OK…I need an answer…fast…Is a C natural thumb hole ok?? I want to play whistle properly, but can’t decide whether a C thumb hole is ok, or I am just being lazy …Will somebody please give me an answer before Mike Burke drills thumb holes in the beautiful whistles I just sent him?? Thanks. Todd
Hi Toddlemm
I asked a similar question a week or so ago and got some good answers. Check out the thread. http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=56822
I decided to go with no thumb hole (and I’m just waiting for delivery - but that’s another thread!)
Something I have seen happening so if you like the playability of your whistles and how they are now and/or especially if you would say it is more than liking it, you may also want to think twice about doing a change with the extra hole(s) on these ones as it can change them. Has happened here, I do not know the technical reason behind this though but when it happens you might be (very) sorry. It is possibly not a lot that changes but it is enough to make a difference to an instrument you are familiar with. If you would get it new with this additional hole, it is as it comes for you, but a change changes.
Brigitte
A few months ago I received a bamboo flute with a seventh, thumb, hole. You will have to anchor your thumb in one place with no leak-producing shifting allowed. I plugged the hole with poster putty. If I want thumb holes I can play a recorder or the pipes. A C natural is always gettable, although not always the same way on different flutes. Still, none of the ways are impossibly awkward.
Yes, yes, I know I wrote “flutes.” To employ Clintonspeak: It all depends on how you interpret the word “flutes.”
Well a thumb hole is OK, but completely unnecessary.
Generations of Irish whistle and flute players have gotten on just fine using the cross-fingered C natural.
I think it’s one of the nice things about the Irish wind instruments- the uilleann pipes, the “simple system” flute, and the whistle, that they share a common technique for C natural.
The cross-fingered C natural is easy to glide up to and easy to play “rolls” upon.
In every case when I’ve encountered somebody with a whistle with a thumbhole for C natural, they are a Boehm flute player dabbling in whistle. Putting C natural on the backside of the flute and giving the thumb a key to play it is one of the several innovations Boehm did when he re-designed the flute around 1850.
On pretty much all other winds, both folk and “classical”- the recorder, the various bagpipes (Scottish, uilleann, Spanish, French, Bulgarian, etc), the Andean quena, etc etc the thumbhole plays the octave of the “six finger note”, not the flat 7th.
So in putting a thumb key on the back for C natural Boehm was in a way going contrary to the usual wind instrument pattern.
Even saxophones, which have a Boehm-like key system, do the cross-fingered flat 7th in a way not unlike the Irish wind instruments, not the way of the Boehm flute.
I only have one whistle with a thumb hole, and it has tape on it. I tried putting the hole on the top of the whistle having it in between the two top holes. Yup when I taped the top hole and tried playing in a normal manner. The two top holes were to close together to make a good seal. My fingers kept pushing each other back and forth to seal their assigned hole. LOL
It took a long time to learn the C natural, but I was progressing in the primary key of the whistle so my fingers were learning something.
I tried it both ways, half hole and the cross finger to see what would work.
I played Joyful Joyful by Beethoven because I knew it, and it required a C natural. I slowed the tempo down to a crawl when no one was around, and played it over and over thinking of the C natural. What finally happened is I now use the half hole when going up, and the cross fingering when coming down. There are several tunes that will work to help you with muscle memory.
Analogy, it took a long time for me to learn to type on a keyboard, and at first I did not understand why the book wanted me to type fjfj fjfj fjfj fjfj instead of abcd abcd abcd but when I finley got to twenty words a minuet with out looking at the keyboard, ( a manual type) it became fun.
to feel my fingers type a whole word just by looking at it.
C natural is all about muscle memory and practice. It will happen for you with or with out a thumb hole.
My thinking is that if you learn to play with the thumb hole and you try to play a different whistle, will you be able to make the adjustment?
If a person wants to do that they can. It is about self motivation. When you type do your fingers find the Z, X Q, z, q, and the x when needed.
What is the name of that sentence that has all the letters of alphabet in it.
When I change keyboards, the Z, Q and X keys are always in the same place.
The first statement was true, though.
not if you have a German keyboard for a change 
or in my case an English one… but you get used to it quickly…
If you get it and don’t like it, you can always tape over it. If you don’t get it, you may always wonder if you should have. … or, you may just get on about learning to play the whistle the way the vast majority of players do - with six holes.
Of course, it’s “OK”. But the question is, do you actually want it? Only you can answer that one.
You foreigners have an answer for everything. 
But would it sound the same? The tape would seal the hole on the outer surface, but there would still be a hole in the inner surface. Couldn’t this produce some undesirable harmonics?
I would think that the extremely slight difference it would make would be very hard to discern. My first choice would be not to get a Cnat hole, but it’s not me ordering, and the options may be important to the OP.
On a thin-walled whistle, taping a C-nat thumbhole should return the whistle to its predrilled state. But covering a hole with a finger, whether the whistle has thick or thin walls, is different. If you imagine looking at a fingerhole from the inside of a whistle, you will see a little mountain of finger protruding into the whistle. This will either interupt the airstream in a thin-walled whistle, or affect the chimney volume if the walls are thick. Either way, the tuning could be noticably affected. Taping a hole on a thick-walled whistle will add a new chimney to a whistle that was previously in tune without that chimney.
Therefore, my advice is not to drill a thumbhole into a whistle that you like.
That makes sense. I was thinking thin walled, where it wouldn’t do much, but I see how it would be different with the thick walled.
I got the impression the OP was in the process of ordering one, rather than of getting the drill fired up to DIY … hmmm…
My impression was that he had sent whistles back to Mike to have thumbholes drilled. And also that he really liked the whistles in their pre-drilled state.
That’s my impression, too, David.
I think pancelt sums it up: OK, but not necessary.
There are already 2 perfectly good ways of playing a C-nat. A thumb hole gives you 3 ways. An extended C foot (D+ whistle) would give you 4. I don’t quite see the point, especially for a note that may be less commonly needed in ITM.
Muscle memory is a great tool. But get used to playing a tune using the C hole, and you may need a mental adjustment to play it on a whistle without one. Which is just about every other whistle in the world. This may be limiting, depending on how flexible you are.
Finding a good top thumb placement for the size and shape of your hand can make a difference in getting the right leverage for clean top hand rolls. The C hole limits your options.
I’ve played a Burke D with a C hole, and I like it. But I wouldn’t necessarily buy one for the above reasons, even if it can be taped over, when the other is readily available. The C hole may limit your resale options, if that’s an issue. Especially if it’s an ad hoc modification, even if done by the maker himself.
Just my 2 cents.
Tommy asked:
What is the name of that sentence that has all the letters of alphabet in it.
“The quick, brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs” is the sentence; I don’t know what its name is.