Typical newbie....

[BoscoBear]

That, would be me.

Ok, every time I've tried to run a search for existing threads on my upcoming question I get a proxy error, not sure if it's due to my PC's habit of developing an attitude or if the search function on the site is experiencing issues - Either way, I am hoping you good people will take pity on an ABSOLUTE newbie and help with some tunes/songs for me -

Here is what I'm looking for - I want them to be fun to play, but the sad sad sad truth is that I'm looking for ULTRA simple tunes - Call me what you will, personally, I prefer "Lazy" - hehe - no seriously, there is a madness to my method.....errr, vice versa even......I'd like to have a few "success stories" under my belt before venturing onto more difficult pieces -

Anyone out there willing to give me a list of SUPER SUPER easy tunes to play on the D whistle? I would really appreciate it -

[vomitbunny]

If you've never played anything befor, a good place to start would be a tutorial of some kind. There is one at the whistle shop, very briefly. http://www.thewhistleshop.com/beginners/tutor/tutor.htm
There are others as well I believe.
And then you could or probably get a book. This one is recomended by many.
http://www.thewhistleshop.com/catalog/s ... clarke.htm
And there are other books besides that one as well.
Now if you have played some kind of musical instrument befor and arn't afraid of jumping right in without looking both ways, you could go to the clips and snips archive and listen to some tunes, and pick out the ones that interest you. http://www.tinwhistletunes.com/clipssnip/
And then go to jc's abc tune finder
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/FindTune.html
That would be one way to do it.
Or go to Mick's virtual whistle and listen to the tunes, and the sheet music link is on the page with them.http://www.fingertrip.net This was sorta the path I followed, but I had a fair amount of experience on wind instruments befor hand.

Just my opinion.

[BillChin]

Tunes are easier to learn if you already know the melody in your head. Given that, children's tunes are good choices for tunes to teach absolute new players in one short sitting. Here are a few:

Twinkle, twinkle little star
London Bridge is Falling Down
Hot Cross Buns

A step up would be tunes such as:
Amazing Grace
Greensleeves
Most Christmas tunes are instantly recognizable and many are easy to learn.

Someone else posted this list, many moons bacK:
Jigs: 10 penny bit, My darling asleep, Trip to Killavil
Reels: Cooley's, Pidgeon on the gate, (I think Drowsy Maggie is a hard.)
Hornpipes: Off to California
Slow Airs: Blind Mary, Foggy Dew, Eamonn aCnoic, Carricfergus
--
From a thread in 2003 I compiled this long list of "easy cover songs"
All Through the Night
Amazing Grace
Auld Lang Syne
Danny Boy
Foggy Dew

Gift of a Thistle (love theme in Brave Heart)
Greensleeves (and many other Christmas time tunes)
I Can't Help Falling in Love with You
Loch Lomond
Lord of the Rings song (hobbit song?)

Molly Halpin
Minstrel Boy
North Country Blues (Bob Dylan)
Ode to Joy
Rakes of Mallow (Theme of John Waynes Irish movie the Quiet Man)

Sally Gardens
Scarborough Fair
Simple Gifts
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Star of County Down.

Streets of Laredo
Texas Playboys (and various other Al Jolson tunes)
The Star Spangled Banner
Wild Mountain Thyme

Some of these can be found at:
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/findtune
http://members.aol.com/kitchiegal/kmmusic4.html

If there are multiple listings, key of G seems to work better for me on the whistle.

[FJohnSharp]

Good suggestions Bill.

The first tunes I learned form my teacher were

Dawning of the Day
Star of the County Down
Egan's Polka
Rattlin Bog
Anything for John Joe (worlds easiest reel)

[TomB]

Also, many moons ago there was a thread on "one octave" tunes. I'm assuming that at least some of those would fall into the easy category, but hey, I'm not expert- hell, I'm not even a novice.


All the Best, Tom

[BoscoBear]

Thank you all for the input/advice -

As for tutorials, I did just receive Bill Och's tutorial which seems to be working well for me, but I'm starting to get that "itch" to play more - I even find myself taking my lunch break outside so I can play - All I'm good at is Amazing Grace (good to my standards........is it bad that birds tend to fall out of the sky when I play?? That's normal, right?? lol)

[ChrisA]

Thank you all for the input/advice -

As for tutorials, I did just receive Bill Och's tutorial which seems to be working well for me, but I'm starting to get that "itch" to play more - I even find myself taking my lunch break outside so I can play - All I'm good at is Amazing Grace (good to my standards........is it bad that birds tend to fall out of the sky when I play?? That's normal, right?? lol)

Actually, you can, to some extent, 'talk' to the birds with the whistle. It works better in actual woods, but you can try repeating their calls back to them, and they might answer. (Of course, I think what they answer is, 'Huh? What'd you say? You sure do talk funny...' ...)

'course they make those funny little whistles for doing bird calls which would probably be more effective, but you'd be hard pressed to play the Maid Behind the Bar on one of -those-!

[Jack]

In the old days, newbies used to always be told to run a search if they wanted answers to common questions.

Now, though, the search function is not very useful because we have so many threads. It's nigh impossible to find more commonly asked questions.

I think it would be good to delete many of the older threads or to start a FAQ.

Since the creation of the OT forum, this board is no longer postructural anyway.

[Flyingcursor]

I got told to search the forum. Too many hits to sift through. Besides, since the board separated why not answer the questions outright?

[happyturkeyman]

wayfaring stranger