Irish vs Scottish whistle style

[AaronMalcomb]

Thanks for your comments, Kenny. I play highland pipes as well as flute and whistle. The fingering for pipes and whistle is similar. If the tunes don't have low G in them I can finger tunes more-or-less the same. But a lot of great tunes have lots of low G and need to be played note-for-note. The other pipers I know who play whistle generally don't co-mingle repertoires. I'm curious as to how you play pipe tunes on whistle.

For strathspeys, here's a sample of a tune played as a strathspey then a reel. It's not on whistle but it's more fore iddiom's sake.

Strathspey and Reel

Cheers,
Aaron

[Entropy]

Another Scottish favourite are 'Silly Wizard' some of the whistle playing on their album 'Wild and Beautiful' is literally beautiful. I don't know if it's available on CD though?

It is. I just order The Best of Silly Wizard from Amazon a few weeks ago.

[kenny]

Thank you all for the kind words. Here's a few quick comments - I probably won't have time for any tomorrow.
1 - Agreed, "Ossian" were one of the top Scottish traditional bands ever, and I recommend their recordings to anyone who hasn't heard them. Strange as it may seem, I learned a lot of pipe tunes from their guitarist Tony Cuffe, who was a good friend. The Jackson brothers, Billy and George, who mainly played whistle had Irish influences as their family came from Gweedore in Donegal, but they put that to good use in their playing of Scottish music. Listen to "Duncan Johnstone / The Duck / The Curlew". Scottish music doesn't get any better than that. And I unreservedly recommend Ian Green and Greentrax as a source for Scottish music recordings.
2 - I'm not technologically that "savvy" yet to put recordings on the internet. but I will send tape or mini-discs to anyone contacting me through this site, although it may take a while.
3 - Aaron - the way to play pipe tunes along with pipes in Bb is to use an Eb whistle, not a Bb. You only have 1 octave plus 1 low note to play. Your top note is : xx0000 [ = a , upper octave, on a D whistle ] , drop down the scale to xx0000 [ = A , lower octave, ] and your lowest note is xxx000 [ G, on a D whistle ]. That gives you the 9 notes, with the Cs and Fs sharp and the G natural. Sorted! Same applies to flute. Pipers in Scotland who play "small-pipes" or any of the varieties of bellows-blown pipes have them pitched in A to play along with concert-pitch instruments.
4 - My brother will be delighted to hear that "Silly Wizard's" CDs are still popular, but whether or not he'll ever see royalties, who knows?

[jb]

Hi Kenny, I've really enjoyed your input on this subject. You might remember me as the "dulcimer player with Setanta", but recently I've been getting right into the low whistle. How about giving us a recommended list of pipe tunes suitable for whistle, to work on.

Jack

[Colin]

Thanks for your comments, Kenny. I play highland pipes as well as flute and whistle. The fingering for pipes and whistle is similar. If the tunes don't have low G in them I can finger tunes more-or-less the same. But a lot of great tunes have lots of low G and need to be played note-for-note. Cheers,
Aaron

Aaron,
remember, there are a lot of great Scottish tunes in the GHB
repertoire that are not originally pipe tunes and would not have included
the low G's you refer to. They have been adapted to the nine note
chanter scale, thus it would be perfectly OK to reverse the process and
remove a number of those low G's to adapt the tune to a whistle. It's just
an ongoing part of a dynamic folk tradition. I have a set of SSP's with a
keyed chanter precisely for the reason of playing the full melodic range of
Scottish folk songs.

Cheers,

Colin

[Colin]

remember, there are a lot of great Scottish tunes in the GHB
repertoire that are not originally pipe tunes and would not have included
the low G's you refer to. They have been adapted to the nine note
chanter scale, thus it would be perfectly OK to reverse the process and
remove a number of those low G's to adapt the tune to a whistle. It's just
an ongoing part of a dynamic folk tradition. I have a set of SSP's with a
keyed chanter precisely for the reason of playing the full melodic range of
Scottish folk songs.
Cheers,
Colin

... for sake of clarification, the low G's being referred to on the Highland
pipe chanter would be referred to as low C naturals by whistle players.

Colin

[Cynth]

Aaron, your strathspey and reel demo was really great.

Looks like I'll be ordering some CD's.

Kenny---You probably already know about this website, but they have instructions for how to make an MP3 file to email to them---they say they will help you. If it were me, I would never get around to it---just the word MP3 made me turn around---but just in case you have time or interest:

http://www.tinwhistletunes.com/clipssnip/index.htm

How about you other folks? Put some tunes up there and let us beginners know when you do.

