These Dixon flute / whistle combo has me intrigued. I’m curious how hard it is for a whistle player to play a flute such as the Dixon one with the interchangeable heads? Is the sound drastically different?
Yes, the sound is drastically different. The head design controls the sound of the whistle. The player controls the sound of the flute for the most part. Overall the flute is the more flexible instrument as far as dynamics and timbre are concerned and the range of tone color is up to the player (for the most part).
The fingerings are obviously the same. The interface between the mouth and the instrument is quite different. That’s the trick. For some of us it is an easy transition. For others it will take months or even years to develop a decent embouchure. So it is hard to say where your experience may fall.
I have owned a couple of the Dixon flute/whistle combinations and the flute component of the cylindrical body sets are not very compelling in my experience (like the DX022). I’d not spend the money on those personally. But if all you are trying to determine is how hard it is to play a flute it may not be a bad idea to start that way. Avoid the older Dixon flute heads without the lip plate. There just wasn’t enough chimney depth on those to make it worth your while struggling for a good tone.
Dixon makes a three piece polymer flute (DX030) for which there is a whistle head available (DX030WHD). That’s what I would suggest as far as the flute half goes. In fact I’d say if you like Dixons just buy the DX030 outright. It’s a decent starter flute.
Now I have no experience with the newer conical low D whistle so I can’t comment on that. I don’t know if that model has a flute head available but it should.
Hope that helps.
Feadoggie
Very helpful Feadoggie, thanks for your reply. I’m quite happy with my whistles so I guess I wouldn’t need one that has a changeable flute/whistle head really. Thanks for the DX030 reference. I just goggled it. I was a bit surprised to see it cost 140 pounds. It must be a decent one as that’s a lot more expensive than the cheaper ones I was looking at.
My daughter (5 1/2) is interested in the flutes she sees on TV (we watch a lot of classical music performances). So I was thinking if this was something I could pick up easily it would be fun to get one and play around with it for both me & my daughter (she enjoys listening to my whistle playing). I enjoy learning to play different instruments especially if I can pick them up quickly. It’s just for fun though, as a hobby, and any flute playing would be secondary to my whistle playing.
I’ll keep the DX030 bookmarked. Maybe as an idea for Santa.
I’m curious why one would choose a flute over a whistle or vice versa. From what I gather, the whistle has a different sound in the upper octave and the volume is louder due to blowing harder, and the flute doesn’t have this limitation. Is that correct? Are there other advantages to a flute? What are the advantages of the whistle? Easier?
To answer the topic question specifically:
No, flute is no harder for whistle players to learn than for anyone else. 
And as with many wind instruments, they share many core skills of finger coordination and breath control, so that’s a plus.
As Feadoggie points out, embouchure is the key difference, and the time and work needed to master embouchure. A number of technical and stylistic differences also follow from that. And to my ear, the best players who play both instruments sound distinctively different on each, using different skill sets to the best advantage.
Oh my, there’s a lot going on behind your question.
I started my kids on whistles at about 6 or 7 years of age. Then we moved to fifes at maybe 9 or 10 on PVC instruments we made together.
I originally thought you were referring to the Dixon low whistle and flute head sets. But I see you may be asking more about the high pitched sets. I own the fife head for the Dixon polymer high D and high C whistles. I didn’t like it at all but that’s probably because I play proper fifes myself. But for your purposes it might not be a bad investment. I am a firm believer in having the instruments out for the kids so that when the urge hits them they can take advantage of it. Buy earplugs for yourself.
I think people choose one or the other as tonal options. They are tonally and stylistically distinct instruments as MTGuru points out.
The flute, the fife or the piccolo are the louder instruments than the whistle actually. They can be played with varying volume levels which is the dynamic range difference I alluded to earlier. The timbre of the flute can be adjusted by the player as well once they get the embouchure worked out. The whistle’s tone and volume are pretty much fixed in the design. So the flute is the more flexible type of instrument, at least that’s my opinion.
It’s really just options and choices. Different hoses for different courses. One’s no better or worse, IMO. The whistle is probably easier to pick up and get a decent sound. But I never had any trouble picking up flutes and playing them even at a youngish age. Flutes take less air to play in general once you have a grasp of the embouchure thing. Whistles do tend to be less expensive but there are plenty of flute-ish options out there that do not break the bank, particularly plastic fifes (Yamaha and other plastic fifes, Jem’s poly piccolo, Doug Tipple’s flutes and some cane flutes as well).
