The Complete Irish TinWhistle Tutor

by L.E. McCullough

(Music Sales America). This is a comprehensive, detailed approach to playing Irish music on the tinwhistle. It contains information on technique and style that more advanced players will also find useful. There are over 70 dance tunes and airs suitably arranged for the tinwhistle, including some recently-composed pieces and several unusual settings of old standards. This edition also includes a access to online recordings of Mr. McCullough expertly playing all the exercises, musical examples, and tunes contained in this book. Audio is accessed online using the unique code inside the book and can be streamed or downloaded. The audio files include PLAYBACK+, a multi-functional audio player that allows you to slow down audio without changing pitch, set loop points, change keys, and pan left or right.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

80 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 1987

Reviews

[Linda Alldredge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hard to Read

Interesting and technical material, but you have to get the light just right to be able to read the thin font. It probably would be easier on a larger screen. This makes it difficult to read much at a time.

[Pearse R. · Rating 1 out of 5]

At first I thought it was just my whistle. I was playing my Dixon. I checked it against my tuning app and the notes it was playing for the graces per McCullough’s fingering were wildly off - like a whole step. But then I used my nice heavy pro whistle tuned precisely to concert pitch and it was the same. I have the 1987 white cover edition so maybe later editions have been fixed but if not, this tutorial is seriously flawed. Example - on page 20/21, the first grace example writes the grace as a g note. But if you play his tab as written - on any of my whistles, anyway - and you uncover the third hole from the top leaving the other fingers down, you get a note between a and ab. To get a note only a quarter step off of g (an acceptable standard of deviation for Irish whistling), you need to uncover one hole lower, i.e., the third from the bottom. And every one of his examples is off by this much.

The repertoire is good and the background etc. is all solid and detailed. But this is unusable. Sorry to be so blunt. Do not buy!