Classical musician considers joining the 'dark side'

[KATaylor5]

Hello all. I am a professional, classically trained clarinet player and saxophone doubler; I even have a Master's degree and everything I play for musical theater and am a member of two contemporary Christian bands.

I am here to publicly confess....that I am considering joining the 'dark side' of tin whistle playing I feel this inner voice....calling, calling to me from the other side

I have been asked on a few occasions if I could play whistle for a show or on a contemporary worship piece, But alas! I do not know how to play whistle! There is also a fairly decent Irish American culture and clubs where I live and it would be fun to learn how to jam.

Hmmm it seems like most people here start on a cheap whistle and then whistle addiction occurs. My question is...is it possible to already have the addiction before owning a whistle!!!

I have spent HOURS drooling over possible shopping cart configurations at The Whistle Shop's website, what whistles I want, what keys I want etc. Here is my latest (it keeps changing) beginner's dream scenario...I'm thinking of ordering the following:

Freeman Tweaked Clark Sweetone in D
Feadog Brass Key of D
Freeman Mello Dog in D (heard some sound clips from the Wanderer's site, LOVED LOVED LOVED it, but concerned it may be too soft for larger groups)
Mel Bay's Complete Irish Tinwhistle book & CD
Ireland's Best Irish Tinwhistle Tunes
The Whistle Shop's Low D Whistle Starter Set with a Kerry Low D whistle (I was going to go with the Susato Low D since the kit was a little cheaper but it doesn't sound like all you wonderfully wise whistle players approve of the Susato)

I was going to get a Susato Kildare soprano D whistle too, I had considered getting their Tripak of Kildare Bb, C, and D whistles because $70 seemed like a great deal for 3 whistles...but I wasn't sure what you all would recommend.

I wanted to order several whistles because, well, 1. I have an excessive collector's personality 2. as a clarinet player I understand the importance, desire, and usefullness of owning instruments capable of a wide variety of tone colors, instruments that performin in certain situations better than others and that's it's necessary to try several instruments before finding the one you personally prefer 3. I have an excessive collector's personality oh right I said that already.

Is starting off with a Tweaked Sweetone, Feadog Brass, Mello Dog and a Kerry Low D too much overkill for a begginer whistler? Are there others that I should pick up like the Walton Little Black D....

Help me! I can already 'feel' the addiction surfacing. Actually, I think the addiction is already here...I have already printed out fingering charts for whistles...that I don't own yet and that I don't know how to play!

Sick. What kind of person prints out charts for instruments they don't even OWN yet!?

I would greatly appreciate your recommendations...and a phone number to a Whistle Addict Hotline or 12 step program

[burnsbyrne]

Welcome to the wild world of whistles, KA! Classically trained musicians are welcome here. There are already quite a few aboard. You will find some fun participating in the ongoing debate about whether learning by ear or by musical notation is the "best" way to learn. It comes up frequently. Since you are a clarinet and sax player you will take to whistle fingering very quickly since it is nearly the same. All the whistles you mentioned are good beginner instruments. You will discover that each one has its quirks. You will also learn that cheap whistles often need some tweeking before they are playable. Look at the main website for a disertation about whistle tweaking. The cheap whistles also usually require very little air to play. You may like that or not. Some of the more expensive whistles, Overton, for example, have higher backpressure and allow the player to lean on it a bit more.

Good luck with the whistle addiction. Once you're in you're in for good!

And again, welcome to the looney bin called Chiff and Fipple.

Mike

[Tia]

Hello and welcome, fellow clairnet player, I play that to, I dont know much about the types of whistles, but I do know that you'll be able to play the whistle right away, the finguring is exactly teh same as the alto sax, and very close to to the upper redgister of the clairnet. Enjoy the learning and playing!

[picardy third]

Sick. What kind of person prints out charts for instruments they don't even OWN yet!?

