learning tin-whistle

[delias]

You guys could probably help me out with this more than anyone else. I'm trying to find the notes to Dark Streets of London. I tried doing it by ear, but I'm too much of a novice, and it's buried underneath too many other instruments in the song.

[Pyro]

I got my delivery from Feadog Monday afternoon. Four evenings of practice later, my wife wants to castrate me. She went from very supportive to irate in a matter of hours. Even my kids were a bit bullshit by 9PM, last night.
The double tonguing is a bitch. Basic tunes are pretty simple but the quick stuff like Drunken Sailor are near impossible.
It's by far one of the better purchases I've made since I bought my house. Thanks to all on this thread who helped influence me on this purchase.
Gracias!!!

Well, Féadogs are notorious for their special abilities. Almost everyone I know hated them, put them into drawer and was learning on something else. After a year, he found out that the Féadog improved drastically and sounded great

So you (and NYPiper) can try to get something else...in my opinion, Clarke Sweetone is kind of good, and Dixon trad is very good for starting, they´re on the quiet side, with not much breath control necessary.

To matter of tonguing - actually, people mostly use it sparely, and even less frequently as double/triple tonguing. The only whistler who´s very well known for tonguing style is Brian Finnegan from the Flook, but most players tend to stick to ornamentation (cuts, taps, rolls, sometimes crans), with occasional tonguing to emphasize certain aspects of a tune. And if you double-or triple tongue, it´s good not to do t-t or t-t-t, but insteat t-d, or t-d-t. Try pronouncing t-t-t-t... several times (loudly) and then d-d-d-d-...You should notice where your tongue is - and you´ll see the difference. And most tonguers recommend, if you want to double/triple tongue, it´s good to combine t and d tonguing.

And to matter of choice of tunes - just play stuff you like, and primarily, you know how it sounds. It´s much easier to pick a tune by ear, if you know it very well.




Delias: Well, as far as I know, notes are nowhere on the internet. It´s not easily playable on D whistle though, you should pick F or C whistle - an advice I can give you is - it starts with F note You´ll catch up eventually.

[IrishRover]

oi have a D Féadog.. never really troied to play oit foir real, ois oit hard to foind tabs/choirds etc?

[Aslak]

Check out this site, best tab-site for whistles on the internet, probably. They also got tabs for all keys:

http://sniff.numachi.com/

[MacKastberg]

im thinking of following inthe footsteps of the legend that is spider stacy and taking up the tin whistle any advice from the man himself.

I started playing last spring and it's a whole lot o' fun! Tried out the instruction cd that followed my flute, but it didn't sound like i want it to do. I can't read music anyway. Spider told me to just practice and listen to lot's of free jazz. I'm used to the guitar so this is something else, but i like it!

[shortbus]

Does anyone know in which tunes Spider uses a C whistle and which one he uses a D whistle?

Thanks.

[shortbus]

You guys could probably help me out with this more than anyone else. I'm trying to find the notes to Dark Streets of London. I tried doing it by ear, but I'm too much of a novice, and it's buried underneath too many other instruments in the song.

99% sure Spider used an F whistle on this tune.

[spider stacy]

Yeah, that's an F. i use both D & C whistles in a pogues set.

[shortbus]

Yeah, that's an F. i use both D & C whistles in a pogues set.

Thanks Spider!

[AndrewOG]

I got my delivery from Feadog Monday afternoon. Four evenings of practice later, my wife wants to castrate me. She went from very supportive to irate in a matter of hours. Even my kids were a bit bullshit by 9PM, last night.
The double tonguing is a bitch. Basic tunes are pretty simple but the quick stuff like Drunken Sailor are near impossible.
It's by far one of the better purchases I've made since I bought my house. Thanks to all on this thread who helped influence me on this purchase.
Gracias!!!

i bought a tin whistle when I was in Ireland 5 or 6 years ago. I was very excited. Every irish person who I talked to about it was like, "oh yeah...we used to play that when we were 6 years old." Which kind of took the wind out my sails.

[shortbus]

I got my delivery from Feadog Monday afternoon. Four evenings of practice later, my wife wants to castrate me. She went from very supportive to irate in a matter of hours. Even my kids were a bit bullshit by 9PM, last night.
The double tonguing is a bitch. Basic tunes are pretty simple but the quick stuff like Drunken Sailor are near impossible.
It's by far one of the better purchases I've made since I bought my house. Thanks to all on this thread who helped influence me on this purchase.
Gracias!!!

i bought a tin whistle when I was in Ireland 5 or 6 years ago. I was very excited. Every irish person who I talked to about it was like, "oh yeah...we used to play that when we were 6 years old." Which kind of took the wind out my sails.

don't let it phase you. From what I gather, the tin whistle is the equivalent of the recorder here in the US: the most common gradeschool music teaching device.

[philipchevron]

I got my delivery from Feadog Monday afternoon. Four evenings of practice later, my wife wants to castrate me. She went from very supportive to irate in a matter of hours. Even my kids were a bit bullshit by 9PM, last night.
The double tonguing is a bitch. Basic tunes are pretty simple but the quick stuff like Drunken Sailor are near impossible.
It's by far one of the better purchases I've made since I bought my house. Thanks to all on this thread who helped influence me on this purchase.
Gracias!!!

i bought a tin whistle when I was in Ireland 5 or 6 years ago. I was very excited. Every irish person who I talked to about it was like, "oh yeah...we used to play that when we were 6 years old." Which kind of took the wind out my sails.

They didn't mention how badly they played it when they were 6 years old, I'm guessing.

[AndrewOG]

I got my delivery from Feadog Monday afternoon. Four evenings of practice later, my wife wants to castrate me. She went from very supportive to irate in a matter of hours. Even my kids were a bit bullshit by 9PM, last night.
The double tonguing is a bitch. Basic tunes are pretty simple but the quick stuff like Drunken Sailor are near impossible.
It's by far one of the better purchases I've made since I bought my house. Thanks to all on this thread who helped influence me on this purchase.
Gracias!!!

i bought a tin whistle when I was in Ireland 5 or 6 years ago. I was very excited. Every irish person who I talked to about it was like, "oh yeah...we used to play that when we were 6 years old." Which kind of took the wind out my sails.

They didn't mention how badly they played it when they were 6 years old, I'm guessing.

Actually they picked it up for the first time after 25 years and played something that blew away "Molly Malone" which I had just mastered. Hah.

[AndrewOG]

don't let it phase you. From what I gather, the tin whistle is the equivalent of the recorder here in the US: the most common gradeschool music teaching device.

Speaking of which, are there any serious musicians that use a recorder? Because I'm not sure that anyone here in the U.S. takes the recorder seriously.

[philipchevron]

don't let it phase you. From what I gather, the tin whistle is the equivalent of the recorder here in the US: the most common gradeschool music teaching device.

Speaking of which, are there any serious musicians that use a recorder? Because I'm not sure that anyone here in the U.S. takes the recorder seriously.

Not that I would necessarily accept the designation "serious musician", but in one of my own teenage bands, Aisling, I experimented with using a recorder where, more usually, one might expect to hear a tin whistle. It worked but rarely. The whistle has a shrill persistence the recorder lacks.

Tony Visconti, Brooklyn-born musician (David Bowie's pre-Spiders band The Hype) and producer (Bowie, Bolan, Radiators, Thin Lizzy, Morrissey etc) made himself something of a recorder specialist in late 1960s London when he was orchestrating records for Denny Cordell's stable and others. There is even some recorder on Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World (1971).