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Whistle Practice Day

Weekly Whistle Practice Notes I’ve decided to record myself weekly to track progress and identify areas for improvement—which, for now, still includes just about everything. 🤪 But over the past six months, with the help of my whistle instructor, Ben Walker, I’ve rebuilt some essential foundations: reading music notation comfortably again, basic finger articulation, and breath control. That groundwork has allowed me to become more intentional about how I practice going forward. My daily routine has shifted this year into two distinct lesson blocks: one on High D whistle and one on Low D whistle. Each session is bookended by my SFAEE routine (Scales, Finger Articulation Exercises, and Etudes), which has become the backbone of my technical maintenance and coordination work. The High D session focuses on working carefully through Mary Bergin’s and Grey Larsen’s tutorials. This is where I’m addressing clarity, articulation, phrasing, and the early stages of ornamentation—slowly, deliberately, and without rushing ahead of my hands or ears. The Low D session is dedicated to something different: learning to play comfortably and securely without a thumb rest, using a proper or modified Piper’s grip. This time is less about speed or ornamentation and more about stability, balance, tone, and learning how this larger instrument wants to respond. It’s a process of reacquainting myself with the Low D on its own terms. Separately, I’ve added a nightly listening and study session. This is quieter, slower work: listening closely to recordings, following along with notation, and grouping tunes by mode. My goal here is ear training—learning to recognize Dorian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Ionian not as abstract theory, but as lived musical landscapes that shape how tunes feel and resolve. I’ll usually work on a slow air each week (or thereabouts), both because I love them and because they force me to listen more deeply—to pitch, phrasing, breath, and emotional contour. To be clear, I’m not working toward Irish traditional sessions. My goal is to use the whistle as an accompaniment instrument alongside my wife’s hammered dulcimer, in a broader transatlantic folk context that may also include popular and art-music influences. I value the ornamentation and stylistic understanding I’m learning from Irish traditional music, and I care deeply about honoring the culture and history of the instrument. My path simply lives adjacent to the session world, not inside it—and being clear about that has made my learning more focused, more joyful, and more honest.