How did you learn to play?

[jomac]

Previous non-Irish music background (lots of bass in any style, classical guitar, bluegrass mandolin, and Chapman Stick) left me fairly competant in both playing by ear and reading music. I started with an Acorn whistle this summer, and the book, CD, and video that came with it. It did not focus on Irish playing. Then I got LE McCollough's (sp?) tutorial. Still working on that, though mostly on my Howard low D I got about a month ago. Plus I am working out tunes by ear from my Bothy Band CD (I particularly like the set they call "Old Hag You Have Killed Me" - what a name!), and from Lunasa's latest CD. I'm also working on this same stuff on a Boehm flute. I will be receiving an M&E flute in a few days, at which time the Boehm will go back into the closet (who says you can never go back into the closet?).

[mamakash]

My tale is both interesting and unusual and something that I'm very proud of. My introduction to the pennywhistle came at the age of 24 after I had found a *very* cheap handmade tin whistle from Williamsburg, Virginia that I actually bought 8 years back when I was sixteen. At that time of my life, I had neither the patience or interest to actually sit down and learn an intrument. I never had the chance to play music when I was younger, and to be honest, I never had any talent.
At the time of coming across this whistle in a drawer, I was still battleing with phsyical and mental limitations from brain trauma I suffered in an automobile accedent. Even though I had graduated art school successfully, my right hand still tremored and I fought to continue to learn and challange my mind and body.
I found this whistle and the information that came with it and I began to think. I'd spent close to a year in hospitals and rehabs and came to believe I could learn to do anything if I worked hard enough at it. After all, I learned to walk, to learn, to paint and draw, to write. So, I picked up the whistle and the information. Amazing, even though reading music eluded me in younger years, everything made so much sense now(all that cognitive therepy, I think). Sure, it sounded crappy, and my fingers tended to lock on me(something that the medical field calls "tone") but who cared? I understood how the notes on the staff corilated to the holes on the whistle. And, wow! Was it fun!
When I was encoraged to buy Bill's Oach's book and tape set, things really took off. I could hardly believe it. I made slow progress, yes, but I made progress. Eventually, I worked through the lessons and have been both playing and learning from other books.
Now, I can say that playing the whistle really made a difference in both my hand dexterity and mental flexability. If I could learn how to play, then anyone can. I started out believing I *could*. It didn't matter how bad I first sounded, I knew I would be better . . . in time. It's how I've approached my life ever since I was first hurt. It's gotten me far.
Of course, I don't expect to be Jonnie Madden. And even though I bought a Low D with the hopes of playing it well, I've met my match. My hands are too small and I get pains from trying to cover the holes. But I'd like to move on to the guitar later on.
As a family, my mom and dad have always liked music(my mom sang in the choir in school and had a very promising voice) but neither one can play music. Dad has told me how he tried to learn the violin as a kid and his family hated it . . . sounded like he was strangling a cat. I like to think I have a little bit of natural talent, but I have no idea where it comes from.
Dad's got the irish infulence on his side . . . he didn't bring much into the house in the way of music, but I delevoped this strange, beaming pride for all things irish(I'm only a quarter irish, or even less!) I love their music . . . it's like coming home to a place you've never been before, but knowing you belong there.
Hope this inspires!

[chas]

I love the Uillean pipes, and heard that one must be accomplished on the whistle before taking up the pipes. (I played mostly lap dulcimer, a little harp, and had been pretty fluent on the clarinet in my youth.) I had the good fortune to live about 6 miles from the House of Musical Traditions, so was able to try out many brands. Started out with a Clarke D, then C, then a set of 3 Water Weasels, etc., culminating with a Burke Pro low-D a couple of months ago. (Is his low-C as good?)

I started out playing strictly by ear, but sheet music is very useful for many tunes now.

How long does it take to be able to read for keys other than D?

Charlie

[rebl_rn]

Like Neil, I was a Civil War re-enactor (guess which side I was on?). I was looking for something to do in camp, and I thought about taking up the fife (I played sax in high school). My musically inclined aunt bought me a Clarke to learn as a "stepping stone" to the fife, and I've never stepped off of it! I taught myself with the aid of a couple of books, and then finally after a few years I had the opportunity to take a weekend workshop with Larry Nugent and I learned a ton in 3 days.

WhOA has taken me from that original Clarke D to a 'few' more whistles, and I don't re-enact anymore but I'm still whistling!

Beth



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: rebl_rn on 2001-10-11 19:26 ]</font>

[LittleMy]

Mamakash, your story was really inspiring! Thanks for sharing it.

Mine is boring. I fell in love with the tune "Tabhair dom do lamh"- especially the pennywhistle part. Then I saw a band called The Mollys, who use a whistle in several of their songs.

