tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
The part of me that "is", is confused. The part of me that watches is doubled over in laughter at the part of me that "is".
When I first got a tin whistle (long ago), I read enough to know which hand is closer to the body and which hand is further. I didn't play much. Recently, I decided to start playing again. When I picked up the whistle, I could not remember which hand goes where. It felt more natural for my left hand to be out at the end of the whistle. So I put it there and just started playing. The other day I stumbled across a link on one of the threads here with a picture of 2 whistle / flute players, and sure enough their hands were just the opposite. I couldn't help but laugh and think that I must have been born backwards, and wonder if every thing that we do "naturally" is backwards compared to the "correct" or "educated" way of doing things. (long history for me with guitar technique, and different teachers with different "only correct technique", but I won't go there now).
So, I am throwing it out for discussion, along with any relevant or irrelevant tangents: Does it matter which hand is "in" and which is "out"? If so, why? Is it a matter of being either left or right handed? Is it just because of the direction the flute is held to the side?
For what it's worth, my guess as to why I unconsciously put my left hand out is that my left hand is further from my body than my right when I play the guitar, which is my primary instrument.
And furthermore, should anybody want to go there, why do, or should, right-handed people use their left hands for fretting instruments? And why is the piano low-to-high left-to-right, regardless of whether one is right or left handed? And any thoughts or data on the relationship right & left brain has to do with this?
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
I am right-handed, but I learned to play the whistle with my right hand at the top. It just seemed the natural way for me to play it. Most right-handed whistle players would play with their left hand at the top, so I was often TOLD by teachers not to play this way when I was very young, but my most influencial teacher "Maureen McCrystal", (now Maureen Quin) told me just to play whatever way felt most comfortable for me, so I continued to play like this. There are many excellent flute players who play with their right hand at the top of the whistle/flute/pipes, so this didn't make me feel like such an oddity.
However, on the downside of this, most old wooden flutes (and metal ones, but I don't play metal flutes anyhow) are made with the keys taylored for players who play with their left hand at the top... conventional hand positioning for the flute I suppose. So here you can see where a problem arises, I have to get keyed flutes taylor made to suit this, but Sam Murray was very accomodating to me, all those years back (Thanks Sam), and the same problems would arise with pipers, having to get chanters made especially to accomodate their hand positioning.
But apart from that, this doesn't seem to have effected the performance of the great flute players I see who play with their right hand at the top. I won't even go into start mentioning their names.
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Seamus Eagan plays flute left hand up, right hand down, and whistle right hand up, left hand down. None too shabbily either.
I'm ambi-disasterous myself: equally inept with either hand.
Lefties sometimes have an advantage because we've learned to do lots of things with our right hands, living as we do in a right-handed world. And our left hands are already nimble.
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
I'm a leftie who plays fretted instruments and whistles in the "normal" way. When I began playing the guitar as a kid, it seemed like the natural way, as all the complicated things (ie finding the cords) were done with the left hand: I've never understood why left handed people should restring their instruments, maybe unless they play classical guitar or finger picking bluesstyle.
On the other hand I guess that the reason that I never got serious with piano, was because the complicated things were done with the right hand - it didn't come natural for me, so I gave up after a while.
When I started to play whistle it was natural for me to have the left hand nearest the mouthpiece, as I had played the recorder as a child and knew "the right way". Otherwise it seems to be totally equal which hand you put where. Many good players including Michael McGoldrick plays the opposite way. Some do it because they're left handed, others just because they didn't know which hand to put where, when they started. I've noticed that many kids that pick up a whistle seem to prefer the "opposite" way.
The only reason to choose the "right" way, is if you should go on with flute in the future. You'd find it harder to find keyed flutes for lefties, but they do exist. Another reason might be that some low whistles have asymmetrical holes like the recorder (the bottom hole is placed to the right to make it easier to access). Otherwise, just do what feels natural and convenient.
The best flute player I know of here in Stockholm plays in a leftie style. His only problem is that he has to be stuck with a pretty poor flute, as he can't find a good one that he can afford.
The only instrument that I play in a typical left handed (mirrored) way is the bodhran. I could not even think about learning to play the beater with my right hand.
