Wombat,Wombat wrote:Lee, unless your approach to blues playing is very different from mine, I don't think you'll have much use for that E whistle. I mainly use a whistle that gives me a five finger start so I play in E on a D whistle. Unless you want to play blues in F#, an E whistle would notbe much use to you.LeeMarsh wrote:If you want to play contemporary and blues, you might want to be come more conversant with alternate key whistles. You may find that having C, Bb, A, G, F, and E whistle to range between your hign and low D's give you a range to apply whistle to new tunes. I have a Dixon C, and Overton A and F whistles, that I find usefull with a number of tunes. I planning on getting a Low E to try to play blues on.
When I want to play fluent chromatic runs from b3 through major 3, 4th, b5 to fifth, I choose a two finger start: A on a D whistle. This also has the advantage of giving you a clean b7 without half holing, as does the two finger start. On an E whistle, this approach would have you playing in B which is not a common blues key either.
All the other whistle keys you mention except A are very useful for blues as is Eb which you didn't mention. I make frequent use of A for other purposes so my A whistles are important to me.
Most of the blues songs I know are in the key of E or A. I'm drawing this from my guitar playing of various tunes I picked up over the years. Prime chords for the key of E are E, A, and B7; for the key of A, they are A, D, and E7. The few walking base lines and licks that I know, are all in E or A. I'm not a big blues player by my son was for a while. Jonathan, was very into blues (part of why I want to pick it up) and aggreed that most of the stuff they played in his band were in E and A. An E whistle lets me play in the Key of A with a simple cross finger. Blues may be played or sung in any key, often with the key being shifted by the singer. Often these key shifts are done with a capo, to raise the key so that the player can play it with the fingering he knows, just moved up the neck of the guitar(and up the scale) to make it more comfortable for the singer. Granted my background's more folk music than traditional blues; but transitioning through the tunes I know, is going to be easier, than starting out fresh.
As an example of where I'm comming from you can check out <a href=http://www.torvund.net/guitar/BluesGuit ... x.asp>Olay Torvund's Blues Guitar</a> site.
no Bodinaphone links!