Forgive me if this topic has been dealt with before;
i searched the forum finding nothing
but could have easily overlooked the relevant information.
I recently purchased a small tin whistle,
Waltons D if it matters,
and am trying to learn to play it
but i’m running into trouble, especially with the higher octave,
as it starts to sound…well,
“squonky” is about the best way i can find to describe it.
Sort of brassy, squeaky, and like an adolescent whose voice is breaking,
and quite annoying for that!
My question is, is this just the result of having purchased a cheap whistle
and just something i’m going to have to learn to live with
(though i’ve heard with these the cheaper ones aren’t so bad)
or is there some way to fix it to improve the sound?
For the record,
i’ve tried popping off the mouthpiece and moving it about some,
as i had heard that sometimes helped,
and it sometimes does,
but not very consistently.
Any input would be great, thanks!
And again, sorry if this is a recurring topic
and thus redundant for anyone –
it’s a fairly elementary question,
but then i’m a fairly elementary whistle player 
Hello. Your Waltons D should be fine to start on, and are recommended by many of this forum.
Be sure that you are putting enough air for the higher register. There is a big difference in air pressure between the lower octave and the higher octave. I used to have this problem with my Clarke Original high D and found that once I give it enough air pressure the “between octave breaking” noise that I think you are describing will go away and you will stay in the upper octave. Start slowly by first producing the high D’ (all holes closed except the top, first finger). Then go for the high E’, then the F#’ and then the G’. Once you can get these clearly, then go for the high A’. Master that and then go for the high B’.
Just to be painfully clear, for the second octave D you open the top hole (not all whistles need it done, but it works on all) but then close it again for E and as you progress up the scale.
Thanks for the swift responses!
I can manage each note individually reasonably well,
it’s mainly the putting them together that gives me troubles…
I can get nice, solid notes playing them one at a time,
but i guess i’m losing the breath control between them or something
because when i actually try to play a song with those notes,
that’s when it gets all squonky.
Anyway, knowing it’s a problem with technique
rather than with the instrument
does help quite a lot –
i imagine it’ll just take quite a bit of practice…
Alas.
Well.. I wouldn’t be so quick to diagnose the problem at hand here… What kind of Waltons’ D are you playing? There’s at least a few… And your subject head reads Little D, which leads me to believe you’re talking about a Walton’s Little Black D. I have one, well, had one now… Sort of. Allow me to elaborate… I bought a Walton’s Little Black D, (you know the feather-weight aluminum bodied whistle painted black with the black fipple and the yellow sticker) about 2 and half years ago. The the thing sounded crap. I was still new at whistling at the time I first got it, so I thought it was my playing. I then purchased other whistles, Generations, Sweetones, Feadogs etc, and realised that for the Walton’s it wasn’t me, but the whistle itself. Now, this is just one personal account, I don’t know how all the other little black D’s played, (apparantly Andrea Corr of the Corrs played and loved one, lucky whistle…) so take this with a grain of salt if need be.
Anyways, I kept the whistle body, and stuck a Generation fipple on it, and I must say, it has quite the unique tone I think (that’s a good thing I mean). The hard part was getting the Generation head on the little black D’s whistle body, I had to pull out the ol’ dremmel tool and shave a bit off all the way around the tube and a little off the inside of the Generation head, but eventually she fit. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m gonna put a Feadog fipple on the tube next and see what that produces. Point is, it was the fipple, the Walton’s fipple was junk, even when I first bought that whistle, I couldn’t get above second octave E as the notes just sounded absolutely unpleasant, where as now, I have another whistle I enjoy playing, and this thing is so light it just floats in your hands.
-Eric
I must agree with Key_of_D, I have a Walton’s LBW and it has a very squeakey second octave. I do not like it at all. I would recomend getting another whistle, there are cheapies that sound much better.
Imagine if you had …
If it makes any difference, it’s not a black one
but a sort of brassy colored body with a green fipple…
Either way, i imagine there are other whistles in my future,
but i shall at least keep cracking at this one for a while yet
and maybe i’ll just try a simpler song
than the one i’m currently working on
and see if that doesn’t help a bit, too…
Again, thanks so much for all the input!