Lars
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
I'm a leftie and a rightie. Depends on what I'm doing. I once walked out onto the pitcher's mound with both right-handed and left-handed gloves, unsure of which arm I was going to throw with. I warmed up both ways, and the umpire came out to tell me I had to choose one or the other--not allowed to switch pitch. So I went leftie that day.
But I'm capable of equally mangling any task with either hand--one reason I have a beard is to hide all the scars from missing my mouth with the fork.....
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Will, my maternal grandpa was probably like you. He was "both-handed". The things he learnt to do in school, like writing, was done with the right hand, while things that he learnt by himself, like working with axe and knife, was done with the left hand.
Were you ever forced to do things with your right hand as a kid, Will?
BTW, I'm fascinated by the way that many languages treat the words for "right" and "left". As in English, where you do it in the way that is "right" or in the way that is "left"over. There is no equivalent in Swedish, but ther are traditional sayings that suggest that what you are doing with the left hand, is either clumsy or immoral (to have a lover, when you're married, is called to "do it leftie"
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Not to hijack my own thread, but another thing I've observed from posts here at the session is that ITM whistlers don't "tounge", (right?) which a classically trained flautist (flutist?) had told me to do - on the whistle. Maybe I could learn to play right over left when tonguing (did I spell that right?) and left over right when not tonguing.
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
"right over left when tonguing and left over right when not tonguing"...hmmm, didn't really get that, but about tonguing...
It's true that you never tongue every tone, like you may be do in classical music - or as I was tought when I learnt to play the recorder as a kid.
But there are many approaches elsewise, wether to tongue or not to tongue in ITM.
There is one "school" who hardly never tongue, but play in a piper-inspired way, where all articulation is made by ornamentation.
But there are other "schools" where you emphasises tones by tonguing.
I'd recommend Brother Steve's meditations on the matter at http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/
He has an absolutely brilliant homepage dedicated to the whistle (and he is also a member of this site) and he has a chapter dedicated to the guestion whether to tongue or not.
Personally I've gone from a non-tonguing style to a style where I tongue guite a lot.
Lars
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Left hand on the bottom of the whistle. Now a little related item - the test for how left / right-handed you are :
1 Cross you arms (pretend to hug someone). Where is your left hand? Under or over your right arm?
2 Kick a ball. What foot do you use?
3 Pick up your knife and fork. What hand is holding the fork?
4 Light (or pretend to light) a ciggy. What hand holds the lighter?
5 Raise you hand now. Which hand did you raise?
6 Punch a politician. Which fists hurts?
7 Fold your arms - is the left hand over or under the right arm?
7 'left' answers = a total lefty
Anything less and you're just as likely to hold a strange object with either hand nearest you (ie whistle, esp if you are not a player...)....typical of the Men's Health magazine. In amongst the shamelessly lie-ridden articles like "Muscles in 3 days" and "Sex every night" comes the only decent bit of knowledge. Ha! How sad can I get?
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
I started trying to play whistle way before my UP playing. So it was right hand up for a long time. After picking up the pipes I picked uip the whistle and found my brain got locked up when tyying to play the way I had been practicing on my pipes, so I converted to right hand down.
UP chanters are played right hand down as you can guess.
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
At school I learnt the recorder, which I held with left hand up and right hand down because the positioning of the holes for the r-h 4th finger (the pinky) determines that position. Therefore, if I were to take up the whistle I think it is likely that I would naturally hold it the same way as I did the recorder all those years ago.
Trevor
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
I wonder if right-hand below came about with old instruments which had wider spacing or extra keys at the bottom end and the more agile/stronger fingers on the right hand (for a right-handed person, at least) were used for that reason.
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
kind of crossing the early music and the left handed thread here, but what the heck.
when i was younger, i used to be involved with the early music group at my school, and would always be put on the *normal* (i forget its name-treble?-the one everybody learns to play). this was, as i found out, because i played with my left hand at the top. to me this seemed natural, but apparently not so...
i couldnt play the larger alto recorders because they were made for "righties", with (i think) the sixth hole down being to the right, hence me having to scrunch my right hand (at the bottom of the recorder)to get a finger on it(rather than having my left hand there, which could have easily reached over)- resulting in a horrible squeak! im not sure if this is what you were asking geoff, but not being a whistle player, thats my only experience of playing a wind instrument!
and when i left, he told me "i'd never get anywhere because i played with my hands the wrong way round"!
