C on a D whistle

It seems fairly easy to play some tunes in C natural on a D whistle. Is it very common amongst whistlers to play in this key on a D whistle, or the equivalent on another key whistle?

I only do it sometimes, when I don’t really need the low (bellnote) C natural. But it’s troublesome due to the F natural.

What happens more often in my church band is that we decide to transpose a tone up, let’s say from D to E, in the course of a song. I might play D major, then E on the same D whistle, until there’s a break and I can switch to a real E whistle (or any 2 corresponding keys). The G# fingering is do-able if the song isn’t too fast, but the D# is hard to do cleanly.

It’s easier to transpose from G major up to A on a D whistle.

On 2003-02-11 05:52, tuaz wrote:
I only do it sometimes, when I don’t really need the low (bellnote) C natural. But it’s troublesome due to the F natural.

I usually play in G, D, or Em on the D whistle, but yesterday I was a-playing a tune in G, and then modulated up to C, above, and this started me thinking about it.

oh yes, there is one instance when I do play a “C on D”: that’s when I play along with a CD/mp3 and the piece is in Ab major. I don’t have a whistle in that key, so I play my Bb whistle and play “C major” fingering.

On 2003-02-11 05:12, Walden wrote:
It seems fairly easy to play some tunes in C natural on a D whistle. Is it very common amongst whistlers to play in this key on a D whistle, or the equivalent on another key whistle?

Certainly, if the tune doesn’t have any F-naturals in it, and such tunes are common enough. Geese in the Bog and the Amin Pipe on the Hob are common examples.

Usually the only time I would play a tune with F-naturals on a D whistle would be if it was an accidental, like in Cook in the Kitchen.

Obviously it depends on the tunes but, if I wanted to modulate from C major to D major mid tune and stay with a single whistle I’d prefer to play on a low G.

bump