Apologies, because this has probably been asked a million times before…
I’m new to the whistle (low D) and having lots of fun playing tunes. However, I can’t work out the fingering for accidentals… G sharp, C natural and the like. I’ve got an approximation by half covering the holes, but find that quite awkward - easy on the recorder when you’re using finger pads, but a nightmare when using the bits further down the finger…
Is this the best way of doing it? Or are there other cunning fingerings I should know about? (Or should I just stick to playing in D )
Most accidentals have to be half-holed, as you are already doing.
There is crossfingerings for Cnatural, the most common being these:
0XX000
0XXX00
0XXX0X
The whistle is not commonly used as a chromatic instrument. Many
players use them for the 2 major keys (and their relative keys) that lie
easily (For D whistles, these keys are Dmajor and Gmajor, and their
related modes, like Edorian, Bminor, Amixolydian, etc.).
If you intend on straying outside of those keys much, you’re going
to have to keep up with the half holing, I’m afraid.
Even then, it can depend on how accurate you want your C natural to be. On many whistles, half-holing is the only way to get an accurate C.
Fortunately, on a low D with its larger holes, half-holing isn’t quite the exact science that it is on a high D. My problem on a low D is half-holing when I intended to cover it completely. I can’t count the times I’ve tried to play an D and got D# instead.
In fast tunes, the notes don’t need to be quite as accurate since they fly by so fast. In slow tunes, you probably have time to half hole them and get them nice and in tune. Sometimes, it even works to slide up into the note.
A couple of months ago I posted on the flute forum about cross fingerings and asked suggestions for any that I may have missed. This is the compilation that I came up with after receiving some feedback. Hopefully this will give you a start. Try them out and see which ones will work (or are most in tune) for your instrument and experiement with the different octaves. (I have excluded half holing on the list…although that is the best way for me to play an Fnat.)
That’s fantastic, many thanks for all your help guys
I am trying to stick to stuff in D and er… B minor (thinks fast!), but it irks me ears to be getting the C# when playing stuff in G. As you say, when playing fast stuff, you kind of get away with it more.
I’ll print out those suggestions and have a play while on holiday - I’ve taken up the low whistle as an alternative to the gut strung harp. I usually take my little 29 string on holiday with me, but he’s starting to suffer and I can’t be doing without something to play on while camping! Seem to be getting on alright with the whistle so far… have a good stock of tunes in me head and a copy of O’Neills…
)
