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The Essential Tin Whistle Toolbox


1340mag.com
July 2004

by Keith Quillen

As a young man Grey Larsen became interested in traditional music, especially Irish music. After graduating from Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree he continued a lifelong pursuit of traditional music. Larsen is a performer, teacher, author, recording artist, record producer, mastering engineer, and the Music Editor of Sing Out! Magazine.

This volume is a follow-up to his earlier book The Essential Guide to Irish Flute and Tin Whistle and is directed specifically at the tin whistle. It is written for the beginner and novice, but is worth a look by intermediate players as well. The book starts with a beginner's approach and proceeds in steps with lots of clear guidance. Many examples and exercises are given, including a companion CD that lets the student hear what it's supposed to sound like. Larsen also presents some of the history and development of the tin whistle in Ireland. As with the previous volume, this is a large size paperback with large print making it easy to read at a reasonable distance while practicing.

The book has four sections:

  1. An orientation to traditional Irish music, a look at the history and development of the tin whistle in Ireland, and guidance in holding, fingering and sounding. Larsen also presents his ideas on the comparison of language and music.
  2. An introduction to ornamentation including cuts, strikes, slides, long and short rolls..
  3. The techniques of tonguing, phrasing and breathing specific to the tin whistle.
  4. A look at "muscle memory," an encouragement to practice, and another look at the language and music comparison.

An appendix provides a clear fingering chart for the tin whistle.

In many ways this book is a revised version of the earlier volume with the information relating to the Irish flute is left out. However, some sections have been expanded and rewritten to make this one stand clearly on its own merits. As with his previous book, Larsen writes in a friendly, comfortable style.

Larsen assumes the student knows the rudiments of reading music notation, or can learn from other resources, so he doesn't teach that skill. Even though he stresses that it isn't critical to know how to read music to learn to play the tin whistle he does include a lot of notation in the book. However, with motivation, persistence and the accompanying CD a student who doesn't read music can still learn to play the tin whistle.

Larsen continues with his passion for teaching on his web site (www.greylarsen.com). There he has a unique resource he calls the Irish Tune Bank. You can download sound files, printable music notation and his notes about playing the tune.