I did the same thing. I'm doing it with Uilleann pipes right now. You'll catch on quickly. My first instrument was the clarinet. Now I do studio guitar and whistle work. One thing you'll get used to is the fact that you won't have near the dynamic range as what you have on clarinet or sax. So selecting the right whistle for the performance or recording and mike placement will be key. Attempting to play pianissimo will make the instrument go flat. From experience, the desire to blow harder to be heard over a band only ends in folly!

Once you get one or several, you'll be able to play around with it and apply prior music knowledge to whistle and will be playing in no time. You'll be working mostly on stylistic techniques.

P3

[straycat82]

Welcome! Looking through your list, it seems like you'll have enough to keep you busy for a while. As far as listening to other people's opinions about whistles, it's better in most cases to try it for yourself. Not everyone has the same taste so make sure you don't limit yourself to someone else's tastes. Now, if an experienced whistler says something about a certain whistle having bad intonation or not being in tune with itself that's a different story (and you should probably heed that advice) but you should be able to tell the different between that and someones personal preference. If you want to try a Susato, give it a shot. Great thing about whistles is that they're not too pricey so if you don't like it you aren't out too much cash... and it's usually not too hard to sell it to fund another whistle. I personally don't care for the sound of Susato's but I think they are good whistles. They are loud too so if you want a loud whistle you might want to give one a shot. Feadogs have pretty good volume too. Those Mellow Dogs are, I think, among the best sound for tweaked cheapies but as you said, they are a little on the quiet side so it's a good whistle for the home but maybe not so much the stage. I've never played one of Jerry's Sweetones but I think Sweetones are a sweet sounding whistle (and extremely easy to play) on their own so I'm sure that'll be a good experience. I think maybe you could do better than the Mel Bay whistle tutor though. Maybe give Grey Larson's "Essential Guide to Irish Flute & Tin Whistle" a try. It comes with two accompanying CD's and a ton of good information for beginner, intermediate and advanced whistling. It's a little more pricy than the Mel Bay book but Amazon.com has it at a reasonable price. If you know of any whistlers in the area, you might check to see if anyone is giving lessons (since you said there's a good culture around you). No book can substitute for a good teacher so it might be worth looking into. Also, check into getting yourself some good CD's. Listening (A LOT) is essential to good playing and I think that just about anyone here would tell you the same. I hope you find some of this helpful. Some say that obsession is neccessary to become good at the whistle so run with it! Good luck and welcome!!

[dow]

Welcome to Chiff and Fipple. You'll find that this is a great source of knowledge, help and frustration, sometimes all at once, ha ha.

Here's a site that has a lot of reviews of different whistles:

http://www.tinwhistler.com/music

Enjoy!

[Crysania]

Welcome! I'm also a classically trained clarinet player (though my music degrees are in theory and composition -- talk about the dark side! ) and picked up the whistle a few years back. After some experimenting, I discovered I liked the Susato the best (my most used and favourite whistle is a Susato Kildare SB D). I liked the fact that it had some back pressure, like I was used to on the clarinet. It felt more natural playing it than other, more breathy and open whistles.

~Crysania

[falkbeer]

Hi, and welcome

Since you already are a professional wind player you will probably not have any technical problems actually playing the whistle. The whistle have almost the same fingering as the sax or the flute. If you have strong lungs i can recommend the original Clarke - it takes a lot of air, but have a warm and flutelike tone. The Sweetone is also very nice, but I really love the original Clarke.

Probably a bigger problem for you will be to get into different whisteling styles and knowing the whisteling repertoire. To get into the groove! Folk music is a very different animal than classical music!
One often hear classicaly trained opera singers who try singing popular music or jazz. And the result is very predictible. It most often just sounds lika an opera singer singing something he does´n really have a genuine feel for what he´s doing. Jazz musicians seemses more versatile in this respect. Keith Jarret for example plays the classical reperoire exellently!
The only piece of advice here is to listen a lot to the masters and play a lot by ear.

God luck!