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Thank you all for your suggestions, comments and web links, all of which has been very instructive to a whistle neophyte like me. I'm not sure how I will hold my hands when I next pick up the whistle......but I find it re-assuring to hear that both hand postitions have been used successfully. Cheers!
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Our whistler, Fred Johnson, plays it lefty. Disconcerting to watch if you're paying attention, but he sure makes it work. I love watching people watch him and get an unconscious furrow in their forehead, as they try to puzzle out what's going on.
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
i have the opposite problem for classical music. my teacher says i have to tongue *every* note and i dont want to at all. but after a year of lessons by now i can do it no problem. and he just recently got me to play slurs slurred as they are written. and tongue when a new slur starts even if the old slur is a note before. that just behooved me for the longest time. i didnt understand why i couldnt just slur the whole time. but now i've picked up his bad habit. as he corrects me if i dont tongue the beginning of an adjacent slur, i'll go, "oh, you played that wrong cuz you didnt tongue the slur" when he shows me a song that i am working on that he doesnt often play.
i have recieved the classical nit picky curse where now i can hear tiny minute things that dont truly matter and think they do.
whats next, will i start saying i dont like where people put rolls? haha. please, i hope i never get that bad.
tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
The part of me that "is", is confused. The part of me that watches is doubled over in laughter at the part of me that "is".
When I first got a tin whistle (long ago), I read enough to know which hand is closer to the body and which hand is further. I didn't play much. Recently, I decided to start playing again. When I picked up the whistle, I could not remember which hand goes where. It felt more natural for my left hand to be out at the end of the whistle. So I put it there and just started playing. The other day I stumbled across a link on one of the threads here with a picture of 2 whistle / flute players, and sure enough their hands were just the opposite. I couldn't help but laugh and think that I must have been born backwards, and wonder if every thing that we do "naturally" is backwards compared to the "correct" or "educated" way of doing things. (long history for me with guitar technique, and different teachers with different "only correct technique", but I won't go there now).
So, I am throwing it out for discussion, along with any relevant or irrelevant tangents: Does it matter which hand is "in" and which is "out"? If so, why? Is it a matter of being either left or right handed? Is it just because of the direction the flute is held to the side?
For what it's worth, my guess as to why I unconsciously put my left hand out is that my left hand is further from my body than my right when I play the guitar, which is my primary instrument.
And furthermore, should anybody want to go there, why do, or should, right-handed people use their left hands for fretting instruments? And why is the piano low-to-high left-to-right, regardless of whether one is right or left handed? And any thoughts or data on the relationship right & left brain has to do with this?
# Posted on December 2nd 2004 by ceciltguitar
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
I am right-handed, but I learned to play the whistle with my right hand at the top. It just seemed the natural way for me to play it. Most right-handed whistle players would play with their left hand at the top, so I was often TOLD by teachers not to play this way when I was very young, but my most influencial teacher "Maureen McCrystal", (now Maureen Quin) told me just to play whatever way felt most comfortable for me, so I continued to play like this. There are many excellent flute players who play with their right hand at the top of the whistle/flute/pipes, so this didn't make me feel like such an oddity.
However, on the downside of this, most old wooden flutes (and metal ones, but I don't play metal flutes anyhow) are made with the keys taylored for players who play with their left hand at the top... conventional hand positioning for the flute I suppose. So here you can see where a problem arises, I have to get keyed flutes taylor made to suit this, but Sam Murray was very accomodating to me, all those years back (Thanks Sam), and the same problems would arise with pipers, having to get chanters made especially to accomodate their hand positioning.
But apart from that, this doesn't seem to have effected the performance of the great flute players I see who play with their right hand at the top. I won't even go into start mentioning their names.
Regards,
Murrough
# Posted on December 2nd 2004 by Murrough
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Seamus Eagan plays flute left hand up, right hand down, and whistle right hand up, left hand down. None too shabbily either.
I'm ambi-disasterous myself: equally inept with either hand.
Lefties sometimes have an advantage because we've learned to do lots of things with our right hands, living as we do in a right-handed world. And our left hands are already nimble.
# Posted on December 2nd 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
I'm a leftie who plays fretted instruments and whistles in the "normal" way. When I began playing the guitar as a kid, it seemed like the natural way, as all the complicated things (ie finding the cords) were done with the left hand: I've never understood why left handed people should restring their instruments, maybe unless they play classical guitar or finger picking bluesstyle.
