i’ve been debating over which three keys of whistle - other than the standard D - are/would be the most commonly used. I’m looking at this from the IRTRAD and general folk perspective, what three keys would you recommend? I already have low D, G, Bb and, of course, D.
Thanx, BillG
An A whistle is nice to have. The second major key is D. Good for playing tunes in the key of D that go lower than ‘D’ on the staff.
Cheers,
Stef.
Get yourself a good A whistle, Bill. Not only will you have a new, useful key, you will also have a ‘fuller’ sounding instrument on which to play the D tunes you already know. A good C whistle is always handy. That whistle will also give you the key of F. At that point you just about have it covered - especially if you play with guitars and hammer dulcimers.
Best.
Byll
A C whistle is good because it lets you play all those ‘grrrr’ G minor reels.
Hmmm… what do you want to play along with?
If you’re talking about Irish music, D and Eb should just about do it, though there are a few recordings that use flutes in C, Bb and low F. Really though, you should be able to play along at almost any session with a D whistle and the small remainder will be taken care of with an Eb whistle. The C, Bb and low F are just for playing along with some recordings.
Best,
Chris
Chris, where do you ever use an Eb in a session? In practice, I don’t think I’ve ever pulled out the Eb at a session except to show it to someone. My C whistle, on the other hand, gets used all the time on common D minor(ish) session tunes like Julia Delaney and Broken Pledge.
Hell, I use my E whistle more often than the Eb at sessions.
Eb’s are great for playing along with many recordings. I’ve heard rumors of sessions where Eb is the key, but I’ve yet to see one, and I’d have a hard time recommending someone buy one on the off chance that they do run into one.
On 2002-09-26 17:06, colomon wrote:
Chris, where do you ever use an Eb in a session?
It’s pretty rare, I must admit, but in parts of Ireland playing in Eb is fairly common. I have actually run into a couple Eb sessions over on this side of the pond as well, but they are few and far between. I even ran into an F session once… but only once. That was a truly beautiful thing!
Mind you, I’m not talking about taking out an Eb whistle for a specific tune that requires it or a C whistle in order to play in D minor… I’m talking about entire sessions where the tunes have been shifted up or down a couple of steps.
It’s rare, but it does happen.
best,
Chris
[ This Message was edited by: ChrisLaughlin on 2002-09-26 17:26 ]
Were the fiddles tuned to F?!?
When it’s all whistles and guitar players, we sometimes have blasts of tunes on Bb or F whistles, but I don’t think that counts as a proper session…
Since you asked for three keys, I concur with A and C, but would add low-G. It’s probably the key I play the most after D.
There are lots of folks here more qualified to tell you about IRTrad, Peter, Chris, etc. However, you also asked suggestions from a ‘general folk’ perpective.
Here’s what I know from almost 40 years of general folk. I’d add C, F, and A. If you open a common folk music book you’ll find a lot of songs written in C (no sharps or flats), F (one flat), and A (3 sharps). You indicated you already had D, Bb, and G.
Having D, C, Bb, A, G, and F, would also give you the facility to move a folk tune up or down the scale to by just moving whistles. This is great when your trying to accommodate singers; The alto who my want to sing the A tune in G or the soprano that wants to sing it in C.
I haven’t seen many tunes that aren’t in the D whistle range in Irish traditional music, but there are a lot of A and C tunes in blue grass, old time, and other folk genres. If you are particularly interested in Blues, C, A and E are dominant keys I’m familiar with in that genre.
Hope this help you …
On 2002-09-26 17:42, colomon wrote:
Were the fiddles tuned to F?!?
The fiddler was/is so danged good that he just transposed the tunes on the fly. He’s a genius.
Besides that it was four low F whistles and a guitar. It went from about 2 in the morning to about 5 in the morning, and the alcohol and pleasent smelling combustable plant substance was in abundance, so I think it qualified as a session.
Best,
Chris
[ This Message was edited by: ChrisLaughlin on 2002-09-26 19:52 ]
Aren’t you guys forgetting about the minor keys, such as E min? I wonder what the ratio of major to minor keys is in IRTRAD. I would bet on the minor keys.
JP
John,
E minor in Irish music is often really D dorian - a D scale beginning on the second note on a D whistle. You don’t need anything but a D whistle to play it.
Best,
Chris
And even E minor proper is just the pitches of a G scale starting on E, so it’s still quite playable on a D whistle.
I took his post wrong. I thought he was just asking about keys, but after looking again, it is about whistles. After all, who would want an Emin whistle? That might be interesting, though. Mack once told of a whistle that he had made for himself, where he offset some of the holes in different positions, so that he could play in a minor mode, for more of a blues-type music, or something like that.
JP
E minor in Irish music is often really D dorian
Hopefully you mean E Dorian (which has two sharps); D Dorian doesn’t have any sharps/flats. 