Making legato whistling sound better

[SteveB]

squidgirl,

Sorry. In retrospect, my previous posts were OT and a bit huffy. Actually, they weren't meant to be in direct response to you original question and were not intended to criticize some of the very good advice you've received (eg - medit8b1's advice on breath support). Rather, the thread got a bit sidetracked after a couple of posts and people started advancing theories on when to/not to tongue. It was these posts that prompted my comments.

As for your original question, I feel your pain as I went through the exact same thing with the "squawky" sounds when playing legato. Take heart in the fact that it will go away in time with practice. You'll actually reach the point where you won't be able to make the squawky sounds even if you try!

SteveB

[Whitmores75087]

Oh, we're supposed to stay on topic?

[pancelticpiper]

SquidGirl puts her finger right on something I've noticed- that tonguing each note can cover up a multitude of sins.
I came to ITM from a completely different route, that of Scottish piping. On Scottish pipes EVERYTHING IS LEGATO, every note, all the time, and beginners spend endless hours practicing all the possible tranistions from every note to every note so that every transition is absolutely clean. This requires extremely precise co-ordination of the fingers.
Then when I started going around teaching Irish flute classes I began running into people coming from a Boehm flute or recorder background who tongued every note, but when prevented from tonguing actually had pretty sloppy fingering in some cases. I myself had transitioned fairly easily from the completely legato pipes to the completely legato Irish flute and expected every note tranisiton to be fingered cleanly.
Anyhow, get the finger precision, get the breath support, learn just how much air your whistle requires for all the various notes, and your legato playing will be fine. Judicious tonguing laid upon an overall legato approach is the ticket to sound Irish.

[Bloomfield]

At the risk of sounding classically inclined, a highly disciplined musician can tongue and slur any combination of notes, i.e., articulate whatever she wants. Fiddle and box players can accent the middle of a note by increasing the bow/box pressure/speed, such as in polkas.

I think that's right. And the masters of the music do vary things to a wonderful degree without losing the beat and the lilt and the phrase. Wish I were there.

I think it's a good idea to learn to play tunes completely legato, and to get the fingers precise and the phrasing pleasant. Then add tonguing back it to the measure of your stylistic preference.

[Whitmores75087]

Question: When the same note repeats itself, how do you play that legato? Fingers?

[MTGuru]

Question: When the same note repeats itself, how do you play that legato? Fingers?

Sure, generally a cut or tap is used to separate the notes, just as a piper would do. Of course, there's no reason you can't also tongue repeated notes even in an overall legato passage, when slavish imitation of piping technique is not the goal.

[Bloomfield]

Question: When the same note repeats itself, how do you play that legato? Fingers?

Sure, generally a cut or tap is used to separate the notes, just as a piper would do. Of course, there's no reason you can't also tongue repeated notes even in an overall legato passage, when slavish imitation of piping technique is not the goal.

Yes, cuts and taps - and not tonguing is the way to get them precise and crisp.

@MTG: there's more to piping technique than that and an open style with cuts and taps sounds very different from a closed style (with or without cuts & taps).

[MTGuru]

@MTG: there's more to piping technique than that and an open style with cuts and taps sounds very different from a closed style (with or without cuts & taps).

Sure, Bloomie, agreed. I'm over-simplifying. Just making the obvious point that god gave us tongues as well as elbows.

[TWDJ]

Isn't that just the way it goes?!

Here I am minding my own business, playing only a couple of weeks, using all those techniques I learned while playing clarinet and saxaphone, feeling pretty good about myself and looking to start working on those wonderful ornaments I've heard so much about.

What's that you say? Minimal tonguing? Legato? Use the ornaments to seperate the notes you say?

OK, I can do that. How long could that take, anyway?

Answer? AAARGH!! It's like starting over! Sqeaks, squaks, finger positioning issues ... but I like the way it is going. Now it sounds more like I thought it should.

Ah, well ... 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. But I don't mind the trip as I've got a whole livetime to keep figuring it out.

Thanks much for a VERY informative post.

Cheers!

