It's always better to play a tune simply and clearly, no frills, than to fill it with decorations which detract from the basic tune. Decorations can add to the sound of a tune, but you should only be thinking of decorations when you know a tune so well that you can concentrate on embellishing it. Start off slowly - don't oversweeten the cake.

Now we're going to look at some decorations that can be used on the whistle, and then apply them to a tune (we'll use the tune we learned last time, Si Beag Si Mhor).

Sliding

Here we're talking about the sliding of one note into another. On the whistle this is done simply by starting off with the note below and sliding your finger off the hole to give a smooth transition to the note above. Start off on the high E note (five fingers down) and slide your middle finger smoothly off the hole so that you end up by playing the F note.

The Cut

This very simple decoration involves adding another note before the proper note you're about to play. Although this becomes a matter of feeling and instinct, you can start off by learning a system. The D, E, F, and G notes will be preceded by the A note; the A and B notes will be preceded by the C note. The C note isn't cut.

You do not have to remove all your finger to make this decoration; just twitching your finger off the A note will produce the desired effect.

The Casadh

The casadh (an Irish word meaning, I believe, turn) is similar to the cut, but this time you start and end with the proper note. Again, the C note doesn't use a casadh.

As in the cut, you do not have to remove all your fingers to make this decoration; just twitching your finger off the A note will produce the desired effect.

The Trill

The trill is simple enough: you alternate the principle note with the note above. In standard notation trills are indicate by the letters "tr" above a note. I have read that it's not used much by whistlers because the roll is used in preference (more about rolls later), but it can be effective in slow airs,for example.

Decoration

Now let's try some of these decorative techniques to an actual tune - we'll take the tune we learned last time, Sheebeg Sheemore. I have arranged the tune with lots of decoration as an example. If you tried to reproduce exactly what I have done at this stage you might find yourself tripping over. Use this example as an introduction to some of the decorative techniques. Below is a detailed breakdown of what's happening in the tune.

Sheebeg Sheemore

Below is a detailed breakdown of what's happening in the decorated version of Si Beag, Si Mhor - above.

A PART

Bar 1: The first note is F, but we're going to slide up to it. The lead-in notes are D and E; play another E, but slide your finger off to get to the F. We're also going to trill a bit before the second F; just lift the index finger of your right hand and replace it as quickly as you can.

Bar 2 We're going to use a casadh before the middle note, the E. Quickly lift and replace the finger over the A hole (the ring finger on your left hand).

Bar 3: Near the end of the longish B, introduce a quick C note before going back to B and down to A.

Bar 5: Use a cut before the B note.

Bar 6: Slide up to the E note by tonguing the D and sliding your finger off. Before playing the second D, use a casadh.

Bars 7 & 12: Slides.

Bar 16: Use a cut to break up the long D note.

B PART

Bar 1: Same decoration as the A part.

Bars 3 & 10: Slides.

Bar 13: Emphasise the slide for a final flourish.

Bar 14: Use a casadh after the longish E note. Alternatively, a nice effect would be to use a trill: