Confusion and tin whistles

[NeoFolk]

Hello everybody,
I'm very pleased to have found this forum because I'm very confused about the whole tin whistles in different keys idea and wondered if you guys could help me.

I play in a band (violin, guitar, piano, flute) and we've just written a song which would work great with me playing a tin whistle. I've never played one before but I enthusiastically looked into it and discovered that they are all in different keys. which you all know of course. don't know why i didn't know..

anyway. the key of this song is E minor. I can't see that buying a whistle in E major would be any good because of all the sharpened notes which don't belong in E minor. Would I therefore buy one in G major which is the relative major of E minor? arghhh. Very confused- how does one get a minor key out of a major tuned whistle???!!

any explanations or help or advice would be really appreciated. I would love to play the whistle on a few of our songs but don't want to start buying any before I understand the key thing.

Thanks you,

X

[Dale]

This should help you. I did this, I dunno, 10 years ago:


http://www.chiffandfipple.com/whistlekeys.html

Depending on where you want to fall on the octaves, you can play E minor on a high D, low D, low G, or low A whistle. But, I'd go with a low or high D.

Welcome!

[Bothrops]

Yes, I'd simply buy a common high D whistle to play in E minor...

[NeoFolk]

brilliant, thanks guys. that does make sense. so, bascially you can play in any key (or most keys) on any tuning? i'll get the hang of it soon, i'm sure!

thank you.

[fearfaoin]

brilliant, thanks guys. that does make sense. so, bascially you can play in any key (or most keys) on any tuning?

Not really, unless you half hole a lot. That's why there's so
many keys of whistles, to allow you to easily play in other keys.

You can play most easily in the major scale marked as the key
of the whistle, the major scale a fourth above it, and the relative
minor of those two keys. So, for a D whistle you can play easily
in D major, G major, E minor, and B minor.

[NeoFolk]

brilliant, thanks guys. that does make sense. so, bascially you can play in any key (or most keys) on any tuning?

Not really, unless you half hole a lot. That's why there's so
many keys of whistles, to allow you to easily play in other keys.

You can play most easily in the major scale marked as the key
of the whistle, the major scale a fourth above it, and the relative
minor of those two keys. So, for a D whistle you can play easily
in D major, G major, E minor, and B minor.

ahh i see. that's really helpful, thank you. i'm used to playing the same tuned instruments (violin and flute mainly) and i suppose its to make it easier this way (with the different tunings) but for me it doesn't at all!

[Dameon]

It's because a whistle is a diatonic instrument, rather than a chromatic instrument. If you don't half hole, you can play along the scale the whistle is meant for, whereas a piano and a fiddle are chromatic. They can play just about any scale within their range. A recorder is chromatic, but we don't mention those devil instruments here.

[Innocent Bystander]

The Minor Key signature of E corresponds to the Major key signature of G, in that it has one sharp. This would seem to indicate a G whistle, but they are very small, very shrill and the holes are very close together. Fortunately, it's easy to play in the key of G major on a D whistle.

[Tootler]

A recorder is chromatic, but we don't mention those devil instruments here.

I resemble that remark