I just recently bought my first whistle ever (have a bit of experience with guitar and piano) about a week ago, it’s a generation D brass whistle. Well I so far have the basic fingering and breath control techniques down so I decided to go looking for some stuff to play. After browsing TheSession.org and finding a few interesting tunes, one thing I noticed is the different keys, the majority being Gmajor, Eminor, and Edorian. I am absolutely clueless on what to do heh so I figured might as well try some forums. Any and all help will be much appreciated.
Welcome to the board.
You don’t say so but I’m guessing from your question that you don’t read music. Most of the tunes/songs you find on The Session will play on your D whistle. For now, forget about keys and just learn some tunes. If you don’t read music, and most here believe it’s better anyway, listen to tunes you like and learn them by ear. It’s not that difficult since you’re only dealing with two octaves for the most part.
You say you have the basic fingering and breathing figured out but it’s not clear what you mean by that. If you have found a fingering chart somewhere on the internet, then you know where the notes are on the staff so that should coincide with the music you found on The Session. If you mean you’ve learned how to hold the whistle and play the first six notes, you’ve got a way to go yet.
If I were you, I’d search Youtube. There are several good online tutors who post video lessons there for beginner and intermediate players.
Keep in touch with us about your progress. This is both a fun and serious place for whistle and flute players (and others).
ecohawk
No big whoop. Gmajor is the scale that’s fingered from
XXX OOO
XXO OOO
XOO OOO
OXX OOO
(more breath)
XXX XXX or OXX XXX
XXX XXO
XXX XOO
XXX OOO
It’s tricky to play around the octave break (at “more breath”) but you also get to play notes below the G that starts the scale. Lots of tunes want this.
Eminor is the same fingering, but the scale starts at XXX XXO
Edorian is Eminor but with a C# OOO OOO replacing Cnatural OXX OOO . It doesn’t show up much in western European folk music.
You just play them. All of those keys are natural to a D whistle. You do NOT need to match the key of the music to the key of the whistle, in case that was something that was bothering you. And just so you know, you can pick up a whistle in any key and play it just as you do your D whistle… same finger patterns.
Better if you don’t read music (!) or better to learn by ear anyway?
Nah, that’s E Aeolian (aka ‘natural minor’)…
Edorian is Eminor but with a C# OOO OOO replacing Cnatural OXX OOO . It doesn’t show up much in western European folk music.
Funny, I’d have said it was quite common!
Wow I was not expecting this many responses within such a short amount of time. I can read sheet music for the most part and I know where the notes are on the staff so that’s not a problem, I also somewhat get the key part thanks to mwilson, but on some of sheet music I see on The Session are in say Eminor yet still want me to play D notes with all six holes covered even though from what you’ve said the E minor key starts with only 5 holes covered. Not sure if this makes sense heh, also today I couldn’t resist buying a Generation Bb (love the sound of the low whistle but not the price so decided to buy it).
E minor still has D’s in it, and when they occur as D in the music you play them as D on the whistle (six fingers down xxxxxx). I hope that helps.
anyone like a tonic?
As others have said, the Gen Bb is a really lovely whistle.
The WhOAD begins anew!
Well heres another question for you guys, been attempting to learn this http://www.thesession.org/tunes/sheetmusic/lochaberbadger1_5758.gif and I was wondering, when playing it should I be blowing for the whole time or should I blow only on each note?
Dorian, aeolian, etc, are terms taken from the modes of old church music, ultimately from the greeks. All the ‘irish’ modes can be found on a normal whistle. What changes is the note you start on, and sometimes the notes you leave off. It matters very little to melody players. If you’re playing the notes of D or G major (the two major keys most comfortable on a whistle) but the tune seems to centre on a different tonic, odds are you’re playing a modal tune. Accompanists have to be able to work this out, because it changes the chords/harmony that works best, but melody instruments can ignore it entirely.
There are two main methods for this that I know of, and both roughly fall into the category of blowing the whole time. It sounds like you don’t have much experience, if any, with wind instruments so you probably aren’t familiar with the technique of tonguing. Rather than starting and stopping your breath when you want to separate notes, you quickly tap your tongue against the roof of your mouth, much like you do when pronouncing t’s or d’s. This is a good method when you want to have a distinct difference between notes, especially two of the same note. It is much faster than trying to stop and start breathing for each note and can allow an extra burst of speed that can help with the higher notes.
Many traditional players, however, will opt for trying to have as few disruptions in the play as possible, which means not stopping your breath unless you need to breath in and not tonguing. In this method you can distinguish between notes using ornamentation, which takes a while to master and get fast at.
Generally, I would say the only time you want to stop blowing entirely is when you need to breathe in or if there’s a rest. Others may disagree. I hope this is along the tracks of the answer you were looking for.
Edit: Upon closer inspection of the music you linked to it looks like there are a few rests. You do want to stop blowing for those unless you decide to improvise something to fill them.
Thanks for that link Maki, helped explain things for me. One other question, I just noticed on my Generation Bb the mouthpiece is a few millimeters offline from the holes, would that make a difference in the sound and if so should I attempted to tweak it back inline?
The headpiece being out of line with the holes should make no difference at all to the sound. You may want to tweak the head a bit to make it slightly tunable or to try to famous poster putty tweak. If you decide to do that ecohawk posted one of the best methods I’ve seen over on this topic: https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/whoad-strikes-again-new-nickel-plated-generation-bb/80969/5
Well I got the head all lined up and didn’t change the sound a bit, you speak of a “famous poster putty tweak” but I have no idea what that is 
Go back to the first page of the Whistle Forum. The third Sticky from the top lists lots of tweaks. Seed within… grasshopper.
ecohawk
Thanks for the info, I decided to do a “poster putty” tweak to my walton D whistle and it seems to have made it much easier to hit the higher notes.
Only with a double gin and a couple limes, thanks.
you may have issues that want resolving 