Pennywhistle: Playing Tips for Beginners

Do your housemates, friends or family complain about your practicing?
Make a mute for your whistle when other people are around. Here's how: take a small piece of tape, like cellophane tape, and tape it over approximately half of the fipple window (where the air comes out on the mouthpiece) covering the part of the window closest to your lips. You may have to experiment a bit to get the right placement. This will mute the sound of the whistle so that only you can hear the notes, very softly.

Having trouble playing a clear tone on the lowest note?
This is a common problem when you're just learning to play, especially on certain whistles. A slight mental adjustment should help. Instead of trying to "blow gently" into the whistle - a recommendation one often sees in instruction books - think about "exhaling gently" into the whistle.

Conversation with a whistle customer: "I want to return the metal whistle I bought from you. It's defective -- the mouthpiece collects spit, and the upper register is flat."
Both of these problems are common complaints of beginning whistle players. There is probably nothing wrong with your whistle. When warm, moisture-laden air from your breath hits the cooler metal, some of it condenses. To reduce this problem, warm the whistle before playing, and clear the windway periodically by blowing sharply into it (be sure to mute it first, by half covering the mouthpiece window with a finger).

Also, many beginners place the mouthpiece too far inside their mouths, and actually spit into the whistle, especially when tonguing notes. Your tongue should touch the roof of your mouth or just behind your teeth, never the opening to the windway. Keep your tongue away from the mouthpiece and you'll play a cleaner whistle.

If your mouthpiecce is still clogging from condensation, try the soap trick-- couple of drops of dishwashing liquid in an ounce of water. Dribble this into the windway (or dip the whistle) then blow out the excess. The soap breaks the surface tension of the condensed breath droplets and prevents their clogging the windway. Safe for all whistles, even those with wooden plugs. (Thanks to Dale Wisely's Chiff & Fipple email newsletter for this tip).

As far as the intonation in the upper octave, you need to increase your wind pressure for the higher notes, and adjust it as necessary for lower notes requiring less pressure. Most wind instruments must be blown in tune by the player. This is more of an imperative on the larger instruments, such as flutes and low D whistles, but it still holds true for smaller whistles, particularly in the upper octave. You just need to make some adjustments in wind pressure to play the upper octave in tune, usually by blowing with more intensity on the highest notes - the increase in pressure will cause the notes to sound sharper, and you'll get a stronger tone. Blowing too hard will create a harsh edge to the tone, or cause squeaking. In general terms, the cheaper whistles are more forgiving of wind pressure variance, whereas you need more precise breath control to play the better quality whistles.

"I just tweaked another Generation D. This is about the fourth I've done. I went out and bought a Gen D and, of course, found it totally unplayable. WAY too easily pops up into the high register, making a horrible noise or protest as it goes. Tweaked, it sounds pretty darn good. "

The basic tweaking steps:

1. Remove mouthpiece with the hot water method.
2. Clear out extraneous plastic degree by gentle use of **extra fine** sandpaper strip run carefully through airway. Too much sanding will ruin the whistle. Go slow.
3. Slight blunting of blade edge with same strip of sandpaper. Go slow. A little at a time.
4. Fill in subairway cavity with candlewax. (seems to help the sound some. maybe)
5. Rub the top inch of shaft with a beeswax candle.
6. Replace mouthpiece.
7. Test play. Repeat as necessary.