Beginner's repertoire

synergy · Post by **synergy** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 3:03 pm

Hello everyone. Please forgive my many posts, I guess the ambition bug has got me. I'm looking for recommendations to build a beginner's repertoire. Something more than one or two line snippet exercises but still managable for a beginner to begin with. Any tune ideas? Maybe there's a book available with something just like this in mind? Thanks.

sbfluter · Post by **sbfluter** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 3:40 pm

A good start is to go to the session web site here

http://www.thesession.org/members/

Click on Tunebook. That will give you a list of the most popular tunes. They won't be in order of easiest first, but if you learn popular tunes you might stand a chance of learning something that is played in a session in your area.

There isn't always audio with these tunes, however. So you'll either have to use the notation or go try and find some audio elsewhere.

synergy · Post by **synergy** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:16 pm

sbfluter wrote:A good start is to go to the session web site here

http://www.thesession.org/members/

Click on Tunebook. That will give you a list of the most popular tunes. They won't be in order of easiest first, but if you learn popular tunes you might stand a chance of learning something that is played in a session in your area.

There isn't always audio with these tunes, however. So you'll either have to use the notation or go try and find some audio elsewhere.

Thanks Diane. The area I live in doesn't sponsor too many sessions (pretty much none:)) so that's not really important to me right now. I would rather focus on solo tunes for the time being. I'll check out the link and see if there are any beginner's tunes I can find there.

walrii · Post by **walrii** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:41 pm

Go to one of the on-line sites that sell whistles and tutorials. There are a number good tutorials with sheet music and a CD so you can hear the tunes as well as figure out how to play them. Bill Ochs "The Clarke Tin Whistle" and Clare McKenna's "The Irish Tin Whistle" are both good. "Ireland's 110 Best Tin Whistle Tunes" is a decent collection of tunes, divided into sections by difficulty. All three books come with a CD. There others book/CD combinations available and I'm sure others will chime in with their favorites.

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:28 pm

synergy wrote:Thanks Diane. The area I live in doesn't sponsor too many sessions (pretty much none:)) so that's not really important to me right now. I would rather focus on solo tunes for the time being.

I think maybe you misunderstood Diane's suggestion, and it's a good one.

Go to www.thesession.org and click on Members, then click on the Tunebook tab. You'll get a list of the most popular tunes added to members' tunebooks, in order of popularity, 20 per page. The first few pages are all very common, "must-know" tunes for any whistle player, solo or otherwise. Click on a tune link to go to the page for that tune, with music notation and comments.

synergy · Post by **synergy** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:22 pm

Thanks everyone, I'll look at those. I already have the Bill Och's, just not the CD with it. I'll check out the others.

Thanks MTGuru, I did misunderstand. I'll be sure to hop over there.

FJohnSharp · Post by **FJohnSharp** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 12:55 pm

There are probably half a dozen threads on this too so if you run a search of the site and do some sifting, you'll find them.

IMO, polkas are the easiest tune type. To get you started, try Ballydesmond #2 and Egan's Polka.

Also, disregard anyone who recommends Irish Washerwoman as a beginner tune.

Anita's Dad · Post by **Anita's Dad** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 1:41 pm

Here's a GREAT resource for beginners:

http://toraigh.com/slowsessions/

This are put together by Bob Midden of the band Toraigh.

Bob Midden comes by every year. He is a great guy and an extremely good whistle player, so I try to keep him playing as long as possible, because people stop and listen to him.
-Mike Burke

synergy · Post by **synergy** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 2:28 pm

Anita's Dad wrote:Here's a GREAT resource for beginners:

http://toraigh.com/slowsessions/

This are put together by Bob Midden of the band Toraigh.

Bob Midden comes by every year. He is a great guy and an extremely good whistle player, so I try to keep him playing as long as possible, because people stop and listen to him.
-Mike Burke

I never knew they existed there! I'm located near Columbus (only about 1.5 hrs. away). Now, if they only had the sheet music posted on that site as well, it would sure help . . . Is there another link to the sheet music somewhere that you know of?