My standing method of operation regarding music and kids is just to buy one of everything and see what the kids pick up. You never know. Take them to see lots of live music no matter what type of music. It may take a while but, sponges that they are, they’ll be influenced later in life by what you present to them now. My three kids each played band instruments in school, then switched to electric guitars, bass and drums in their teens but in the last two months (as adults) each has walked out of the house with different acoustic stringed instruments (banjo, mandolin and fiddle). So you never know.
Good luck.
Feadoggie
I actually was referring to the low whistle & flute combos. I mentioned my daughter because she likes to listen. But so far she hasn’t expressed much interest in learning to play. Santa brought her a Generation high F which is the right size for her but she lacks the concentration to learn to play it. 5 minutes is the most she can do. Coincidentally her Generation F became my first whistle and that’s how I got into the tin whistle. I choose the tin whistle for her since it had the same fingers as the saxophone and I knew I could pick it up quickly. I had no idea about ITM and all the things I’d discover.
Next week she starts her second year at the “le conservatoire”. Every week she will have 1 hour of solfege (like last year), and 30 minutes with an instrument. They have a really good program where we live. At 6 years old they “try” harp, recorder, piano, cello, and violin. That’s an amazing opportunity so I really want her to capitalize on it. When I was around 10 or 11 I went to a band meeting at school and they had an older band student play each instrument and then they asked us which ones we wanted to choose. I choose saxophone almost randomly and that was my instrument throughout school. The method at the conservatoire of letting them play 5 different instruments at 6 years old is really fantastic in my opinion. And after this year if they haven’t chosen one of the 5 instruments, they can do another year where they learn woodwinds & brass instruments.
So basically I play a lot of piano & tin whistle at home so she’s constantly hearing me play and I’m hoping that will motivate her. At 6 she’s a bit young and prefers to play so I don’t push it. Just let her hear the music and observe my enjoyment.
Thanks for explaining the differences between flute & whistle. I googled a bit and flutes get pretty expensive, they seem more expensive than whistles. So I’ll keep the DX030 in mind for later. That gives me a place to start. My wife said “it’s more cool to play the flute” so maybe I can get a flute purchase approved for Christmas. 
One more follow-up question:
I did a bit of research and I see 3 options.
First is the Dixon DX030 that was recommended by feadoggie.
Second is a bamboo flute from William Miller aka WindWoodFlutes.com. I really like the simplicity of his flutes, they sound great, and the D is $85 which is less than half the price of the DX030.
I’m curious how you would compare the two?
The third option is a Tipple but for the same price I think I would prefer the bamboo flute.
No. Learning to play a whistle is the best preparation possible for learning Irish flute.
However, be very wary about combination instruments. Usually, the compromise(s) necessary to make 'em work ruin the very qualities that made the source instruments desirable in the first place. A whistle is - next to a jaw harp, perhaps - among the cheapest of musical instruments. It’s foolish to shell out for a combo contraption when a regular whistle is that affordable.
I certainly hope so, having just bought a flute.
Unless you’re a helluva lot better than me, it’ll take you years and years to learn how to play flute. So worth it, though.
This is kind of what I was thinking when I created the topic. It looks like a whistle player could just pick up a flute and play it. But I know it’s not that simple.
The thing I really love about the whistle is I can just pick it up and play it (years of playing saxophone was a big help). I do not play perfectly nor do I sound like a professional, but my playing is pure enjoyment.
Compare that to the piano, which I’ve been learning for a year. I really do enjoy the piano but it’s very difficult work. I spend hours learning a tune whereas on a whistle I could play it at a basic level in an half hour. I keep at the piano because it’s been a goal of mine since I was a child to learn to play the piano and I really enjoy the songs I do know how to play.
So I have to look at my commitment. If a flute would take a few years, then that effort may be better spent on the whistle & piano, at least for me. I’m also curious about learning the bodhran, so that is another contender for my time. I figure if I can learn some basic bodhran beats that would compliment my whistle playing nicely, at least better than Band in the Box backing tracks that have a generic country sound (which is better than nothing I might add).
All this is really just me being curious about other instruments. The more I think about it, one wind melody instrument (whistle) may be enough, and percussion would be a nice compliment to the melody instrument.
I’ve been seiously tempted by Doug Tipples PVC Flutes,
http://sites.google.com/site/dougsflutes/
Another temptation is Casey Burns Folk Flutes,
http://www.caseyburnsflutes.com/ff.php
Both get great reviews.