Little Love for Piper's Grip?

[MTGuru]

But on the Low D Whistle I've been using the middle-joint pads of my index and middle fingers but the endjoint pad of my ring finger. So, both on pipes and Low D Whistle, the index and middle fingers use the middle-joint pad and the lowest finger uses the end-joint pad. Hmmm...

Yep, I think of the basic piper's grip algorithm as: bottom pad on the bottom hole, then rotate the hand around that pivot to place the other fingers in position. If you apply this with an imaginary B4 hole on whistle, in imitation of pipes, you get the "alternative" grip.

[hans]

It simply strikes me as odd, that a technique that is so universally accepted as a part of low whistle playing, should be avoided, by some.

Yes indeed it's strange that people going onto the Low Whistle are resistant to this grip, whereas everyone learning uilleann pipes and Highland pipes and Bulgarian pipes etc etc as well as Bulgarian kaval and many other traditional flutes take this grip for granted.

Heck I see quite a few jazz trumpet players using it! That is, using the middle pads of the fingers rather than the end pads.

I don't understand what is so strange about if someone attempts to cover the tone holes with the pads of the first phalanges. After all we are very sensitive in our finger tips, and can feel tone holes much better than with the middle phalanges. It is sort of natural to try to cover the holes with the tips, not strange at all. At least if you try to teach yourself, or come from a background of having played a recorder or flute.

I personally try to avoid piper's hold on whistles if I can help it, because I have more feeling and dexterity in my finger tips, and I am used to feeling the holes with them. I even finger my B bansuri with my tips, against all tradition. Maybe it shows I never had a teacher.

I find it quite difficult to half hole for instance for Fnat using the middle finger pads: I would need to shift the pad sideways, whereas using the end pad I pull the finger in a bit to half cover the fifth hole. It seems for successful piper's hold you need some personal tuition, it is not coming that naturally.

~Hans

[markbell]

I like "Piper's Grip", and use it on anything from about a Bb whistle on down.

Mark

[A-Musing]

Years ago, in the last century, I tried to play my first low whistle with the fingertips.
Felt like a camel, trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle.
Ouch.
A kind soul, Mr Brown, @ the Mendocino Lark in the Morning, initiated me into the Obvious.
Piper's Grip. Eureka.
My whistling life was instantly transformed...into all these many years of enjoyment.

These days, I happily murmur along on the biggest, lowest whistles my Piper's Grip will allow. (Ring-finger tips used...both hands. To each, their own.)

Embrace the (what may be for you) inevitable. It's an ancient and worldwide tube-with-holes accommodation.

[Feadoggie]

I personally try to avoid piper's hold on whistles if I can help it, because I have more feeling and dexterity in my finger tips, and I am used to feeling the holes with them. I even finger my B bansuri with my tips, against all tradition. Maybe it shows I never had a teacher.

I find it quite difficult to half hole for instance for Fnat using the middle finger pads: I would need to shift the pad sideways, whereas using the end pad I pull the finger in a bit to half cover the fifth hole. It seems for successful piper's hold you need some personal tuition, it is not coming that naturally.

Hans, your post is a good one and I think what you describe is shared by many players. I appreciate your thoughts on the subject. I too played flute, high whistle and recorder (ducks, to avoid vegetables! ) for many years before coming to the low whistle. So, of course, I used the pad of the first finger joint to cover my tone holes. I was used to playing within that box or frame of reference. Our experiences with low whistles seem to be a little different, as I suspect are the size of our hands.

I struggled to play my lower pitched bamboo flutes (made some fellow in Virginia) for years using the traditional first finger pad approach and a classical grip (darn that Boehm fellow!). I do not have large hands. I bought a few low whistles as they came into the market and had the same issues as the bamboo flutes. Somehow I stumbled onto using what I now know as the piper's grip and it opened up a lot of possibilities. I was free at last. I could play those bamboo flutes now too. It took a couple of weeks to get up to speed but the effort was not particularly difficult. Sliding into and out of notes is not hard nor is half-holing. Feeling the holes with the second pad is no different than it is with the first pad, you just need to make yourself more aware. I do see players, men particularly, that have no issues stretching to play a low whistle with their finger tips. With the smallish size of my hands I really had no other good option to play low pitched simple flutes comfortably. I just had to get out of that box. Like all things it just takes some practice.

I make whistles and have placed quite a few into the hands of other players. I frequently marvel at the variation in size and shape of the fingers of individual musicians. Some are short and thick and others are long and slender. What works for one player may not always work for another. Piper's grip is an option for some hands and the only way for others to play some instruments. I am one of those that find no reason to avoid or even fear the piper's grip.

I want to thank my friend Byll for bringing this thread to life.

Feadoggie

[Byll]

Always at your service, Sir.
Best.
Byll

[WyoBadger]

OK, since I was (I think) an originator of one of the threads in question, I shall offer a dissenting opinion with the opening few posts.

My comments/questions about the pipers grip were not disparaging toward the grip at all, only toward my ability to do it easily and well. There is, of course, a difference.