/All the best, Falkbeer

[Jim W]

Welcome! Just a few thoughts -

How well in tune do you want the whistle to be (especially if you'll be playing with other, not-easily-tuned instruments?) Whistles vary greatly in this respect. Some of the whistles you mentioned are not originally designed to be tunable, and may not be anywhere near in tune internally.

Perhaps, in the same vein, you might want to know that the Susato, while usually quite well in tune internally, generally cannot be tuned to the sharp side of A=440; it can be brought to be flatter.

You'll likely need amplification with most instrumentation, short of a session-like selection of players.

You may want to visit http://praisewhistlers.org/pwboard/index.php

[KATaylor5]

Thank you all for writing. It is nice to be so welcomed and I appreciate the quick replies...I hope more come in.

To comment on some of the posts.

Well, I am very used to backpressure. It seems like whistle playing is exremely free blowing. I bought a regular flute a few years back and I was not at all used to losing so much air! The flute, having no reed/mouthpiece resistance in the mouth, is so free blowing I barely could play 2 whole notes before needing to breath again! So, not sure that means I have good lungs. I would say, with backpressure, I have great lung power and capacity, without backpressure, I'm a woosie girl.

I would like the whistle to be as 'in tune' as possible. I am very fussy with intonation. With clar/sax it is fairly easy to 'lip up/down' notes for fine tuning....is this possible on whistle or is the intonation of the whistle just as it is. I have read a little bit on tweaking, but too scared to try it myself! haha. I usually like paying an expert to do those types of things.

And thank you to Jim W for posting that praisewhistle link. A praise whistle forum...who knew! I am definitely going to ask people there what whistles they use for their praise band.

If anyone here has suggestions or substitutions for ones I am orginally considering let me know.

My church is very large and the praise band consists of bass/electric/acoustic guitar, drum set, hand percussion, sax player (me or someone else) and usually about 6 singers. Everything is miked and mixed in the sound booth. Many church friends they often don't here me on my sax even! So I would probably need a loud whistle for praise band; though if I were playing whistle, it would probably be on a quieter song anyway and the sound people could hike up the volume on my mic,

For me, tone quality and intonation are the most important things I"m looking for. I can find ways of dealing with cooky octave skips and response issues. I just want to get the best sounding whistle I can.

At this point, since I won't have a lot of opportunities to perform on whistle regularly, I want the best sound for the lowest price. There's probably no need for me to buy the more expensive whistles until I'm sure I'm gonna stick with this.

Interesting that Crysania likes her Susato Kildare SB Soprano D. That was one i was considering buying. Since people do say it's loud, I thought that might work well in a praise band setting. The sound pple could always add reverb to my mic and alter my sound.

Any further thoughts on the Susato?

I agree, the 'sheet' music part won't be hard...though getting used to transposing will. I have never improvised and don't play by ear much. The bands I play in know that but would like me to start experimenting with improv....whistle seemed like the least threatening way to experiment...rather than letting my 'professional clarinetist ego' get in the way. Me trying to improv and playing by ear is going to be a very humbling experience.

I was going to try and save some money by not buying all the CDs that can come with the songbooks, like the Ireland's best series....but you're right, I need to hear the style characteristics. I don't want to sound like a classical musician trying to play folk music.

Any suggestions on how to go about finding a whistle teacher? We have a fairly big Irish American club(s) in Cleveland. Maybe I should go to their events and check out the musicians?

Thanks again for all your help! I really want to make the best informed decision I can before spending all this money

Let me know what books I should get...was thinking about the 110 Ireland's Best Tunes v.1&2....Session Tunes 1, 2. But maybe there are better ones?

I look forward to your responses

~Kim

[mutepointe]

welcome to the dark side. if you're going to be a member of the dark side, you should really let us know what evil deed you do with your whistle. here's a link to a thread that i started awhile ago to give you an idea of the depth of the darkside. double points if you make a former teacher cry.

http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php ... light=evil

[Flogging Jason]

I started playing my dad's whistle by ear when I was around 11 and I picked up Sax and Oboe in middle school....once I learned to read music my whistle playing took off like a rocket! I can say though, in relation to backpressure, playing a sax you have to "blow" ...whilst playing a whistle is like "breathing strongly" like the amount of air you would use to whistle a tune through your lips.