On the other hand I guess that the reason that I never got serious with piano, was because the complicated things were done with the right hand - it didn't come natural for me, so I gave up after a while.
When I started to play whistle it was natural for me to have the left hand nearest the mouthpiece, as I had played the recorder as a child and knew "the right way". Otherwise it seems to be totally equal which hand you put where. Many good players including Michael McGoldrick plays the opposite way. Some do it because they're left handed, others just because they didn't know which hand to put where, when they started. I've noticed that many kids that pick up a whistle seem to prefer the "opposite" way.
The only reason to choose the "right" way, is if you should go on with flute in the future. You'd find it harder to find keyed flutes for lefties, but they do exist. Another reason might be that some low whistles have asymmetrical holes like the recorder (the bottom hole is placed to the right to make it easier to access). Otherwise, just do what feels natural and convenient.
The best flute player I know of here in Stockholm plays in a leftie style. His only problem is that he has to be stuck with a pretty poor flute, as he can't find a good one that he can afford.
The only instrument that I play in a typical left handed (mirrored) way is the bodhran. I could not even think about learning to play the beater with my right hand.
Lars
# Posted on December 2nd 2004 by lars
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Oops!
Both Murray and Will posted while I was writing my post. I thought I'd be the first one!
Didn't know you were a leftie, Will
Lars
# Posted on December 2nd 2004 by lars
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
I'm a leftie and a rightie. Depends on what I'm doing. I once walked out onto the pitcher's mound with both right-handed and left-handed gloves, unsure of which arm I was going to throw with. I warmed up both ways, and the umpire came out to tell me I had to choose one or the other--not allowed to switch pitch. So I went leftie that day.
But I'm capable of equally mangling any task with either hand--one reason I have a beard is to hide all the scars from missing my mouth with the fork.....
# Posted on December 2nd 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Unless you're Michael, of course. Then you're always right.
# Posted on December 2nd 2004 by John J.
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Will, my maternal grandpa was probably like you. He was "both-handed". The things he learnt to do in school, like writing, was done with the right hand, while things that he learnt by himself, like working with axe and knife, was done with the left hand.
Were you ever forced to do things with your right hand as a kid, Will?
BTW, I'm fascinated by the way that many languages treat the words for "right" and "left". As in English, where you do it in the way that is "right" or in the way that is "left"over. There is no equivalent in Swedish, but ther are traditional sayings that suggest that what you are doing with the left hand, is either clumsy or immoral (to have a lover, when you're married, is called to "do it leftie"
# Posted on December 2nd 2004 by lars
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Not to hijack my own thread, but another thing I've observed from posts here at the session is that ITM whistlers don't "tounge", (right?) which a classically trained flautist (flutist?) had told me to do - on the whistle. Maybe I could learn to play right over left when tonguing (did I spell that right?) and left over right when not tonguing.
# Posted on December 2nd 2004 by ceciltguitar
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
left over right is the most common way. I don't think it matters much which way your handed.
# Posted on December 2nd 2004 by compaqjohn
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
"right over left when tonguing and left over right when not tonguing"...hmmm, didn't really get that, but about tonguing...
It's true that you never tongue every tone, like you may be do in classical music - or as I was tought when I learnt to play the recorder as a kid.
But there are many approaches elsewise, wether to tongue or not to tongue in ITM.
There is one "school" who hardly never tongue, but play in a piper-inspired way, where all articulation is made by ornamentation.
But there are other "schools" where you emphasises tones by tonguing.
I'd recommend Brother Steve's meditations on the matter at http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/
He has an absolutely brilliant homepage dedicated to the whistle (and he is also a member of this site) and he has a chapter dedicated to the guestion whether to tongue or not.
Personally I've gone from a non-tonguing style to a style where I tongue guite a lot.
