Great Tip! Playing in Front of the Mirror

I have had several groups of children in to visit and discuss the possibility of starting a group to play the whistle. One of these children later came back to visit and told me that her playing had improved a lot by playing in front of her mirror at home. She puts her sheet music up beside the mirror for reference when she practices and can now see her fingers on the whistle in the same direction as the music chart that came with her whistle. She enlarges all her sheet music up to 11x17 inches on a photo copier so it is a very readable size to play from. This extra bit of effort has really improved her playing in a few weeks time.

When you play in front of a mirror you gain confidence about your appearance when playing your instrument. You can practice the way you react to the music and show your moves with the whistle just like big time entertainers do. Tom Jones would be pretty dull if he sang and never moved!

When learning a piece of music with someone else, it is really neat to stand side by side and be able to observe what the other player is doing from the same position. If you stand face to face everything is backward...no wonder I had so much trouble learning banjo chords from my Granddad.

You will pick out your fingering mistakes much faster and learning some alternate fingering is improved. I find that everyone that tries playing in front of a mirror is able to learn the repetitious phrases in music and relate to them faster .

Well, anyway give the mirror a try and you will be amazed at what a good looking performer you are and how interesting your whistle playing performance is!