I’ve seen posts about Inisheer Air (which is one of my favorite pieces). I found it on Mick’s Virtual Whistle site. That site looks like a great resource for free music. The sound clips are beautiful and the transciption is nice. My only question is why does the key signature say D major when the piece is in G major? Luckily there are no C’s in this piece.
Now I’m new to whistle music, so please forgive me with my ignorance. Is this some standard way of indicating to the performer to play on a D whistle? I guess if that is the case then if you were playing in G on a D whistle, the music would just need to make an accidental natural any time C came up. Please tell me that my two assumtions are incorrect. My guess is that the key signature is just a typo on that one.
Also, since I am making a total idiot of myself with this post, I may as well get my other stupid question out. What do you call a whistle player? A whistler? A whistlist? Please help! Thanks!
picardy
As far as I know, two sharps (F and C) is the key of D. G major would just be an F sharp.
And as far as the other, I just generally call myself a musician. 
(Ok, ok, so that’s a bit of a copout.)
Aodhan
You’re right of course, 2 sharps would make no sense as the key signature for this tune.
However as you correctly point out, there are no Cs in the tune, and this raises another set of questions specific to notating traditional music.
Many tunes are modal, and this presents a problem: if a tune is in A-mixolydian - take the High Reel, for example - should the transcriber indicate three sharps for A major and then flatten every G? Or risk putting two sharps only and have people who are more conversant with other forms of music assume it is in D or B minor, or that the transcriber has transgressed?
To my mind, it makes no sense to put ther A major signature - I’d only put two sharps. Three would be subjecting traditional music to the rules of another form. O’Neill’s and many other tunebooks are full of this kind of thing though.
Similarly it makes no sense to me to indicate a sharp or flat for a note that doesn’t occur in the tune. If a tune based on G has no Fs, why indicate F sharp? You could make a case that any F would be not so much an “accidental” as a wrong note.
Yep, two sharps is D major. The version of Inisheer on Mick’s site is in D…it’s just one of those tunes that doesn’t happen to end on the key note.
The more accustomed you are to playing, the easier it is to tell if a piece of music is playable on a D whistle. The key signature is certainly a help…most music with two sharps (D) or one sharp (G) is pretty easy to play on a D whistle (the C natural being fairly simple to cross finger). D and G’s relative minors should also be accessible (but I’m afraid I can’t remember what they are…Em and Am?). As for other keys, it will mostly depend on how confident you are about half-holing. Of course, the range of the music will be a factor too…if it dips below middle D, you’ll either need a lower whistle or you’ll have to substitute a different note for the one that’s out of range (on a few tunes that drop in the odd middle C, I’ll sometimes pop up to C instead). If there are more sharps and/ or flats than you can comfortably deal with, you need a different key (or a transposition of the music).
Redwolf
Correct. Each time you go up a 5th in key you add a sharp to the key signature. Hence the circle of fifths. In case you didn’t know this simple little trick, if you take the last sharp (furthest to the right) in the key signature and raise it a half step, you have the name of the major key you are in. This works because the last sharp is always the 7th of the scale, so up 1/2 brings you back to 1. Just a nice trick if you don’t know the key signatures by just looking at them.
I have a tendency to spurt out information that people care nothing about or they already know. There is a trick for key signatures with flats, but I won’t unless you or some one really wants to know. Please forgive me if I am insulting your intellegence with something you already know. 
picardy
The sharp is there because the tune is in the key of D major. If the F# isn’t actually played in the tune (or any other note of that scale), it’s called “gapped mode.” This actually happens quite frequently. You need that sharp there for two reasons: 1) so if you’re playing with other instruments, you will be able to tell them what key you’re playing in and 2) so if you happen to play any ornaments or embelishments that DO go through that F, you’ll know it needs to be played sharp.
Redwolf
I’m sorry Redwolf, but I am going to have to disagree with you on this one. 
He doesn’t have the chords written out, but the chord structure is definitely G major. The pick up to the first measure just happens to be a 4th down from G. If it was in D and you ended on a G you would have the unsettled, unresolved feeling about the piece. This one ends nicely.
Really? What makes you think that (aside from the key signature)?
Stevie,
You bring up an interesting point about notating modal music.
If I played that tune (or other ITM tunes with gapped scales) with a accompaniment, and the guitarist put in F#s in your example (actually the C# I think), I’d kick him. LOL. Same if he or she tried to play either c-nats OR c-sharps on The Knotted Chord, for example. But don’t worry, learning from sheet music is A-ok.
About modal notation: I’ve seen A modal (for example) written with a key signature of two sharps and a natural sign where you’d expect the G#. I like that because it makes it clear that something is going on here that doesn’t fit the classical major/minor mold.
Difficult & interesting topic. Some great points by SteveJ are here: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=4169
Next time, use Norbecks. He generally gets the details right. But whenever you approach a trad tune, keep an open mind about key till you have played through the tune. And even then, you have to be suspicious if you are not HEARING someone play it. The knock on most great transcribers of IRTRAD is that they tried to fit it into keys that music readers would “understand.”
A really good example of an ambiguous keyed tune is “Bank of Ireland.” Because it uses both Cnats and Csharps, I have seen several solutions by music transcribers. Some stick to the D Mixolydian key sig (one sharp) and add the C#s as they happen. Others change the key signature at the B section because its predominantly D Major.
I rather like the ambiguous ones because they point out a charming facet of IRTRAD. Sporting Paddy is another one that defies an absolute key determination. My band plays “Come Walk with Me” (Tiocfadh somethin) from Breathnach’s and I love it because it keeps hinting at two different keys.
