BillG had an interesting question earlier, I think he didn’t get responses here because people don’t understand the question.
As you look at sheet music with a D whistle in your hand, you play the fingering we’re all accustomed to where XXX-XXX is D and XXX-XX0 is E. The fingering on an F whistle is different entirely. XXX-XXX is F, not D. Most people only learn the fingering on a D whistle. To play that same tune in F, most of us just pick up an F whistle and play what they learned in D, which automatically transposes it to F. I doubt many whistlers could read sheet music that’s written in F and play it on an F whistle without a struggle. Am I wrong? Does anyone learn the fingering for the various whistle keys, or do you all just tranpose what you’ve learned from the the D whistle fingering?
I can handle a tune written in F, and play it on a C whistle by doing a full step transposition in my head to G, just as I can play music in C without too much of a problem. The ‘nearby’ transpositions aren’t too hard if the notes follow what I feel to be ‘normal’ patterns. I think horn players do this quite a lot.
Also, because I did a little time learning bagpipe fingering I can read sheet music for pipes and play it on a whistle.
On 2002-09-28 16:31, Whitmores75087 wrote:
Does anyone learn the fingering for the various whistle keys, or do you all just tranpose what you’ve learned from the the D whistle fingering?
The fingering for all whistle keys are the same.Most whistle playing note readers I know treat every key as D. Tunes notated in F would most likely,although not necessarily be played on a C whistle unless a low F is at hand.The diatonic nature of a whistle is the primary reason for the different keys.Learning how to read in each given key would an unnecessary headache and the notation would be best served with an instrument with better chromatic capabilities such as a recorder anyway. 
Mike
Playing a whistle in the same key as the key of the instrument the music was written for would simply involve fingering the instrument like you would for the C whistle off the fingering chart for C whistles.
Does anyone learn the fingering for the various whistle keys, or do you all just tranpose what you’ve learned from the the D whistle fingering?
Yes and yes. That is to say, I don’t know about F whistle, but (for example) when someone asked about whether or not a tune would work on A whistle earlier this week, I didn’t transpose the music, I just read it off the sheet and played it as if I were playing an A whistle. (If that makes any sense – for the first go around I was actually playing an Eb whistle, because that’s what I had handy, but I was pretending it was an A whistle for the purposes of reading the music.)
If you’re comfortable reading music, it’s not really that hard to do. You work out the basic notes on the whistle – F and Bb for an F whistle, for instance – and then everything else is just a matter of moving a note or two away from those, and you can work it out on the fly. Sight-reading fast tricky music would be too much, but for most airs and tunes it’s not a big deal. Most music moves in steps of either one or two notes, and that’s easy to do on whistle – just raise or lower one or two fingers as needed.
That said, most of the time I’m playing on a whistle either than D, I’m just playing something I learned first from D-whistle notation or learned by ear.
Whitmores75087’s explanation is accurate.
If I were using an F whistle to play a tune written in the key of F, I would transpose it to the key of D (either in my head or by writing it out) and use the normal D fingering. This problem doesn’t exist if the tune is being played by ear.
A teeny-tiny bit of music theory helps a lot when trying to understand stuff like this.
I agree wholeheartedly with Colomon. When one begins playing non-D whistles, I think one tends to find a ‘safe-zone’ in the important notes, where the separate hands begin their upward climb…such as G and C on a G whistle/Bb and Eb on a Bb whistle, and so on… I feel that as experience takes over, and lots of hours are spent on different key whistles, that type of thinking slowly and simply turns into the comfort level players feel with their D whistles. When I pick up a ‘non-D’ whistle, I simply ‘play’ it…I go through no mental gymnastics.
Best to all.
Byll
PS Just realized I answered this more fully, for BillG, in the other thread. Such is life…
[ This Message was edited by: Byll on 2002-09-28 20:07 ]
Yes, Byll is right. I’ve played a number of instruments through the years, and many in different keys. For ex. sop. Bb clarinet, Alto Eb clarinet, and contra-alto Eb clarinet where the music is in bass clef. Also, many C instruments, stringed instruments (guitar, mandolin, double bass), and now whistles. It’s just a matter of time, plus the ability to sight read music and read ahead helps a lot. I used to play guitar and any other needed instrument on an on-call basis for a wedding band, and often I didn’t see the music until five minutes before I played it. In that type of scenario you learn to transpose instantly and get very good at it or die on the spot.
When it comes to using different keyed whistles, I prefer to either transpose the music so that it reads in G or D and then use the appropriate whistle or learn the tune on the piano then play it by ear on the whistle of choice.
A quick note here though,
If you wish to transpose music written in F or Bb to read as if you were using a D whistle (then play in D or G) it is really easy!!!
Just move all the notes on your music down one space or line. Example: If an F is written (first space) write the same note one space down (becomes a D) If you read a G, move it down to an E. Really simple!
Now if only all keys were that easy to transpose…
Sandy
well here’s me. I can’t read any music, I just try to play by ear, be it D or F…
On 2002-09-28 19:31, Ridseard wrote:
Whitmores75087’s explanation is accurate.This problem doesn’t exist if the tune is being played by ear.
This problem only starts to exist, being played by hear having perfect pitch.
Just try to play any tune by ear on a whistle tuned different than D having a perfect pitch.
On 2002-09-29 16:39, Sandy Jasper wrote:
When it comes to using different keyed whistles, I prefer to either transpose the music so that it reads in G or D and then use the appropriate whistle or learn the tune on the piano then play it by ear on the whistle of choice.A quick note here though,
If you wish to transpose music written in F or Bb to read as if you were using a D whistle (then play in D or G) it is really easy!!!
Just move all the notes on your music down one space or line. Example: If an F is written (first space) write the same note one space down (becomes a D) If you read a G, move it down to an E. Really simple!
Now if only all keys were that easy to transpose…
Sandy
It might be easy writing it down that way, though sightreading it and transposing it realtime it’s much harder, in fact one of the most hardest transpositions there are. In practical transposition you’re reading the soprano clef here.
cheers
True enough, on the fly you can’t re-right music.
Another idea for those of you who do have the time to “fix” your music, when transposing from F(Bb) to D (G) all you have to do is erase the bottom line of the music and draw a new one on top and voila! you can play your F like a D!
On the fly, probably best to do as people in a choir do, get used to reading music as intervals, and just see the dots as progressions up or down from where you are. Best of luck!
Sandy
I’ve never tried in in F, but I have done the same thing with tunes written in A and C on A and C whistles. But I’m really not sure how I do it. I don’t really transpose, and I don’t know what the notes are on any whistle I have except a D, although I can cipher it out on my fingers if I have to.
I think that what I do is find the bell note and then rely on the relationships between the intervals and the holes on the whistle. Every line or space is a hole, and I just find them without really worrying about what the notes names are. The whistle, being keyed the same as the key signature, takes care of the sharps and flats, so all you have to watch for is the accidentals (or that flattened #1 hole if you’re playing in the “G” position).
Doing it this way, I find I know what note (or hole) I’m supposed to play faster than I can actually make my fingers play it. And it makes it easy to switch whistles to another key because I’m not really learning the notes, I’m just learning the fingerings.
Does this make any sense at all?