[chattiekathy]

Here is a link about ITrad vs Scottish in the C&F ITrad forum that might interest some of you
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php ... t=scottish

Cheers,
Kathy

[AaronMalcomb]

Thanks, Kenny. I've been doing the Eb whistle thing. I just hoped there was a way to avoid completely relearning a tune.

I'm glad you enjoyed the sample, Cynth. I had posted it on Tinwhistle Tunes (aka Clips & Snips) a while ago when discussing the orgins of the song "Wild Mountain Thyme." Apparently the lyrics were written to that melody by uilleann piper and singer Frances McPeake.

I know about those GHB tunes of other origin, Colin. Like I said above, I was just hoping for a shortcut.

Cheers,
Aaron

[Mandolin Miscreant]

Hi Cynth,

Excuse the typo, it should read 'teaching grandma to suck eggs' which basically means 'teaching something to somebody that they already know' It may be a local expression and I didn't think of my audience!

And the explanation is so lengthy it probably explains why I didn't get the job as lexicographer with the Oxford dictionary!

Hope the whistle playing's going well!

Mando

P.S. check out Ossian's 'Carrying Stream' - methinks it's a stunning piece of work! An acquired taste perhaps, but stunning nontheless!

[Cynth]

mando---
Oh dear. I think anyone with a whit of sense would have figured out that you meant "suck". Okay, it makes perfect sense now. Although I must admit I haven't actually heard that one before.

Whistle playing going so-so, but having a very interesting time here I must say. Will definitely check out that tune.

[brianholton]

At last, something I can talk about here.

In the '70s I learned a lot from listening to Jimmy Greenan and Cathal O'Connell in Sandy Bell's Bar in Edinburgh, when Tony Cuffe and I were both trying to figure out a way of playing Scottish tunes on the whistle. After that I didn't learn to play the pipes, but I did talk to GHB pipers and listened to how they used grace notes. And then in the '80s, I played for a year or two with Sean O'Rourke (Alba, JSD Band etc.) and learned a lot from his lovely Irish-style flute technique.

Coming from the Borders, I found Billy Pigg's Northumbrian pipes a great inspiration - wild and very controlled at the same time, with lots of cuts, taps and trills, but no rolls. Border fiddlers, as well, play in a fairly plain style, as do many Northumbrian players - precisely articulated, but not highly ornamented. A lot of my repertoire is from either side of the border - I love the old 3/2 hornpipes, though I don't do much of the amazingly fast smallpipe variations. (With Northumbrian smallpipes - NSP - you only lift and replace one finger at any one time, so you can play VERY fast.)

Along with the GHB-derived gracenotes and the stuff that's common to Borders and NSP tunes, I tend to use more trills than an Irish player would, and often use triple-tonguing where an Irish player would use a roll, for instance. Tonguing can really help to articulate hornpipes, strathspeys and marches (especially 6/8 marches). With tonguing you also have more choice - you can vary a phrase by playing legato, staccato, or a mixture of the two.

I lamented the loss of Tony Cuffe, though I hadn't seen him in years. A fine man, and a great player.

And one day soon I must figure out how to record and post mp3s....

yours aye

brian

[brianholton]

oh, and I forgot to say that Robin Williamson published a whistle tutor in the '70s, that has some unusual tunes, and some good advice in it.
you can find it at
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 50-7214842

or, in the USA
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 44-0218209

b

[squeaker]

What a great phrase. I didn't understand it either. For the record I am ignorant of whistles and Irish/Scottish music but know a lot about classical music.

What does GHB stand for?

I am interested in what sort of whistle I should get to play with the fiddlers and in what key. Someone said that D should still be ok but I guess it really depends on what key the fiddlers use (perhaps I should wait until I return to Cape Breton and ask the fiddlers directly). Kenny mentioned Scottish fiddlers like to play in A. My book of Scottish fiddle tunes is written in many keys and will be a pain to use for whistle because I will have to transcribe on the fly.

Kenny - is there a particular book of tunes for whistle or "pipe" that would be good for source material? My flute technique transfers well to new instruments (fast fingers!) so I am not limited to beginner books.

The one time I heard a whistler play with the fiddlers in Cape Breton he just played exactly the fiddle line along with the fiddle. Something more sophisticated would have been nice. In fact it was really disappointing. Perhaps playing with the fiddlers is the wrong goal and it would be more rewarding to aim toward what you are discussing. Have to listen to the snippets.

Cynth - Cape Breton is so beautiful that I have yet to see anything of the rest of Nova Scotia, including Halifax. I will find that shop you mention if I ever get there.

squeaker (formerly known as susan! )

[oscartherabbit]

GHB = Great Highland Bagpipes

(as opposed to Scottish smallpipes, border bagpipes, etc)