bluegrass whistle

[piperdoc]

excuse my ignorance.
best keys? (it seems like b nat and e nat but that is based on a small sampling)
artists that do this?
anyone in particular interested in this in the washington dc area or a bit beyond?

meir

[DRC]

As a full time member of a working Celtic band named SlipJig, I like to get away now and then and play guitar and whistle with a local bluegrass band....maybe once or twice a month. Since the majority of songs are played in G, A, D, & Em, I use a high D most of the time. Depending on the song, I'll sometimes use a mezzo A on songs in the key of A for a more flute-like sound. We do a couple in Dm, so use a C whistle on one of them. I play whistle on one song in the key of E major, so use an Elfsong Sassy Brass E. One song we do is in Cm (which best suits the vocal), so I use a Bb whistle. I should note here that I use whistle very sparingly in bluegrass music, basically for fill or to play counterparts to the fiddle and/or vocals. Once in a while they let me go wild on an ad-lib whistle solo. But "sparingly" is the key word overall, and often I may play whistle in just one small part of a song or instrumental. Many songs/tunes don't lend themselves to whistle at all. I also play bodhran on a few tunes.

DC
SlipJig Celtic Band

[Jack]

I really like bluegrass, and I really like whistle (obviously). I wish more people would combine them. It's a natural fit. Flute, too.

[RonKiley]

For a group that puts some Appalachian and Celtic together Look for "Tinsmith". I heard them for the first time at the Celtic Festival in Leesburg. What a great and pleasant surprize.

Ron

[DRC]

I recently saw Nickel Creek in concert, and they did a couple Celtic tunes, as well as mixed some Celtic flavoing into others....which, naturally, was incredible. Their arrangements of everything are simply awesome.

DC

[trisha]

I recently saw Nickel Creek in concert, and they did a couple Celtic tunes, as well as mixed some Celtic flavoing into others....which, naturally, was incredible. Their arrangements of everything are simply awesome.

DC

Chris Thile is one of my son's heroes...at eight he's new to mandolin and loves it. And yes he has a whistle or three...

Trisha

[Jack]

I recently saw Nickel Creek in concert, and they did a couple Celtic tunes, as well as mixed some Celtic flavoing into others....which, naturally, was incredible. Their arrangements of everything are simply awesome.

DC

Chris Thile is one of my son's heroes...at eight he's new to mandolin and loves it. And yes he has a whistle or three...

Trisha

Or twenty-five?

[piperdoc]

thanks all. ron, i too am a big tinsmith fan. i have 2 albums. great vocals. i have taken a whistle lesson from brooke parkhurst, one of their vocalists/old time banjo/sometimes flute and whistle. she is a great musician who is surprisingly humble and down to earth considering her accomplishments. she sometimes comes into dc, but it is also worth the drive to her home, about 1 hour west.

meir

[rh]

there's sort of a strict and loose definition of "bluegrass" just like there is of ITM... i've heard lots of arguments on whether Nickel Creek is a bluegrass band, for example.

yer hardcore bluegrassers are every bit as conservative as yer pure drop ITM crowd, and in those circles the only instrumentation considered appropriate is that which could be found in the classic groups of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Stanley Bros, etc... fiddle, mandolin, five-string banjo, guitar, bass, and dobro. i suspect that whistle and flute would be pretty much frowned upon in a lot of bluegrass jams.

appalachian music or old-timey, that's a whole different thing, they might be more tolerant...

one problem i think with whistle in playing bluegrass is the ability to hit chromatic or "blue" notes cleanly at speed. playing a bluesy run in A requiring the flat 5 (Eb) on a D whistle seems pretty challenging to me, i'm no great whistle player but i can blow through jigs and reels at a pretty good clip.

anyway, my $0.02 ...

[DRC]

one problem i think with whistle in playing bluegrass is the ability to hit chromatic or "blue" notes cleanly at speed. playing a bluesy run in A requiring the flat 5 (Eb) on a D whistle seems pretty challenging to me, i'm no great whistle player but i can blow through jigs and reels at a pretty good clip.

anyway, my $0.02 ...

Like I said, "sparingly" is the key to using whistle in Appalachian or Bluegrass music, and there are many tunes/songs that whistle absolutely doesn't work with. And yes, if you attend a true trad bluegrass session, leave your whistle at home. The group I'm involved with is definitely not 100% trad bluegrass, and tends to bend the grass a bit....ok....a lot.

And you're right....I don't consider Nickel Creek "bluegrass" either, and never said or implied they were. I was just impressed with the way they wove some Celtic flavor into some of the arrangements that bordered on bluegrass.

BTW, speaking of blue notes/chromatics, give the opening few measures of "Rhapsody in Blue" a shot on whistle. It's not only a great exercise in chromatic slides involving both hands, but you also learn how to play some difficult notes when necessary. On a D whistle, they're F nat, D# (the Eb you mentioned), A#, and C#. Learning to play these few measures cleanly has improved my technique quite a lot.

DC

[fancypiper]

I jam occasionally with old time and bluegrass folk and I use a D whistle most of the time.

The A tunes are the hardest, so I use a low E whistle so I can use G fingering for the tunes I am too lazy to re-learn in A fingering on the D.

Sometimes, I find a Dm tune easier on the C whistle. It all depends upon the key I learned the tune in first.