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

amar · Post by **amar** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 9:51 am

the hardest part for me is the following is a "problem" that's in my head:
when playing on the whislte, low notes to higher notes, the finger go up up up on the whistle, and then, when you jump to the next octave, the fingers have to close the holes again...emmm, if you know what I mean. I've somehow got a knot in my brain there...anyone know what I mean..?

Tyghress · Post by **Tyghress** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 1:38 pm

amar wrote:the hardest part for me is the following is a "problem" that's in my head:
when playing on the whislte, low notes to higher notes, the finger go up up up on the whistle, and then, when you jump to the next octave, the fingers have to close the holes again...emmm, if you know what I mean. I've somehow got a knot in my brain there...anyone know what I mean..?

<<nodding nodding nodding>>

Try doing this exercise...A Cnat e Cnat...over and over...the Cnat e Cnat A over and over and over. . .then e Cnat A Cnat. . .then Cnat e a e Cnat. . .over and over.

fancypiper · Post by **fancypiper** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 1:49 pm

That is the first hurtle to jump in mastering the whistle.

If you know old-time tunes, Liberty jumps all over the place in the A part.

feadogin · Post by **feadogin** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 3:54 pm

It took me about 10 years before I finally got the rhythm part right. Once you get the notes and the ornaments, I think the real challenge is that swingy rhythm, although of course it's different for different people.

bjs · Post by **bjs** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 12:28 pm

I bought L.E.McCullough's book on how to play Trad Irish. Without a slowdowner the CD wouldn't be a lot of use to me for quite some time. The first piece kerrigan's jig with suggested twiddly bits i can get up to half speed. But L.E.C really gives no quarter.
The piece starts with a roll followed by a short roll followed by a double cut then a triplet. The phrasing is not what I expected either. I console myself by thinking that if I can get that right and up to reasonable speed then the rest should be a relative doddle.
Anybody else out there been there done that? If so how did it go for you after Kerrigan's jig? Much faster I hope. I think i might skip the polka and go on to the hornpipe which sounds nice to my ears.
BTW I'm on another challenge: Thelonious Monk's `round midnight has all 12 tones in it.

Brian

MarkB · Post by **MarkB** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 12:52 pm

How to play with others, when to play and not to play.

MarkB

skh · Post by **skh** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 12:58 pm

bjs wrote:The piece starts with a roll followed by a short roll followed by a double cut then a triplet. The phrasing is not what I expected either. I console myself by thinking that if I can get that right and up to reasonable speed then the rest should be a relative doddle.
Anybody else out there been there done that? If so how did it go for you after Kerrigan's jig?

I was, at first, rather discouraged by Kerrigan's jig as well, even when I skipped the ornamentation part - the B part goes up to high B, which sounded awful to me in the beginning. I played in on Bb whistle (same fingering as on a D whistle, just everything two notes lower, and yes, that meant I couldn't play along with the recording, but the recording was too fast anyway) which helped a little. I played the last two bars of the B part one octave lower, which also helped a little.

I finally gave up as I just didn't like the tune - it didn't "click", if that makes sense. I browsed the little Irtrad CD collection I had for tunes I liked, looked them up at http://www.thesession.org/ to get the sheet music (yeah, I know...), and just focused on rhythm and good tone, and having fun. I also decided to only worry about ornamentation when my playing would begin to bore me (which happened soon, but I still don't ornament much).

I later found http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/, which I found to be much more helpful than the McCullough tutor. You might want to have a look at that site.

Sonja

fiddling_tenor · Post by **fiddling_tenor** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:46 pm

Being primarily a fiddler and guitar player, breathing was never an issue, until whistling.

I'm also a singer, so I'm used to breath control, and can sustain some long phrases. But some tunes seem to go on forever, or they contain a lot of jumps bwtween octaves. That takes a lot of breath.

Figuring when to breath without disrupting the tune's rhythm is a challenge for me.

And I admit, I struggle with the "Irishness" too, both on fiddle and whistle.

energy · Post by **energy** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:54 pm

Timing; knowing when to start each note. Every single one has to be almost perfectly in place in order for jigs or reels to sound right. Most whistlers I've heard don't have this quite right. Also, understanding Irish rhythm(which is closely related to timing, I think) can take awhile. Putting that understanding to use takes even longer.