Just keep an open mind, I repeat.
As for printed tunebooks or hastily rendered abc files (of which there are many on the web), remember that the musicians are coming from a “by ear” tradition and aren’t always diligent about notation.
Wasn’t Red talking about another tune with her D Major comment? Inisheer is most certainly in G Major.
Adding in: I have noticed that songbooks of Scots-oriented tunes tend to take what we think of as IRTRAD reels and regularize them into major keys by eliminating Cnats in what seem to be D Major keys, then harmonizing with secondary dominants instead of modal II minor chords.
The problem with that statement is that whenever you play a D chord those f# are fine. That’s what gives is the D major its major feel. But more importantly, the piece is full of C and G chords. The whistle even arpeggiates these chords. There is no C major chord in the key of D. Listen to the sound clip and try playing an A major chord over this melody (try the 3rd full measure) on the piano. Let your ear decide if it works. What can make a melody interesting is when it doesn’t always return to the root of the key or root of the chord. This is a perfect example of that. Otherwise, the melody would be boring. if you returned to 1 constantly. 
You’re right, the melody is great and great for whistle players. But an accompanist would wonder why the key says D major.
So what do you call a whistle player??
Huh?
Just play the feckin’ tune. :roll:
I composed a jig a few years ago and gave it to a classically-trained friend to try out. He came back with it a week later and showed me “corrections” which he had made to it in order to suit whatever key it was supposed to be in. Maybe they made him happy, but they were meaningless to me, and added strictly nothing to the tune.
That’s what I like about DADGAD tunings, becuase it seems easier for guitarists to just play open fifths, and leave out the third, keeping the ambiguity of the gapped scale intact. The Knotted Chord tune I mentioned, is clear in A (some sort of A), but there are no Cs, so I’d want the guitarist playing neither A minor nor A major. Also the effect is that you have Gmaj and Emin, but not Emaj, the dominant.
(the stars mark long rolls. The image is from Brother Steve’s (StevieJ’s) page, http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/ )
Interesting thread, thanks for starting it! Modes can be complex, and there seems to be a lot of confusion about them.
Firstly, I agree that the piece as played on a D whistle is probably best notated in G.
Also, I feel I must come to the defence of ‘classical’ music. There is a mis-conception that classical music only knows about the major (Ionian) and natural minor (aeolian) . It is true that when we first learn an instrument we are taught that a given key signature ‘means’ one of two keys – the major or the minor, but a classical musician will be well aware of the other modes that can be played within that signature. It is true that classical-period music revolves around the Ionian and the Melodic/Harmonic minor scales, but music before and after has been well informed by modes (and even during the classical period modes are used). So it really isn’t a folk-music=modal and classical=major/minor situation at all. Listen to Perotin, there isn’t an Ionian mode in that at all (as the Ionian(major) was considered a 'lustful mode!).
All of this remids me of the pre-amble to Tom Lehrer’s “The Irish Ballad”
Now I’d like to turn to the folk song, which has become in recent years the particularly fashionable form of idiocy among the self-styled intellectual. We find that people who deplore the level of current popular songs - although I admit they do seem to be recording almost anything these days. have you heard Sesue Hayakawa’s record of Remember Pearl Harbor? These same people who deplore the level of current popular songs and yet will sit around enthralled singing Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care or “Green Grow The Rushes, Oh!” - whatever that means. At any rate, for this elite I have here an ancient Irish ballad, which was written a few years ago, and which is replete with all the accoutrements of this art form. In particular, it has a sort of idiotic refrain, in this case rickety-tickety-tin you’ll notice cropping up from time to time, running through, I might add, interminable verses - The large number of verses being a feature expressly designed to please the true devotees of the folk song who seem to find singing fifty verses of On Top Of Old Smokey is twice as enjoyable as singing twenty-five.
This type of song also has what is known technically in music as a modal tune, which means - for the benefit of any layman who may have wandered in this evening - that I play a wrong note every now and then, I think I might add… (starts to play, then stops)
This song though does differ strikingly from the genuine folk ballad in that in this song the words which are supposed to rhyme - actually do. (starts to play, then stops) I, ah, I really should say that - I do not direct these remarks against the vast army of folk song lovers, but merely against that peculiar hard core who seem to equate authenticity with artistic merit and illiteracy with charm. (starts to play, then stops)
Oh - one more thing. One of the more important aspects of public folk singing is audience participation, and this happens to be a good song for group singing. So if any of you feel like joining in with me on this song, I’d appreciate it if you would leave - right now. (Starts to play, and continues…)
I think we agree now that Dmaj for Inisheer is a mistake on Mike’s page.
I prefer to be called “whistler” or “whistle player,” although at sessions I commonly hear myself referred to as “that bleeding gobshite with his fecking whistle.”
Just wait till you pull out your new 20" Bodhran for a bit of tippy-tapping, then the air will turn blue fer sure.
“Quote:
Now I’d like to turn to the folk song, which has become in recent years the particularly fashionable form of idiocy among the self-styled intellectual.”
HAHAHAHAH FATVEG
Its so funny because the same people who love all that late 50s early 60s college/NYey folkstuff always do Tom Lehrer songs, too…I didn’t like it when I was six years old and I don’t like it now.
I never knew he said THAT!!! I now like him!
Signed, The Opposite of a PeterPaul&Mary Fan,
The Weekender
I agree, very funny quote from Lehrer. That stuff back in the sixties left “folk music” with such a residue that it took me 20 years to discover that traditional music was something I really wanted to learn. I haven’t seen A Mighty Wind yet, but the quote reminds me I have got to get to it. Thanks, FatVeg!