This might be about the most responsive forum on the internet 
I used to have the same problem (especially on a new whistle). It’s harder to concentrate on breath pressure requirments when you’re trying to concentrate on the song. Anyway, for me it helped when my instructor said that when I see a jump to the upper octave coming up, think about what I need to do for that note (the other notes will be fine once you’re up there). It will become second nature soon and you won’t have to think about it at all.
Your story is exactly like mine! I started out with a Walton brass D as well. I couldn’t figure out if the squeaking was my fault or the fault of the whistle…
That was about ten months ago. Since acquiring more whistles, most of them cheapies, and practicing like crazy I discovered that the fault lay with me AND the whistle. With practice you’ll determine how much air your Walton needs, but my Walton was almost unplayable at times even as my technique improved.
My suggestion is to stick with the Walton for awhile, but then get another cheapie that may be more reliable as you find you can’t handle the squonkiness anymore. My most reliable cheapie is my original Clarke in D. Sings like a bird on the upper octave, mmm. 
pacbat,
I would like to recomend that you don’t waste anymore money trying to find the best cheepie because they all have their own problems in one way or another. It will cost 8-12$ a whistle plus shipping and that can add up real quick.
I would spend about 30$ and get a Hoover whitecap and put a Feadog tube on it or get one with a tube already on it. Here is the website..
http://www.mackhooverwhistles.com/
Hope this helps,
Nate
I would spend about 20$ plus shipping on a brass Feadog, and a brass Generation, or swap one of them out, or hell at the 3rd, a nickel Generation, probably cost you the same for the price of a Hoover fipple plus the cost of buying the Feadog (around 10$) just so you can put the body on the Hoover cap, and then you’ll have 3 different whistles to try from. Personally I enjoy all 3 of my very own as just described. Course I did some minor tweaking, (poster tack in the fipple) but there you go. That’s just me, if you’re worried about saving money.
Cheers,
I have a brass Feadog and I like it pretty much. It sounds perfect in both octaves. The only ‘problem’ is that the C natural xooxxx is a bit sharp, but nothing important…
My teacher has a Walton’s Mellow D and I think it’s better than all my whistles…
Try this my friend,
Go get your Waltons little D whistle.
Play bottom d on your whistle.
Set the whistle on the computer desk.
Now whistle through your lips and hold the d note yourself.
Now jump an octave to d.
Drop to low d and back up an octave to d.
Keep doing this for a few moments and feel what is happening inside your mouth.
Can you feel your mouth contract and tighten up and your tongue ride and fall as you jump an octave and loosen as you drop back down?
If this is happening for you then all you need to do is now pick up the whistle and do the same thing while doing the octave jump.
Try doing it on E first because you don’t need to move any fingers off and on to the whistle. How did you go?
Happy whistling!
Technique has something to do with it, but the quality of the whistle does too. (i have not read the other responses). A better whistle will sound better. However, I used to hate my Very Narrow Bore Susato and now it’s a favorite for practicing on, so skill has a part to play.
That said, you could get rid of that squonk by buying a good whistle.
pacbat,
Is the whistle that you have a ‘Mellow’ D?
The Mellow has a wider bore than normal and has a softer tone than its narrow bore sibling. I have a Mellow and it is/was rubbish, it squeaks and makes some god awful other noises I can’t stand. I have tweaked it and got it to sound better, but it still is not a nice whistle to play. I regularly come across beginners who have bought a Mellow D has the squeaks as well, I tell them to dump it and buy a narrow bore whistle instead. Don’t get me wrong, I have tweaked a few Mellows for others and got them to sound better, but once the whistler gets more experienced they realise that the Mellow D has not got the sound they are looking for and they buy another brand.
I myself prefer my old Generation high D, I have had it for years. It was a bit squeaky when I first bought it, I tweaked it (go to the section on tweaking whistles here on C and F if you want to give it a go) and it sounds great for what I do.
I have tried many other brands but I always go back to the G’. A really nice sounding whistle that should play great straight off the shelf is a Sweetone in D. They have a conical bore and are really responsive for slow airs.
The reason a lot of whistles squeak is because there are little bits of plastic where the seams of the mould for the fipple meet. It helps to remove these very carefully and free up the flow of air through the mouthpiece.