So when playing a Whistle in the key of D, and i want to play a tune in the key of…C (or anyone other than D and G), I can accomplish that by transposing, correct? (sorry i tried to look this up, but had a difficulty coming up with the correct key words) and how would i transpose this? The only experience i have in transposing is taking Eb and making it Concert C or vis-versa, which is easy enough, you just take it up or down 3 1/2 steps.
You can play, reasonably easily, in the following keys on a D whistle:
D major
G major (cross-finger or half hole to get the C natural)
A major (half hole to get the G sharp, if you need one)
E minor (cross-finger or half hole for any C naturals; half hole for any D sharps there may be lurking about)
A minor (as above for C nat and for G sharp, if needed)
F# minor (tricky one this, and, unless it’s modal, probably best not attempted)
B minor (just try and avoid G sharps and A sharps)
Then, of course, there’s all the modes. 
It is possible to play in C major on a D whistle, but not all that easy, because you have to cross-finger or half hole to get the C natural, and you also have to half hole to get the F natural. Still, it’s done every now and then.
The above is a first attempt at listing keys that are reaonsbly playable without transposing. (Apologies if I’ve missed any out.) If, however, you have some sheet music for tunes in keys other than that, and you want to try and fit them on a D whistle, then yes, you may have to transpose. Easy enough to do. If you can’t do it yourself by just writing down what you want, try one of the free ABC software downloads, most of which (I think) have a transpose function that will do it automatically for you.
Not quite. Unlike most band instruments, where the key is the note (concert pitch) that comes out of the instrument when a ‘C’ is played (like, an C on an Eb instrument is a concert Eb), the “key” of a whistle corresponds to the bell tone (that is, the note the instrument plays with all the holes closed). This means that a D on a D whistle is a concert D.
This can complicate things a bit, because you may need to adjust which octave you are playing in in order to get all of the notes out, and all of that. Also (someone with more experience, correct me if I’m wrong), the F natural on a D whistle is very difficult to play in tune (or so I’ve heard).
If you were playing a C whistle, the bell tone would be a C, and it would play a C natural scale, which might be an easier route in this case, although your fingers/brain might be weirded out trying to play in the key of C, since you’d be used to the bell note being a D and all of the other notes following the D major scale.
(Whew. Guess who nerded out on all of this music theory stuff over the summer?)
Here’s a good reference, for further reading: http://www.saundrecs.co.uk/transpos.htm
Mirepoix, you’re a saxist, yes? Ol’ Adolphe borrowed Bohm’s flute mechanism and added a few bits… but the main underlying fingering patterns are the same as a modern Bohm flute. Bohm tweaked the flute from its traditional (in Classical use!) D major diatonic origins (with added chromatics) by making the fingering ambiguous between C and D major diatonic but also as straight-off chromatic as he could manage. But he didn’t shift the basis in physics of the flute from its predecessors, which is a tube based on a D 6-finger note with an extended foot and which only starts to use overblowing/the harmonic series to achieve the 2nd and higher 8ves after opening tone-holes up to C# in the 1st octave, the 2nd D being the first overblown/2nd register note… Bohm did not change the relative fingering to note-name to notation relationships of the flute from what they had always thitherto been, but the instrument came latterly to be known as “in C” because it plays the notation at pitch, is not a “transposing” instrument. The Baroque flute and the various pre-Bohm forms of the concert flute, although firmly based on a D diatonic scale, were also not transposing instruments - their players called the fingerings by the names of the note whose pitches they sounded. So, there we have continuity (save of nomenclature).
The saxes “in Eb” have a 6-finger note of F, written as a D - their plain home diatonic scale is actually F major (But Eb major if they work from their “C” fingering)- just like a band-flute “in F”, and their music has to be transposed down a minor third. Etcetera.
So… with whistles, you need to think back pre-Bohm. The standard D whistle is, like the piccolo, an octave above the concert flute (Bohm or otherwise) and has a home diatonic scale of D major - and it calls its fingerings by the actual pitch they sound and hence reads un-transposed notation. Those fingering-note-name correlations are taken as standard and applied to other-pitched whistles. Thus, on a C whistle the 6-finger note sounds a C but has “normal” D fingering… so you call it “D” and write it “D”. If you have a piece of music written in the key of C which you want to play on a C whistle without too much mind-bending (sight transposition is a great boon if it comes easy to you, mind!), then you need to transpose it accordingly, that is, up a tone, so that the notes intended to sound C are written D as that is how you will finger them on a C whistle, etc. On a Bb whistle the 6-finger note/home diatonic scale is Bb and you have to transpose your dots up a major third. And so on. But just remember, “home” is D, not C as in (modern) classical usage. To a classical composer our C whistle would be “in Bb” as that would be the transposition (one whole tone) s/he would have to make in a score to get the correct pitch played. Such a person would say our D whistles (and flutes) are “in C” (no transposition) even though they do not have that native tonality and are really quite awkward to play in that key!
