Hi, I've been playing recorders for over 40 years, and feel pretty adept with the ones that my hands are most appropriate for (alto, tenor, bass). I also owned a few standard D whistles and a C, to have on hand for an easy grab.

When we were in Donegal last September I took the opportunity to buy a low and a standard D (the standard D is a Dixon, aluminum) and they both are miles better than the whistles I had at home. Ordered more Dixons in other keys. Love them.

But mentally, the whistles are eroding my recorder playing and vice versa. They are close enough in their fingering to do that, in a way which switching from a guitar to a mandolin won't.

I prefer the key versatility of the recorder: two voices and you can play in any key.

Does anyone here know of a (metal) whistle maker who drills the tubes with holes that are spaced like a recorder? Seven holes on the top, properly spaced, one on the back, and perhaps the two bottom holes on the top have some kind of plastic plugs with two holes each to allow you to do the low chromatics?

For me this would be ideal: whistle timbre with a straight carry-over of basic fingering and ornamentation.

Pipe dream? (erp, sorry for that...)

Dream no more!

You might be looking for one of Hans Bracker's recorder whistles: https://music.bracker.co//Whistles/Special-Whistles.html

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-- A tin whistle a day keeps the racketts at bay.

-- WhOAD Survivor No. 11373

If you want to play recorder music with whistle tone, yes. But it still won't sound and respond like a whistle-fingered whistle in terms of fingered articulation, idiom etc. By all means get a recorder/whistle hybrid if you want one, but regard it as an extra and don't expect it to be a substitute for either. Applying the right fingerings to the right instruments will become automatic, but the sounds that come out of them should differ in more than just timbre. And, yes, I have serious recorder background too.

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And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.

Why I teach... and where
Master of nine?

I switched from the recorder to the whistle after playing the recorder for years. Now, I have difficulties playing the recorder. I had a Bracker aluminum whistle/recorder hybrid in C that played nicely. It disappeared in a dive. Hans Bracker is dedicated and meticulous. He was very helpful two and a half years ago when he made me the hybrid.

Dive: SCUBA, 10 meter board, run-down pub??? I'm feeling there's a story here.

Best wishes.

Steve

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"[Some flutists] place the flute between the upper lip and the nose, blowing the instrument from below. This position does not prevent good playing, but it does not look graceful."
~ Antoine Mahaut, 1759 in a tutor for playing the transverse flute ~

Or sky?

Snorkel (with the holes taped up)?

_________________
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.

Why I teach... and where
Master of nine?

Well know Irish Air Force problem.

Excellent, and now I'm all "DOH!" for not thinking of half-covering the two bottom holes. Now if I can find an F, I can cover all keys and tunes in their proper keys. "Moonlight Mile," here I come.

Thank you for this caveat.

Worst dive ever.

Me watch was new and me money too
In the morning with them she fled
And as I walked the streets about....

Isn't it always the way it goes. . .
First yer money. . .
Then yer clothes. . .

Bob

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Not everything you can count, counts. And not everything that counts, can be counted

The Expert's Mind has few possibilities.
The Beginner's mind has endless possibilities.
Shunryu Suzuki, Roshi

Though it has been said "one cannot serve two masters" yet I know people who are professional-level recorder players and also good traditional Irish style whistle players. Likewise I know somebody who is a professional orchestral viola player and also an excellent traditional Irish style fiddler.

So it is possible to learn two instruments in two styles and not have them interfere with each other. To do this it is necessary IHMO to approach the whistle as an entirely new instrument and guard against carrying over anything from your recorder playing- because the approach to breath control, and articulation, and fingering, and ornamentation, and phrasing, are all quite different.





Whistle holes are properly spaced, for a whistle. You can't put Bassoon holes on a Saxophone, or Recorder holes on a Whistle.


This comes up all the time: Highland pipers who want a whistle that fingers like a Highland pipe, Boehm fluteplayers who want a whistle that fingers like a Boehm flute, recorder players who want a whistle that fingers like a recorder. See comments above; when you learn mandolin you can't finger it like a guitar, when you learn trombone you can't play the scale as you would on a trumpet. The whistle is a distinct instrument, and it's pointless and ultimately futile to pretend that it is some other instrument.

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Richard Cook
1978 Quinn uilleann pipes
1945 Starck Highland pipes
Goldie Low D whistle

Standard F and C, I think. Though it's not how I'd have expressed that when these come in all different sizes with further alternatives in D (voice flute, sixth flute), Bb (fourth flute), G (quite popular for Renaissance altos) etc.

You can play in any key on a single recorder*. Or a single whistle for that matter, with suitably steady music (not reels and jigs!) and half-holing command. But it's not necessarily idiomatic to do so or sensible to try, and here's where the whistle's really quite different. Because the simplicity of its fingering in its comfortable keys (despite consequent limitations in terms of chromaticism) is precisely why it's normally a better fit for the music we play on it and the style we play it in.

*Schickhardt wrote a series of sonatas in all 24 keys for flute, violin or recorder as long ago as the 1730s. He was a woodwind player and knew his business.

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And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.

Why I teach... and where
Master of nine?

That's scary. For sure the material I played on Baroque flute at University stayed in flute-friendly keys. I don't want to think about playing in six sharps or flats.

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Richard Cook
1978 Quinn uilleann pipes
1945 Starck Highland pipes
Goldie Low D whistle