Do you like this whistling?

[talasiga]

I vote rushed. Skilled, but rushed. Where's the fire?

........
I personally don't feel the track is overly rushed and while playing on this track is part of the speed may have been caused by the tape recorder I played back the tape on (check the pitch and you'll know by how much).

I really don't have any issue with the different responses to the piece and I know that Peter's comments are not necessarily addressing mine. However I want to make it very clear that I do not automatically equate RUSH with SPEED and that is why I said all this (I have added boldening).

......it was played too rushed.
Good music can be played as fast as that mind you.
What makes something rushed is when the sounds don't sculpt the gaps, the little silences and pauses that invite our feelings to fill it.

I have heard very fast Irish whistling and yet the player has
sculpted gaps and described the silences in all the busy articulations
and that contrast bumps everything up, heavenward if you know what I mean.
........

ITs not about playing slower necessarily. Its about playing at the peak of your skill level AS DETERMINED by the needs of the music.

I don't know if rubato is something talked about in ITM. Sometimes things are done in traditions that may not necessarily have a way of verbalising them. And frankly, I do not know how the good (IMO) ITM whistler does it but in all that speed the music gasps.

One's performance can be so bad, that even at really really SLOW tempo one can be too RUSHED. Of course we'd use another word for it.
For instance, I actually know heaps of musicians, with stage histories, who cannot perform SLOW AIRS. They perform them as NOTATED not realising that the rhythm built into the notation is only a guide as to the pulse but the notation isn't everything. There needs to be a soulful interpretation, emotionally expressive. One has to PLAY with that air to evoke its spirit within the constraint of the pulse and an underpinning lyric content.

Darlings, "she moved through the fair" is not just a waltz slowed down.

I am not going to apologise for this post. So please don't apologise in yours if you feel differently. Guinness comes to mind.

The main thrust of this post is that I am not equating RUSHED with SPEED.

[tompipes]

I'll always be a huge fan of Denis' music.
He was a massive influence and inspiration to a generation on young musicians all over Ireland during his, sadly, short life.

It's very interesting to read these varied comments but I feel I must point out something which is important to the thread in general.

Denis/Donncha never employed the technique of tongueing.

The staccato effect he created was from stopping and starting the air flow at the very back of his throat.
Actually, he was not very impressed at all by the technique of stopping the air flow with the tip of your tongue, which was becoming very popular in the mid 80's with younger players.
"It makes you dribble and clog the whistle" he would say.

Tommy

P.S. I don't mean to invalidate anyones comments here at all. He still created that staccato sound but just in a different way to what some may percieve.

[toughknot]

I like it alot.Gets my foot tapping.

[Ceili_whistle_man]

I don't like it.
I am not voting either.
I can't hear any obvious tonguing in the playing, (it may be something to do with the sound quality?) though there is a lot of staccato playing which I don't like.

Edited after reading the last few posts
tompipes wrote;

The staccato effect he created was from stopping and starting the air flow at the very back of his throat.
Actually, he was not very impressed at all by the technique of stopping the air flow with the tip of your tongue, which was becoming very popular in the mid 80's with younger players.

Thanks for that tompipes, it makes it a bit clearer now what was happening in the recording.

[Cayden]

The main thrust of this post is that I am not equating RUSHED with SPEED

That was clear, and one shouldn't. Same for rhythm and pulse of a tune.

[Guinness]

I don't like it.
I am not voting either.
I can't hear any obvious tonguing in the playing, (it may be something to do with the sound quality?) though there is a lot of staccato playing which I don't like.

Maple Leaf / Man of Aran - lots of tonguing!

I don't like the clip, I don't like the tonguing. You like it? Good on you, but I bet there will be far more folk out there who don't like it than do.

Hm. I like it. I think I'll post a poll.

[FJohnSharp]

Here's the thing about Donncha's music for me: I feel that he was such a gift, and when I listen I don't hear flaws, just as when someone gives me a gift I don't look for reasons to dislike it; and when I listen I am often filled with a spirit that I perceive as divine, though I'm not given to attributing things to divinity.

[sbfluter]

I thought it was wonderful. You know what I really like? It's that extra super slurring players like him are capable of. He demonstrated it well here. And the little picante pips and peeps add spice to the sauce.

[fearfaoin]

I love it. I don't think it sounds rushed at all. I slowed it down 25% and it still
sounds like it's just leaning forward. In Maple Leaf, he seems to be putting a
cut on almost every 2&4 beat, which is something I've been working on. It
gives a real pulse to reels. Amazing that he could do so at that speed.

Rather than "rushed" it sounds fiery, passionate, urgent to me.

[AlonE]

Impressive playing, I do not understand that critiques for the speed, I have two discs mary bergin and I heard songs faster than this.

[tompipes]

I agree with fearfaoin too.

Mind you I did compare the mp3 clips to my vinyl copy and it does run a little faster all right.
But as Peter said, it does have the energy of a 19 year old with the sense of a short time ahead.

Tommy

[fearfaoin]

I did not know of Donncha O'Briain before this thread. I had a hard time
googling him due to a film director having the same name.
So, for others who are wondering about him, here's some info written by
Kilfarboy over on whistlethis.org:

One of the most influential whistleplayers from the generation that also brought us Mary Bergin and Brid O Donohue, Donncha (or Denis) was from Dublin. Extremely inventive lively playing of beautiful clarity, only more remarkable when realising Donncha suffered from muscular distrophy and was wheelchair bound. In later stages he was only able to move his fingers, still producing beautiful music, the cry of a sharp and lively mind trapped in a ravaged body. Donncha died in 1990, aged 30.

Damn.

[Cayden]

May as well link to Kitty's-gone-a-milking/Flogging Reel then.

[lalit]

A bit unfair, don't you think, to judge a musician on the basis of one single track ? Probably best that I say no more about this.

Kenny, I'm guessing this is directed at me, since I voted on the basis of a single tune, and your post was right under mine?

Well, yes, my vote *was* a bit hasty -- that's what I'm admitting to in my earlier post.

To clarify the judgment & fairness question: Since the poll asked "what do you think of this playing?", I took it to mean only the playing on the clip presented. It wouldn't be fair to judge a musician's entire capability by a single clip. In fact, you might notice that the only element I commented on was the rushed quality I perceived in the first tune. Others here are far more qualified than I am to comment on the other aspects of the playing.

No harm was meant.

[FJohnSharp]

That would be Kilfarboy.

May as well link to Kitty's-gone-a-milking/Flogging Reel then.

In this one he seems fully in command. I love this version of Flogging Reel. He kills on the half holes.