On whistle brands: Every whistle has it's own personality, I have 5 soprano D whistles (waiting for my Parkhurst!!!) and each one plays a little differently with a different tone. My brass Walton's D is the one I play most...while my Sweetheart D is best suited to slower tunes. I recently accquired an Overton Low D and that's a fantastic player!!! though I expect it's a bit out of the range(price wise) for a beginner. I really enjoy my Susato Bflat too although the tone is not as "irish" as others. go to www.whistlethis.com to hear beginners and pros alike playing every whistle imaginable.

p.s. interested in buying a vintage 30's Kohlert Bflat Clarinet?? It needs an overhaul but I bought it cheap and I'll sell it cheap

[Gunslinger]

Terve, KATaylor5

If you only know the power of the dark side!

You can indeed start with cheapies. I strongly suggest you to get a sweetone (or meg; it's basically the same whistle but even cheaper), that is one helluva whistle consicering stability of tuning, evenness between octaves and all that. Actually IMHO there's no need to tweak a sweetone, I don't know how it can get any better. Especially sweetone D, but C is also very good. I just find myself playing more my D, because it's easier to jam with it to songs on the radio; so much blues and rock is written in E and that's where a D whistle kicks some serious butt.

Of course you need Clarke originals and some cylindrical ones too, for comparison and for a start of a collection. And do get whistles in different keys, there's a different feeling and sound between whistles only a full tone apart.

Low whistles tend to be irrationally expencive. My advice is to concider Low Tech Whistle. You can order them with reasonable price or you can build one yourself. The procedure is quite simple and you can build them in virtually any key when need arises. Ok, they are not so attractive/beautiful as metallic ones, but they are sturdy and nearly indestructable (here is an example: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?p=557473#557473).

BR,
Heikki Petäjistö

[amar]

I started playing my dad's whistle by ear when I was around 11 and I picked up Sax and Oboe in middle school....

that is really amazing!! Perhaps a punctured eardrum might explain that!

(beat you to it, Slude)

[MarcusR]

Hi Kim!
Here are a few thoughts after reading through your posts.
First of all as you might already have experienced you wont find any unanimous consent on the best whistle to buy on this or any other forum. Such whistle doesn’t exist. So instead of buying a heap of whistles based on other people’s advice, start of with a few and build your own preferences. In a few months you will have a drawer full of them anyway. I’m sure you’ll know what you are after pretty quickly.

Susato whistles, bare in mind these whistles get a lot of negative feedback for other reasons than sound, and playability. Common ones are: its made out of plastic, mass produced, the head piece is short and stubby, little to much to handle for a complete beginner …
Others like them a lot. I also know some good players that use the exclusively for recordings.
There are cheep, buy one and see how you like it. Much of the like and dislike issues of cheep whistles are more related to the player and what type of music setting the whistle will be used for.

Check out the Kevin Crawford Susato high d clip under “pro-files” on the movie section at kerrywhistles.com (here) and tell me that they sound poorly.
And if you haven’t checked out that section before do it now, it will give you a good idea of what you want.

The Dixon Trad is my favorite whistle for the moment, but then I just got it a week ago. Otherwise I manly use my susatos.

Whistle tutors
As you are a professional musician I don’t think you will need any. All the session tunes you’ll ever want can be downloded from the net for free. Your main concern for starting out playing ITM will be rhythm and ornamentation. Invest your money in some good CD’s and download some slowdown software for your computer. I would guess that most of the tutors book/CD’s around would bore you out quite quickly. 121 Favorite Irish Session Tunes by LE McCullough is the only one I would recommend to a pro musician who would like to learn to play ITM on a whistle.

Best of luck Kim,

/MarcusR