PART OF LEARNING TRADITIONAL music is learning to recognise patterns. This will come through experience and shouldn't be worried about too much. To start you off, the exercise below explores stepping; that is, jumping two notes at a time. Play the first four bars first, then try the last two.

Scales are an excellent way of getting to know the whistle, and it's just that sort of exercise which will make the difference between managing to play all the notes, cover all the right holes, and falling down so often. Persevere!

The Barnyards o' Delgaty

THIS IS a Scottish bothy ballad, a type of song popular amongst farm workers, especially in the North East of Scotland (Aberdeenshire etc). The songs usually portrayed life on the farm or celebrated characters and exploits of the bothy chiels (lads or workers).

The Barnyards o' Delgaty

Phrases

Most of the music we're looking at is simple dance music, and it can be broken down in to phrases, or distinct parts of the melody. At its simplest, both the A part and the B part will consist of four parts, the first and third parts being identical. The second part will probably be similar to the first, but with a variation, while the final part will tie everything up.

In a sense it can be viewed as a short conversation. The first phrase will be a question such as "Where does that bus go?" The second phrase may be a clarifying question: "You mean the red bus?" The third phrase, "Yes, where does that bus go?" The final phrase is a definite answer, and could be the end of the coversation: "That bus goes to Princes Street!"

Scales and Scale Patterns

I've already told you how important I think scales are to learning your way around your instrument. However, I'm also aware that it can seem a little boring when you're itching to learn new tunes. Scales don't have to be just running up and down the scale, however. Start off with the straight scale in D (Ex.2), then go up the scale playing each note four times (Ex.3):

Exercise 2

Exercise 3

Exercises like these are valuable, especially for the learner, because once a scale is learned, you can concentrate on your techniques. After a while, however, they do get rather uninteresting.

If we were to analyse the notes in Ex. 3, we'd see groups of four notes together, each note of the scale being sounded four times, then the next four and so on. We could actually still climb the scale but in a more musical way. What about if we kept the first and fourth note of each group of four?

In Ex.4a we're still going up the G scale, but instead of hitting each note four times, we're playing the first note of the scale, going up one note, then another, and then going back the to the first note. We have created a consistant scale pattern, and the pattern moves up the scale and makes doing scales a little more palatable.

If you're feeling brave, try the same pattern descending the scale (Ex.4b).

Exercise 4