TWP - Tin Whistle Portable

I realized one thing today: the whistle "portability" is a great thing! More than once I've played it in my car, when I'm waiting for something or someone. Something that would be a bit difficult (to say the least) with my bass guitar :P (I even thought of playing in the traffic jam, but I quited that idea...maybe someday, heheheh)

As for the flute, today I just stared at it, little to no time this week to give some attention to my new hobbie, unfortunatly.

On the weekend I expect to post a video of me playing something in the Whistle, just for you people to have something to laugh at :P

Cheers!

The flute and the breathless whistler

Today I picked up my Irish Flute...and I'm gasping for air! The damn thing is hard to blow into, and I still didn't manage to make it sound like it should, except for some accidental notes :)

As for the whistle I can already play "Down by the Sally Gardens" from begining to end. Tomorow I'll start working and learning some embelishments.

Not much for today, I know.

Cheers, and thank you for following the blog (or by accidentaly passing by).

A weekend day

Another day of little to no whistling, its harder when everybody's home! People just don't understand music! (or maybe I still suck a lot playing, hehehe)

Anyway I'm still around with scales and "Down by the Sally Gardens".

Meanwhile I leave you with some nice videos from amateur whistlers/flute players:

Ryan's / Farewell To Whalley Range / The Ashplant (Irish Flute + Tin Whistle + Guitar)

Road to Lisdoonvarna / Swallowtail jig (Tin Whistle + Guitar)

That's it for today, tomorow I'll probably get my flute and practise a bit

more on the Whistle.

Cheers!

Concerning the blog

Despite knowing a bit about webdesign I decided to keep the blog simple and easy to read.

For those who will (eventually :P ) follow it, you'll notice that I might make some small changes, the last one be it having ads from Google. I decided to put them because they usualy have good ads for whistles and flute shops, I'm not honestly expecting to earn real money with this. I'm not sure I'll keep them anyway, time will tell.

Cheers!

Second day: a no-whistling day

And at the second day the whistler didn't whistle.

Yes, in spite of wanting to have a couple of minutes to play a tune and some scales, yesterday I couldn't. Still I made some home-work and studied a bit of musical theory in how to read sheets.

I'll keep practising scales, and simple songs. I can play half of "Down by the Sally Gardens" by now, with some degree of quality, but still with no embelishments. Off course I still need a lot of practise.

In a great forum ( Chiff and Fipple ), which I forgot to mention in the previous post, I got some comments about the song "Suo-Gân", which sheet came with my whistle, and which I didn't really knew. After checking it out I know I'll surely give it a try!

Today is a new day, and I'll manage to find some moments to practise and feel the magic. Yes, you all might think I'm exagerating, but since this whistle thing I feel happier, and motivated for something (cause work really sucks :P )

Have a nice weekend!

Cheers! 

P.S: Don't forget to turn your lights out for an hour today at 20:30 (8:30pm), don't know if you heard it, but it's Earth Hour. Check it out on www.earthhour.org, it's a good hour to play the whistle and the flute and show the world that there are beautiful and good things to do without killing the planet.

The first day

So today I finaly picked up my Tin Whistle! :D It comes packed In a neat box, and brings a small sheet with four tunes "Suo-Gân" (Welsh Lullaby), "It's Raining", "Counting Song" and "Old MacDonald". The Whistle itself looks great, and it's pretty easy to handle. I guess it's the same as a Sweetone, but with a celtic knot printed.

About the flute, it will probably get here tomorow, but for now I'm in love with the little guy! It's just great!

I started with some scales, mainly D because it's the most used anyway. So this doesn't get boring, between scales I tried to play some very simple tunes, and guess what? I did it! I am surely a prodigal son of the Whistle! Yes because the crazy, speedy,hard tune I played was nothing more and nothing less than... "Old MacDonald" :DDDD Yes, I know I am a genius!

I was about to play "Ride of the Valkyries" by Wagner but then I thought "what the hell, let me stick to the difficult ones" and there I go play "Old MacDonald".

I'm pretty happy with this whistle, it's really easy to play, and I guess that by playing one hour a day (or so), you can learn new tunes pretty quickly. There will always be a margin to progress off course, but I think that being able to play someting that you can call music (like "Old MacDonald" :P ) in the first hour of play, is a motivation. And for me a much moralizing route to take than the one for a string instrument for example.

Well, I'm off for now, back to the Whistle!!! (At least until someone tells me to shut up...which might be soon enough!!!)

Cheers!

Good news, bad news... and links!

Ok, so today I arrive from work and what do I have in my mailbox? A post office ticket so I could get my whistle! So far so good... but unfortunatly I wasn't able to pick it up! :(

So tonight is the frustration of knowing it is so close, and the antecipation of knowing i'll have it tomorow! :D

I was going to post some sites that I am checking for Whistle and Flutes tomorow, but I said it would be in "the next post" so here it goes:

Great site to start with: www.whistletutor.com , it has free lessons, tips, and a forum which is growing. Register and be a part of it (the master of the place is Sean, a guy that is willing to help whistlers to start and develop their skills).

The Whistle I bought was a Clarke's  "Celtic Tinwhistle" for £9,65 (11€) at www.clarke-tin-whistle.com , my choice because I wanted one made in the UK or Ireland, where I consider the heart of Celtic music is. They have free shipping worldwide too.

The Irish Flute was a Tony Dixon's "Polymer Tenor Flute" for £24 + £8 shipping (35€) at www.tonydixonmusic.co.uk , I chose this one because Irish Flutes are expensive, and I didn't want to spend that much for a start. This one was the cheapeast and I read good things about it.

For now it's all, really hope I'll have readers one day...

A New bard in town...

Hello there, and welcome to The Whistler Bard Blog!

I'm a newcomer to playing the Tin Whistle and the Irish flute, and i decided to make this blog as a way to post my progress concerning the learning of these two instruments.

I play electric bass (not too well, honestly), but i wanted to move to something simpler, easier to carry and that i could practice and play everywere...since i love Celtic music, what better to start than the whistle? About the flute i just love the sound, and since it's pretty similar to the whistle, i though i should give it a try too.

For me it's a new world, no hard-cases that don't fit the trunk of my car, no cables, no amps weighting a ton... Let's see how i'll manage!

So i searched the net for whistles, saw videos, read articles and i finaly bought a Tin Whistle and an Irish flute. This all happened in a couple of days, and i'm still anxiously waiting for them in my mail box. After that being done, i decided to learn how to read music sheets. First of all it's a thing i wanted to learn since a long time ago, just never tried really hard. Second of all is that most of the songs for the whistle are in that format, so if i want to try it, i should know how to read the sheets.

For the first post this is huge, and i sincerely doubt anyone will ever see it, but anyway... next post i'll give you some sites to start from if you want to learn the whistle and flute magic.

Cheers!