I started fiddle after the whistle, so I was used to breathing difficulties from the start. Oddly enough, when I play fiddle, I find myself holding my breath until logical breathing points, at which point I suck in air real fast, and then hold my breath until the next breathing spot. I can't seem to shake the habit. :roll:

burnsbyrne · Post by **burnsbyrne** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:56 pm

bjs wrote:I bought L.E.McCullough's book on how to play Trad Irish. Without a slowdowner the CD wouldn't be a lot of use to me for quite some time. The first piece kerrigan's jig with suggested twiddly bits i can get up to half speed. But L.E.C really gives no quarter.
The piece starts with a roll followed by a short roll followed by a double cut then a triplet. The phrasing is not what I expected either. I console myself by thinking that if I can get that right and up to reasonable speed then the rest should be a relative doddle.
Anybody else out there been there done that? If so how did it go for you after Kerrigan's jig? Much faster I hope. I think i might skip the polka and go on to the hornpipe which sounds nice to my ears.
BTW I'm on another challenge: Thelonious Monk's `round midnight has all 12 tones in it.

Brian

I was using the McCullough book for a couple of months before I found a teacher. I had tried that Kerrigan's Jig (also called Kesh Jig) and played it for my teacher at the first lesson. He had me go back to things like Dawning of the Day, a march, and other simple stuff. I play lots better now after a year and a half of lessons but that Kesh Jig is still a killer to play close to speed. I can't imagine why McCullough presented it as the second tune in a (supposedly) beginner's book.
Mike

colomon · Post by **colomon** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 6:05 pm

LE's Tutor is awesome, but most of it is way way way beyond beginning or even intermediate level. It's the sort of book that you can pick up and learn things from after years of playing.

PhilO · Post by **PhilO** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:43 pm

Breathing, phrasing, and not letting the lilt turn into too much of a stacatto feel...

PhilO

fancypiper · Post by **fancypiper** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:58 pm

The otave jumps are sort of mind blowing at first, but after a while, they are just "there" in the tune that you use "this fingering" with "this much breath".

colomon wrote:LE's Tutor is awesome, but most of it is way way way beyond beginning or even intermediate level. It's the sort of book that you can pick up and learn things from after years of playing.

That's the book that taught me how to do what I was hearing in all the whistle albums that I had just gotten from Shanachie back in the vinyl days.

I can't remember if I went much further in it than the Kesh Jig in the tutor (it keeps getting loaned out to promising whistlers), though. I do remember going through all the techniques (the B roll was a

) and getting everything down except for the double tounging.

That one tune gave me tons of insight into the whistle technique, but other tunes on the records sounded so much more interesting than what I heard in the tape. I gotta make a CD of that old tape and put it on again.

Crysania · Post by **Crysania** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 10:14 pm

For me...breathing is one of the most difficult things. Because there isn't time to end a phrase, slow down a little, and breath like you can in classical music (I've played clarinet for 20 years), I have to get used to cutting out notes or hunting for a place to breathe. I also have to breathe a lot (asthma = low lung capacity), which creates even more problems.

The technique hasn't been a problem for the most part (the system is a simplified version of what I'm used to flying around on, so that made it easier...no new fingerings to learn and I could already play pretty fast). It's taken me awhile to lift up fingers while leaving ones below it down (in other words...doing a cut on E by just picking up the G finger instead of the E finger). I was also taught somewhat wrong in that regard, since the fiddle player who taught me didn't know all that much about technique on whistle and was just doing it by listening as best he could. Once I started going to session and paying more attention to the flute and whistle players, I started to pick up on what they were doing. So I had to retrain my rolls and cuts. I still don't always pick up the right fingers but I'm getting there.

I was lucky in the rhythm department, since I've always had a good ear for rhythmic subtleties. I just play what I hear and if it matches up with the other players, I know I'm doing well with it.

Now, the hardest thing of all...is a totally internal thing...learning tunes by ear! Ouch...still can't do it all that well. I seem to be able to pick up tunes in E dorian/minor ok, but in any other key (especially major-based keys) I'm lost. Not sure why!

~Crysania

spittin_in_the_wind · Mon Jan 19, 2004 10:18 pm

Unsticking my B-finger from the whistle because I'm using it to hold the whistle in my mouth...

:roll:

Robin