holy poo! At least five posts since I started my message
Is that a type of wood or metal?
Susan
tee hee,
No really - it was stainless tubing.
As someone pointed out, they teach recorder in the UK, and whistle in the Irish schools.
Of all the people in the UK I know who were taught recorder at primary school (and that seems to be about a third of the population, at least in my age bracket) I am one of only two people I know who plays the thing well. That is actually because whenever I went back to Ireland in the summer holidays etc, my whole bleeding family were whistling, fiddling and singing, and I wanted to join in. Of my thirty odd cousins on my mums side who were taught the whistle at least ten still play for enjoyement, and most of them play very well indeed.
The reason I am learning whistle now is that I recognise the subtelty that the more sophisticated breath control gives the instrument. Recorder sounds very pretty - lovely in fact when well played. The whistle sounds as expressive as a human voice when played by a master. It will be a while before I am that good, if ever, but already I can do things on the whistle that I couldn’t do on the recorder. The recorder offers more sophisticated melodies perhaps - but the whistle sounds like no other instrument I know. It is like the difference between classical guitar, and Irish folk fiddle. Two entirely and hopelessly different things. Why not enjoy both?
Callybeg
Unless you’re counting wrong, that’s 11 holes. 
If it’s only 10 holes and no keys (could be a trick question?), then you can cover each hole with one of your standard fingers. If you’re that guy who has 6 fingers in his right hand, then you can play the 11-holed whistle. You’d have to have your swords custom-made, though, because the extra finger throws off the balance.
Assuming you use the cross-fingered C-nat, with 10 holes you can make a fully chromatic instrument. Skip Healy makes flutes like that. I haven’t seen or played one, though. Peter Spring used to make 8-holed bamboo flutes (thumb hole for the c-nat, and extra finger in the right hand for the f-nat). It took a while getting used to, but it was convenient.
g
Bloomfield, you rock!
I have an 11 hole McDonagh fife. There are two holes to cover with RH2. This enables you to play F natural without half-holing. Every other finger, and each thumb, covers one hole. It’s not that hard to get used to, but I find that very few of the tunes I play really call for it, and play a 6 hole most of the time. It has a great cross fingered c natural (oxoxxx) and a decent cross fingered g sharp (xxoxxo).
A 10-hole whistle smaller than B flat would be hard for me to play, though, because of the chunky sausage-like shape of my fingers.
To me, the “chromatic” nature of a recorder is not much of an issue, since the easy keys on a recorder are also the easy keys on a D or C whistle. If I need to play in Ab, I will put away the recorder and grab an Eb whistle. It’s just that some tunes call for that recorder sound.
The thing about recorders is, they can sound quite nice… But they just don’t have that QUALITY that whistles have, that… lovely mournful sound when playing slow airs.
I think the question that was posed here is the kind of question you’d expect to hear from someone who’s more familiar with the mechanics of playing recorder and is having to adjust for the whistle. I am the other way around; if I tried to learn recorder; I’d ask why the holes are smaller, there’s too many of them, why do I need my thumb to jump octaves, etc.?
The thing about the whistle is, (in my opinion), it’s WORTH learning and adjusting, so you can play the whistle. It’s not a complicated instrument - Most beginners can learn all of the tricks that the whistle has to offer within a year or two. And it’s got that… lovely Irish-y sound… That sound I fell in love with.
Boy, am I a slow learner!
I estimate 7 years to learn most of what a whistle has to offer.
Different, yes, but a recorder can sound every bit as mournful as a whistle. The adagio movement of Telemann’s concerto for recorder and bassoon is one of the best tearjerkers I’ve ever heard, and written specifically to take advantage of the sound of the recorder. (Many of Telemann’s pieces were generic – like the “Quartet for two violins or two oboes and two bassoons or two cellos, the second of which may be replaced by basso continuo or eliminated entirely.” I think I have that one with oboe, flute, cello, bassoon, and continuo, which sounds great.)
. . . or Bachs Sarabande from the partita in A minor played on alto recorder. Perhaps one should not see whistle/recorder as some form of competition, much better to like them both for their particular strengths.
Playing recorder give you hairy finger pads.
Don’t ask me how I know.