I was sitting at my computer a few days afterwards, and I had an epiphany: somebody must have whistles for sale. Maybe I could buy one and learn to play it. (duh!) So I bought a Clarke and have spent the last year (!) trying to make what I play match what I hear in my head.

This is the first time I have ever considered myself a musician. It's an interesting feeling.

[AnnaDMartinez]

Oh, yeah, I used to hang around O'Rourkes and the Abbey Pub in Chicago! Does that count?

[brownja]

No musical background at all. I'm lucky enough to have lots of family in Ireland and so spent lots of time there as a kid (mom would ship us over every summer to get us out of the house, little did she know? that we spent most of the time in pubs). Three years ago, my son was born. I knew i wanted him to learn to play some instrument, I had always regetted that i had not. It followed that if he was going to learn to play something, i'd have to teach him, or at least help him along, and therefore, I'd have to learn too.
Well I had a Feadog and a Walton in a desk drawer from previous trips and started in with them. Funny thing happened, I really , and i mean REALLY suck, and I'm hooked anyway. So now I do it for myself and in a year or two, I'll start my son in on it. He already has a Gen G. that fits his little fingers.
Cheers,
jb

[MarkB]

That is one of the most interesting questions ever posted here, and what I have read and have come to realize, is that, for what seems for most of us here, learning to play the tinwhistle is a musical journey of personal discovery and love.

My journey to playing the tinwhistle and the bodhran, to where I am now, is also a life long adventure, starting in primary school, were everyone was taught on the recorder as their introduction to learning music. I wasn't interested in it the least bit.

You see, I have always had the natural knack to whistle using my lips, any tune I heard, in key. I was raised in and around Highland regiments here in Canada for most of my youth and ended up first in the militia (your National Guard), with the Toronto Scottish, then seven years in the regular Canadian army in the Black Watch, Royal Highland Regiment. So hearing the pipes played morning, noon and night wasn't unusual for me. Whsitling the tunes was nothing for me, but with all that, I never once thought of learning to play the pipes or drums. Although the pipe major often suggested that he would like to have me learn and become a member of the band. But that wasn't what I was in the army for. First a foot soldier then maybe a musician and a highland dancer.

This is the twist in my life that actually led me away from learning music and a musical intrument. In the Fifties when Polio was ravaging the world, I contacted it when I was six. All I can remember is my grandfather and parents wrapping me in ice for days to break the fever, and it did , happy to say. But it left me very weak, and unco-ordinated in movement. Our country doctor suggested that I take dance lessons to regain strength and agility. My dad really didn't want his son to dance --- you got to remember this is the era right after World War II and the John Wayne lifestyle. Sons of vets didn't dance!

Well my mother prevailed and I started in Tap dancing classes, always making sure that I carried my tap shoes in a bag so that no one could see them when I walked home. That went on for three years, until we moved north to Pembroke in the Ottawa valley.

Up in the valley, we couldn't find a tap teacher, but were led to a Scottish dance teacher, the rest is history. I danced through high school, I was a dancer in our regiment, I competed with the best and one year danced with our band when it played at the Edinburgh Tattoo, I danced the single sword alone, with our band, on a command performace by Her Majesty, Elizabeth, The Queen Mother who I met after the performance. Oh my nickname for years in the army was the "Whistler."

I left the army after seven years and spent the next three or so working my way across Canada in the mines and wherever I could find work, eventually working out of Prince Rupert, British Columbia on a fishing trawler for the salmon season. After, I made my way home to Windsor and got a job on the line with the Ford Motor Company. Still no interest in learning music. But painting and sculpting was my passion. Both my parents were struggling professional artists, and it seems that I inherited that natural ability to draw, paint, and sculpt anything I could think of, so I set up my own studio and went at it. I found rebuff from my so called peers, and the art society I was in, because, as I found out, I wasn't formally trained i.e to have a degree in art. So I got one, when I attended university as an adult student, You see I dropped out of school in grade ten.

In my fourth year of my undergraduate, it came to me one very late night in the studio, when I was pausing at something and trying to chose which piece of music I wanted to hear next while painting, that I was just a consumer of sound, and in truth, it didn't really mattered what I played on the tape deck, as long as it filled the background void of silence as I painted.

That is when it donned on me, that when I get through this "I "must," or "should have" this or that degree to be someone in our society," I will learn to play my music for myself ---my way!

After graduate school, I was working in Ottawa, as a freelance Librarian, and stumble across the Ottawa Folklore Centre and a bar called Rasputins. I found that one taught lessons, while the other had sessions. And Rasputins is still going and has their own website, I found out, and the sessions are still going on. I must get back there someday and hopefully play there this time rather than just listen.

Well I didn't stay long in Ottawa, about a year and half, when I got this fulltime position I have now in Windsor. And what is really weird, is that through all my lifes travel, in the army; and out, I ended up three blocks from where I was born, went to church, and school and had polio.

