insert favourite players name here) uses
won't make you play like them, or improve yer playing.

Persistance i.e. keep practicing that difficult section/tune etc,
and patience knowing that eventually you'll get it how you like it!

HTH

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 8:25 am

Rhythm & phrasing.

skh · Post by **skh** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 8:44 am

Making a toy sound like a musical instrument.

Sonja

Azalin · Post by **Azalin** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 9:38 am

Also, because the whistle is so "high", it's an especially very disturbing instrument when played out of tune with others. Developing the ear for tuning is one other challenge, I'm struggling with this all the time.

Jetboy · Post by **Jetboy** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 9:53 am

Learning to breathe in the right place.

Oh, and timing

fancypiper · Post by **fancypiper** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 10:10 am

Jetboy got it!

After I got used to the octave jump, I discovered there are no natural breathing breaks in dance music. You have to use breathing as another ornament.

Never take a breath on the downbeat!

burnsbyrne · Post by **burnsbyrne** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 10:21 am

I have been a guitar player my whole adult life and I am used to breathing whenever I want to while playing music. So finding the spot to breathe without turning blue has been a challenge for me.
Mike

antstastegood · Post by **antstastegood** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 11:08 am

Rolls. Those stupid rolls are going to drive me to insanity.

TelegramSam · Post by **TelegramSam** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 11:13 am

I agree: the Irish part. I can play a few hymns, some airs sort of pathetically, and a few random tunes grabbed from movies, etc, but I can't really play jigs, reels, etc and make them sound "right".

cj · Post by cj » Mon Nov 03, 2003 11:23 am

I agree with TS, it's hard to make them sound "right." Also, for me, it's hard to get enough speed built up to properly play reels. People advise us to learn it slowly, play slowly, and speed will come. It did, but only to a point.

RonKiley · Post by **RonKiley** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 11:59 am

I am also a relative beginner. I agree that making it Irish is difficult. Don't let yourself feel that your whistle is not good enough. Your whistle will improve as you improve. It takes a while to learn breath control. If you want to make it sound right you have to listen to the tunes played by someone competent. There are many tunes on the net that are not good examples of Irish Traditional playing. The most important thing is to keep whistling.

Ron

fancypiper · Post by **fancypiper** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 12:13 pm

antstastegood wrote:Rolls. Those stupid rolls are going to drive me to insanity.

Banish Misfortune has tons of rolls. Learn that 'un.

Our recording of The Jigocity (real audio link) uses it for the first tune.

Chiff and Fipple Forums

What's the most difficult thing to learn Irish tinwhistle?

What's the most difficult thing to learn Irish tinwhistle?

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