T
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[st.jamesswell]

Steve B, Carmel Gunning here. Thank you for your kind comments on my whistleplaying but I would disagree with you with the fact that you said my whistle playing was more staccato. My style is a personal style, based on the Sligo style of playing. Sligo style is a legato style but what I do is - i just tongue on the ornamentation.

[FJohnSharp]

I love when these old thread resurface.

[ten or more]

Squidgirl identified a problem back in June of 07 which is thing is one of my main challenges to playing better. She said:

"I noticed that there's too much kind of accidental "sliding" between notes, where, as you said, my fingers aren't "snappy" enough in their shifts."

I tend to slur too much, especially when playing subsequent notes, runs, etc. My approach is to play scales or songs relatively slowly and try to concentrate on snapping my fingers down and removing them quickly.

Is that the best way to approach it and are there better exercises? I'm sure there are other issues (like putting down two fingers not simultaneously and breath control). I'd love to play with the crispness without tonguing that some people manage.

[squidgirl]

It's funny, I was just thinking about looking up this thread, but I hadn't realized how long ago I posted it (time flies when you're middle aged!).

I'm glad to report that in the intervening year & a half, I have successfully conquered the problem of that horrible warbly legato playing. Predictably enough, factors that helped included:

Going cold-turkey on the tonguing
Learning to keep rhythm with my fingers instead of my tongue
Crispening up on my cuts & rolls
Working on breath support via those long, steady low notes (I used my tuner to help keep them steady)
Working on breath control by playing tunes with leaps between the octaves

I'm at the point now of figuring out where to start adding the tonguing back in. I'm mostly (but not always) tonguing the beginnings of phrases, and it seems to me now that on question of tonguing on downbeats or upbeats or other off-beats really depends on the phrase in question -- some start out on the upbeat (ta-Diddle-dee...), some right on the downbeat (Diddle-dee...), some can go either way (adding variety to repeats of the tune), and then there's also the thing where you drive on through the end of one phrase right into emphasizing the opening note of the next phrase, than catch a breath before finishing off the second phrase.

My problem is now that I seem to associate tonguing with taking a breath, rather than just phrasing, so it's hard for me to think "I'm going to tongue right here" without also trying to sneak in a mini-breath.

So where else would one tongue rather than the beginnings of phrases? To emphasize ornaments... And how about in those runs of 3-note-patterns, usually in the second half of jigs, where you go "La-di-da, La-di-da, La-di-da" climbing up with each repeat? I could see tonguing those the way I've capitalized them...

(we need a can-o-worms smiley)

[benhall.1]

Have a look at what Brother Steve says about tonguing in jigs:

http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/b ... jigsI.html

He's talking about how to articulate repeated notes, but goes on to say that this pattern of tonguing works well in jig rhythm in any case. It would interpret as something like Ya putty-ya putty-ya putty-ya putty. I think it's more idiomatic than putting the tonguing on the first of each group of three. Not to be over-used, mind!

(Also, a disclaimer: I know a lot of tunes and stuff from fiddling, but, at 2 years in, having dabbled and then not touched a whistle for about 30 years before taking it back up the year before last, I count myself as a beginner whistler.)

[Ceili_whistle_man]

chas wrote;

First is play with your breath perfectly even -- you really can't do this on the whistle, but try to give the whistle as even an amount of breath as possible.

'You really can't do this on whistel' why would this be so?
I would say the opposite, 'You really can do this on the whistle'.

medit8b1's breathing advice is top notch, it is a singing exercise and we use our lungs just like singers, so it is a very good regular exercise to carry out.
One bad habit I noticed from pupils, when teaching whistle, is the very bad posture when trying to play. Looking down at the floor, shoulders slouched, and breathing shallow are a recipe for disaster. I get them to stand up, look almost straight into my eyes, take a deep breath to completely fill the lungs, and then get them to play a slow ascending and descending D scale, legato. I usually find that by the time they have gotten to middle D and are coming down the scale their eyes are wide open and they are nodding at me, realising the difference this makes.

Squidgirl, if you are interested, I can post up a few sound clips of phrasing a tune, where to breath in a tune etc, on the 'net, or send them to you.