When I was new at the library, there was another librarian who played Celtic music with a passion and he introduced me to the Irish-Canadian Culture Club. They offered music lessons on the tinwhistle, bodhran, fiddle. It has been ten glorious years since that first night, and I feel contentment in that I have come full circle to what is truelly my real passion in life. in playing Irish music on a whistle, with great and loving friends, who don't say "that it should be this or that way." But with the clear unadultered love of just being with them and they with me, and playing something that we all love.

I won't talk about all the learning aids that are availalbe for whistlers, but I have them all and have played them many times. But I guess, I'm strong enough to make my own way and style, without worrying how something "should be played.

Thank you. I find the postings here in this thread, an affirmation of life -- nothing less but -- that!

PAX

Mark

[Tyghress]

I have a bit of a background in music, and a love for celtic music in general. When I focused on the whistle, I got the basics of fingering from Clarke's book, then McCullough's and one other I can't remember. Half the music I play in session I've become familiar with just by hearing it played week after week, and playing harmony around it, then I find a few versions of it in this or that book, or in ABC format online, and I can really learn the tune there (but I have the flavor of the tune from live renditions).

I don't recall listening to any recordings and hearing a whistle that made me want to play, I don't remember any calling when I saw the TV version of Riverdance, and was so distracted by the poor filming of Lord of the Dance that I turned it off. I can honestly say that the first time I bought a CD specifically for whistle was this weekend (Joanie Madden's Song of the Irish Whistle) and I probably won't buy any others. I don't like the over-produced sound; I much prefer session-style, and I think I learn the most by sitting around and trying like heck to keep up with the others.

[Blarney Pilgrim]

I come from a musical family -- I was always the exception. I have always loved music, especially Celtic music, but all instruments I tried were a disaster. I just seemed to have no ability with them at all. I heard a reenactor playing a whistle one day at a location where they also happend to sell them, and I bought one on impulse. From the start, playing it seemed comfortable and natural. I didn't progress very fast until I found that by strange coincidence an acquaintance of mine was learning the whistle too. We learned a great deal from each other and became good friends in the process. Mel Bay's tutorial with CD was a great help. I still have a lot to learn, but am light years from where I started. It's a great, fun journey! <br>
Steve

[cj]

Wow--what impressive stories you all have, and what a testament to the power of music to heal, keep us sane, and otherwise deepen (as well as lighten) our journeys here. . .

I too had background in various instruments--piano, recorder and flute mostly--and was enchanted by the simplicity (of the sound, not the technique!) and folk sound of the whistle. I'm not great and probably never will be, but the whistle feeds my soul. Of course, I'm preaching to the choir.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: cj on 2001-10-12 16:29 ]</font>

[Paul Patrick]

I've just picked up whistle in the last few months, so 'tis definitely a work in progress. I find my background in Suzuki cello very helpful (b/c it focuses so much on ear training) - lets me think the sound I want and then make it, kind of like singing (well, very slow, halting, and often bad singing).
For learing the trad. part, I'm relying on LE McCullough's tutor and a few Chieftains and CTL cd's I've had and loved since long before I knew anything about whistles. I'm hoping at some point to find a workshop or teacher, since I'm sure that would be very helpful, but even as is I'm making progress (and having much fun).

Paul

[jackorion]

I picked up the whistle because of Robin Williamson. Just like I picked up the clarinet fresh out of high school because of Woody Alan. Robin is so amazing! I had the chance to see and meet him last year. Mind blowing. I started playing when I was in Junior High. I had no idea Robin had a book on the whistle, I'll have to hunt it down.

[jmssmh]

I saw Robin in 1978, I already had his book at the time which made it great to see hime play the whistle (along with a bunch of other instruments like an 80 year old Gibson mandocello).

Joe

[lollycross]

I was a flute player in grade and high school. Never played it again until my daughter needed an instrument in grade school. It brought back sweet memories, but
I didn't have enough wind to play it again.
One day I went to a Celtic fair and saw a young man with long blond hair playing a
Penny Whistle. I bought a Clark D at the
fair and went thru the book and tape in one
evening; all my flute training coming back to
me. I practiced for a year by myself, playing any song I happened to like. One day
I went to another show where the same man was playing his harp, guitar, mandolin and whistle while his wife played citurn, hammered delcimer, guitar, hurdy girty and
bowed psaltry (one at a time, of course). I KNEW I HAD to meet these
people! 2 months later they visited at my home and were practicing and my husband said I could play a Penny Whistle and asked if they would mind me playing along. After
the first time thru their set list I was asked to join the band, and that is where I
am 1 1/2 year later, and loving it!!!!
This weekend we play at a Psychic Fair (!)
and then a Winery festival. Both will be
tons of fun.
Lolly