I certainly agree that the pipers grip is needed for most low whistles, and that it is worth learning. Lots of you could whistle circles around me, and I've never been averse to taking good advice. I am, however, a bit put off by someone, no matter how expert, telling me that something is not difficult.

Trust me: It is difficult for some of us. It is not for anyone else to tell me it is not, or that the difference is some sort of musical hypochondria. Please.

I believe Hans has it. The difficulty, I believe, is not psychological but sensory. My fingertips are fairly sensitive, and I am able to feel, without even thinking about it, that my fingers are in the right spots. The second joints of my fingers are much less sensitive, and I am unable to feel the holes at all. Thus with the pipers grip I have to go strictly by sound and muscle memory, a much more tedious and exhausting and much less satisfying process. Add to this that my fingers are already trained by several years of high/medium whistle playing, and I was squawking about as many notes as I was nailing with my right hand.

Difficult? You bet. Impossible? Heck no. Worth it? Of course. In fact, it has forced me to slow down and work on detail work, which is never a bad thing, and even my high whistle playing is better for it.

After a month or so of work pursuing the excellent, productive advice given in a previous thread on the topic, I am finally starting to get the hang of it. So, thanks everyone for that!

Just remember that what comes easy and natural for some might not for everyone.

Thanks--
TW

[talasiga]

......
I personally try to avoid piper's hold on whistles if I can help it, because I have more feeling and dexterity in my finger tips, and I am used to feeling the holes with them. I even finger my B bansuri with my tips, against all tradition. Maybe it shows I never had a teacher.
.......

No, it just shows that you haven't been paying attention to my bansi_links topic because in there I clearly spell out (with reference) that
THERE ARE DIFFERENT GRIPS IN CLASSICAL AND FOLK BANSURI TRADITIONS.

For instance the grandmaster of classical bansuri tradition, Pandit Pannalal Ghosh,
the generation of maestros before Hariprasad's generation, USED FINGER TIPS.
He spread his hands as for a piper's grip but after that arched his fingers for tip touch.
Everyone from the Ghosh lineage is into finger tip.

(I can't handle that way even though Pannalal is my favourite bansuri player but then, for me, its more about his music as in thematic development and composition than about a technique.)

So Hans, if you can tip touch your bellnote B bansuri tone holes you may look into the Pannalal lineage for tuition. Lyon Leiffer, a famous American Boehm flautist and also bansuri master is trained in that lineage.

[MacNeil]

And if some of you thought my preceding post was going to go something like this:-

I have never owned a Clarke Tinwhistle.
Someone wrote their phone number on a Clarke info sheet
and gave me their phone number that way.
I was tidying a drawer this morning and found it.
It says,

phone: 02 9XXX XXXX

you must think me sillier than I am ....

No, I thought it was going to say:

I have never owned a Clarke Tinwhistle.
Someone wrote their phone number on a Clarke info sheet
and gave me their phone number that way.
I was tidying a drawer this morning and found it.
It says,

867-5309

[hans]

For instance the grandmaster of classical bansuri tradition, Pandit Pannalal Ghosh,
the generation of maestros before Hariprasad's generation, USED FINGER TIPS.
He spread his hands as for a piper's grip but after that arched his fingers for tip touch.
Everyone from the Ghosh lineage is into finger tip.

Thanks! Pannalal Ghosh's favourite bansuri had a Bb bell note (Sa==Eb), so he must have had a big span to cover it with the tips.

But we better discuss this further under the bansi links topic.

[pancelticpiper]

It is sort of natural to try to cover the holes with the tips, not strange at all. At least if you try to teach yourself, or come from a background of having played a recorder or flute.

I personally try to avoid piper's hold on whistles if I can help it, because I have more feeling and dexterity in my finger tips, and I am used to feeling the holes with them.
~Hans

I'm the opposite: coming from pipes the piper's grip is what comes naturally.
Beginning pipers do try to use their fingertips IF they have previous background on recorder or clarinet or whatever.
Untutored beginning fluteplayers in Ireland often use the piper's grip.

[WyoBadger]

I'm the opposite: coming from pipes the piper's grip is what comes naturally.

Well, see, that's cheating.

Are the holes on the Irish flute spaced more closely than those of the low whistle, or does the transverse hand placement make a difference? I would think a D flute would require pipers' grip as well, but it doesn't. Of course, the C (boehm) flute uses the fingertips, but I have no idea why this is possible. Interesting. I'll have to get out a ruler and do some measurements when I get to school.

[Denny]

the touches, on the Boehm, are nowhere near the holes that are opened/closed by the touch

[hans]

Are the holes on the Irish flute spaced more closely than those of the low whistle, or does the transverse hand placement make a difference?

The holes are spaced more closely on a D six-hole conical bore flute than on a low D whistle, because of the conical bore. There is no difference to the whistle if the flute has a cylindrical bore, like the whistle has (or most whistles have).

The transverse position makes it easier too to finger a six hole flute.

the touches, on the Boehm, are nowhere near the holes that are opened/closed by the touch

well, that is cheating too!

[Denny]

Germans.....I'd blame it on Germans

over engineered, innit!