What's new in these pages...

Here's a list showing what's been added when to these pages.


1 August 2007. Caught up with my mail and added a few new questions on the Ask Brother Steve page and a bunch of new guestbook entries.


10 November 2006. A new tip added to the Quick tips page. And there have been a few guestbook entries since the last update.


22 December 2005. Made a long overdue addition to the recommended listening section - the fabulous new record by Bríd O'Donohue.


18 November 2005. Button to solicit donations.


13 June 2005. First few entries on a new Recommended listening page put up.


14 January 2005. A new question on the Ask Brother Steve page, and a couple of new guestbook entries.


5 November 2004 (BOOM!). Filled in a few of the "coming soon" sound clips on the rolls pages.


October 2004. The site has been completely redesigned to dispense with the use of frames. The content has had a little overhaul too. Many pages have been tightened up or edited to reflect my current thinking.

Pages added: Introduction, More stuff about rolls, Ask Brother Steve, Tunebook.
Pages axed: Photo gallery, International, Using this site, and a few other trifles.

The remainder of the list below seems barely relevant now. But it's still there...

Please note that a few soundclips are missing from the newer pages on rolls. Yes, you guessed it, they're "coming soon".




15 September 2003. Amended a couple of comments about tonguing, chiefly to reflect changes in my thinking about glottal stops and "huffing". Getting broad-minded in my old age. Plus a link to the band I am currently playing with on the "About the author" page.

21 May 2003. Amended my somewhat misleading remarks about short rolls in the section on rolls. Hope to clarify further, with more helpful sound clips, in the near future.

17 March 2003. Added a link in the links page and a couple of photos in the photo gallery.

9 December 2002. Added a new tip to the Quick tips section.

25 August 2002. The guestbook service provided by Beseen has been discontinued. I haven't yet found anything suitable to replace it. Until I do, if you wish to pay me a compliment or tell me to get a life, you can send me an email.

19 August 2002. Added a link to a new section: transcriptions of tunes played by traditional musicians, with clips, notation, and comments. This is for True Believers (present and future).

1 May 2002. Changed the colour scheme, just for fun. Added a reader's tip to the Quick tips section. Changed the behaviour of links in the links page to open them in a new window rather than in the main frame of the Brother Steve frameset.

23 April 2002. Added a page with some quick tips - more to come.

12 April 2002. Simplified the navigation window and added an embryonic page for international visitors.

8 April 2002. Various commitments are making serious work on the site difficult for the time being. But I am planning a "Quick tips" section, and possibly a "FAQ" section, which should appear quite soon. In the meantime I've modified the introduction and added some links to whistle-teaching resources.

2 February 2002. Nothing new about whistling just yet, but added a few pics to the Photo gallery section.

3 December 2001. Half the topic on triplets now complete. Tongued triplets next!

27 & 28 November 2001. It's been a long time since I added anything - but have made a start on Triplets. Still plenty left to add!

20 August 2001. The initial version of Not lifting a finger is now complete, except for a couple of finger-twisting exercises I want to add soon.

19 August 2001. Added some useful stuff to the lazy whistler's topic, Not lifting a finger.

3 August 2001. Added some examples to the topic Where do I breathe?

26 July 2001. A few additions to the Links page.

9 July 2001. Actually, nothing new has been added since the last entry - but I wanted to let you know that although there haven't been any substantive posts for a while, new material will be coming.

For the time being, various circumstances and commitments make it difficult for me to put much time into the site. But by the end of August I intend to complete the incomplete topics:

Also coming:

7 June 2001. Made a start on a topic I've been meaning to write since the beginning, Not lifting a finger. It's only a start - the most interesting stuff is to come.

16 May 2001. A new piece of whimsy and fond reminiscence has been appended to the Meditations of Brother Steve, Put some croutons in the soup.

14 May 2001. Plugged a few gaps in the Rolls: how to use them page. I have added a small image to show how rolls can be (and sometimes are) notated accurately, and added mini-clips of rolls played on all the other notes.

There are also now a couple of clips in the Jigs II page to show how to pronounce the French interjection "Beurk!" correctly.

10 May 2001. All pages have now been converted to the new look. In the next couple of weeks I'll try to get around to filling those unwritten topics (in green in the navigation window). By the way - if you can't see the PNG image files, I want to hear from you, so send me an email please!

29 April 2001. An option in the contents panel, "No-frames version", allows you to navigate without using frames. This is intended mainly for the small percentage of visitors using 600 x 480 resolution displays.

25 April 2001. Have started on a series of improvements to layout, using a two-frame layout, with the frames now resizable. I hope this will improve usability for visitors with lower-resolution screens.

I have also been reading up on HTML and am going to be:

This may take until about mid-May to complete.

15 April 2001. A new page on Slides (glissando) and a very basic discussion of Vibrato have been added. A few additions have also been made to the links page.

24 March 2001. A second page on jigs has been added with some tunes to practise. Starting with this page all new music images will be narrower, which should enable those of you using 800 x 600 resolution to see the entire tune in the frame without resorting to the horizontal scroll bar. I'll get around to converting older tune images to this narrower format in time.

20 March 2001. Brother Steve has decided to start levying a charge on visitors to his pages. Here's the deal: if you like the site, or if you visit more than once, you are honour-bound to sign the visitor's book. Diolch yn fawr!

19 March 2001. My conscience has been pricking me. I thought the world might need some explanation as to why I presume to teach it how to play the whistle. Hence: The confessions of Brother Steve! Shock, horror! Picture! Read all about it!

16 March 2001. A new page on rolls has been added with some tunes to practise.

9 March 2001. All sound clips have now been converted to .mp3 format. For more information, see the topic Using this site.

5 March 2001. Minor additions to links page and author bio on 5 March. I also added a link to an automated French translation of the site. Just for laughs - you'll soon see what I mean.

27 February 2001. Embryo links and photo gallery pages posted. Minor additions to links page on 5 March.

22 February 2001. Minor additions to the jigs page. First clips in RealAudio and MP3 format added as a trial.

19 February 2001. A topic aimed at classical musicians was added to the meditations page.

15 February 2001. An initial version of the topic Jigs: trickier than you think was added. Subject to emendation... (Slightly emended on 22 Feb 2001.)

6 February 2001. Some sample tunes have been added to the topic on Tonguing to demonstrate, um, not tonguing.

1 February 2001. Although very much still a work in progress, the existence of these pages was leaked to the whistle-playing public at large. Here's what was on offer in this initial release:


About this site.
Using this site. A few tips on screen size, sound clips, etc.
Meditations of Bro. Steve. Lots of rambling thoughts about the business of learning Irish music.
Relax! About posture, etc.
Tonguing. A few vague words of guidance on this contentious subject.
Where do I breathe? Good question, as the politicians say when they don't know what to answer.
Basic ornamentation
Taps or strikes.
Cuts.
Advanced ornamentation
   Rolls I. Everyone wants to learn these far too soon. But you might as well learn them right.
   Rolls II. Where to put 'em.
About Siamsa. About the Siamsa School of Irish Music in Montreal.
About the author. A few well-chosen lies.
Acknowledgments. Thank you!

Home: Return to square one
Previous page: Guestbook

Updated 14 October 2004