Lars
# Posted on December 2nd 2004 by lars
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Left hand on the bottom of the whistle. Now a little related item - the test for how left / right-handed you are :
1 Cross you arms (pretend to hug someone). Where is your left hand? Under or over your right arm?
2 Kick a ball. What foot do you use?
3 Pick up your knife and fork. What hand is holding the fork?
4 Light (or pretend to light) a ciggy. What hand holds the lighter?
5 Raise you hand now. Which hand did you raise?
6 Punch a politician. Which fists hurts?
7 Fold your arms - is the left hand over or under the right arm?
7 'left' answers = a total lefty
Anything less and you're just as likely to hold a strange object with either hand nearest you (ie whistle, esp if you are not a player...)....typical of the Men's Health magazine. In amongst the shamelessly lie-ridden articles like "Muscles in 3 days" and "Sex every night" comes the only decent bit of knowledge. Ha! How sad can I get?
Jim
# Posted on December 2nd 2004 by Worldfiddler
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
I started trying to play whistle way before my UP playing. So it was right hand up for a long time. After picking up the pipes I picked uip the whistle and found my brain got locked up when tyying to play the way I had been practicing on my pipes, so I converted to right hand down.
UP chanters are played right hand down as you can guess.
# Posted on December 3rd 2004 by I_Fel
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
At school I learnt the recorder, which I held with left hand up and right hand down because the positioning of the holes for the r-h 4th finger (the pinky) determines that position. Therefore, if I were to take up the whistle I think it is likely that I would naturally hold it the same way as I did the recorder all those years ago.
Trevor
# Posted on December 3rd 2004 by Trevor Jennings
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
I wonder if right-hand below came about with old instruments which had wider spacing or extra keys at the bottom end and the more agile/stronger fingers on the right hand (for a right-handed person, at least) were used for that reason.
# Posted on December 3rd 2004 by geoffwright
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
kind of crossing the early music and the left handed thread here, but what the heck.
when i was younger, i used to be involved with the early music group at my school, and would always be put on the *normal* (i forget its name-treble?-the one everybody learns to play). this was, as i found out, because i played with my left hand at the top. to me this seemed natural, but apparently not so...
i couldnt play the larger alto recorders because they were made for "righties", with (i think) the sixth hole down being to the right, hence me having to scrunch my right hand (at the bottom of the recorder)to get a finger on it(rather than having my left hand there, which could have easily reached over)- resulting in a horrible squeak! im not sure if this is what you were asking geoff, but not being a whistle player, thats my only experience of playing a wind instrument!
and when i left, he told me "i'd never get anywhere because i played with my hands the wrong way round"!
# Posted on December 3rd 2004 by aaron b
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
I've seen early Recorders have duplicate holes at the bottom so that they could be played either way by filling the unused hole.
PP
# Posted on December 3rd 2004 by Pied Piper
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
If your interested there is a pole nextdoor on chipandfipple about handedness.
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=24145
# Posted on December 3rd 2004 by Pied Piper
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Pied - that's why recorders still have the lower joint, so that the bottom part can be turned for either left or right hand.
# Posted on December 3rd 2004 by showaddydadito
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Thank you all for your suggestions, comments and web links, all of which has been very instructive to a whistle neophyte like me. I'm not sure how I will hold my hands when I next pick up the whistle......but I find it re-assuring to hear that both hand postitions have been used successfully. Cheers!
# Posted on December 3rd 2004 by ceciltguitar
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
Our whistler, Fred Johnson, plays it lefty. Disconcerting to watch if you're paying attention, but he sure makes it work. I love watching people watch him and get an unconscious furrow in their forehead, as they try to puzzle out what's going on.
# Posted on December 4th 2004 by rainog
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
On a surfboard it's called goofy-foot.
# Posted on December 4th 2004 by rainog
Re: tin whistle hands: right over left, or left over right?
i have the opposite problem for classical music. my teacher says i have to tongue *every* note and i dont want to at all. but after a year of lessons by now i can do it no problem. and he just recently got me to play slurs slurred as they are written. and tongue when a new slur starts even if the old slur is a note before. that just behooved me for the longest time. i didnt understand why i couldnt just slur the whole time. but now i've picked up his bad habit. as he corrects me if i dont tongue the beginning of an adjacent slur, i'll go, "oh, you played that wrong cuz you didnt tongue the slur" when he shows me a song that i am working on that he doesnt often play.
i have recieved the classical nit picky curse where now i can hear tiny minute things that dont truly matter and think they do.
whats next, will i start saying i dont like where people put rolls? haha. please, i hope i never get that bad.
# Posted on December 4th 2004 by daiv