The inverse boggle applies too, mind! My son took up alto sax for a while a few years back - and of course all references are to it as being “in Eb”. It took me quite a while trying to play along with him to realise I needed to play my F flute and not my Eb low whistle to read from the same dots and be at the same pitch!!! In our folkie terms, alto sax is really “in F” and Bb Clarinet is really “in C”, and so on! Counter-intuitive or what!
Forgive me, but i think that made it worse 
ok, heres the question i should have asked. To play a Concert D(such as on piano), what note on my D whistle do i need to play? That should clear everything up. Do I play a D (all holes covered?)
You need to play a C.
jemtheflute: I sat for a good five minutes trying to figure out how a Bb clarinet was ‘in C’, but then I realized that clarinet is weirder than most instruments. The clarinet overblows the 12th, meaning that in the lower register, six fingers down plays a G (concert F), whereas in the upper register the same fingering plays a D (concert C). Thus, trying to learn whistle after 10 years of clarinet is…interesting.
I thought he did fairly well with it. Might have left out the clarinet…(given innit)
yep
Yep, always best to leave out the clarinet, but I have a shallow MO. 
(Not literally… just a pibgorn, which is quite enough!)
Denny is right. 6-finger note (all 6 holes covered) on a D whistle sounds a real pitch D (the one an 8ve above the one next to a piano’s middle C - which is the low D of the flute and low whistle) - and it is written as a D, though, like the descant recorder and piccolo, to avoid excessive use of leger lines, the music is written an octave below the sounding pitch, so D below the treble clef stave is the fundamental note of your whistle.
(Well, really, since very little music is written specifically for whistle and whistlers just play the standard stock of trad tunes, if playing from written notation (at all), whistlers automatically play an octave higher than the dots in real pitch-to-notation terms 'cos they have no choice! And no-one worries about it much…)
??? 
Yes.
ps. I couldn’t even make it through some of the other explanations. There are all different levels of musical background on this board. I find the topic of transposing one of the most difficult of subjects for people of different backgrounds to communicate.
Sorry but making it worse, i didn’t mean it as an insult. I guess i was expecting more like “To play a concert D you play a D on your whistle.” It kinda was overwhelming, especially since i don’t know much about transposing other than my Eb-C. I think the whole history behind it and attempting to pull out the little i needed was a little difficult, but when i am not tired and have food on the stove i will deff go back through and re-read it
thanks for everything though I gots it now… i think
Sorry to be overwhelming! I just can’t help it… 
Mirepoix,
Welcome! I missed your intro thread. I spent a little time in a state of confusion over whistle pitches, too. I grew up playing cornet in the band, and was thoroughly disgusted to learn (after years of no one telling me) that what I thought was “C” was really B flat. Talk about disillusionment!
Playing mandolin has also helped me get a better understanding of chord and scale structures.
Anyway, I figured it all out, so I’m confident you will too!
Mark
yup.
all holes covered on a D whistle will give you the same pitch/note/tone/whatever as that white key just to the right of the C key on the pianer!
i was going to reply earlier and say…
all you need to do is half hole to get F natural (xxx x-o) and half hole to get C natural
(-oo ooo)…
the D whistle from all holes covered to all holes open (without half holing) produces:
xxx xxx D
xxx xxo E
xxx xoo F#
xxx ooo G
xxo ooo A
xoo ooo B
ooo ooo C#
… a D major scale.
if you use a C whistle, the above fingerings would produce the C major scale… a Bb whistle plays the Bb major scale… etc etc…
hope this helps. (personally, i’m a tad confused… not difficult to do… after reading Jem’s explanation)
be well,
jim
I do have to say J’s post made alot more sense the second time i read it. Thanks for the help, and i didn’t mean anything… harsh. I was completely confused, But alas, am only…half confused
Btw Can you always make a # by half covering? Or what is cross fingering? I read about that somewhere…
I don’t know how to define cross-fingering properly, but basically, it’s using something other than just uncovering one hole at a time in order to get extra notes that aren’t in the ordinary D scale.
You only really need to learn one cross-fingering. There are others, but this one’s vital. You’ve got to get a decent cross-fingering for C natural. There’s more than one way to do it, and different ways have their adherents, but most people in Irish music use the following to get a C natural:
OXX OOO
In other words, second and third fingers on your top hand (which in most people is the left hand). That fingering will work fine on almost all whistles for the bottom octave C natural, but, on mine and some others, to get a decent C natural in the top octave, you have to half hole.
So Cross fingering is just pretty much an alternitive fingering, rather than covering half a hole, correct? I already got the C one
Now I’m confused. Isn’t the easiest way to transpose D whistle music to C whistle music is by playing a C whistle? Thought the whistle was basically a transposing instrument by just picking up the right key whistle and playing it with the same fingering as a D whistle? If this is wrong, I just lost my best excuse for having so many whistles in so many keys … 
Please don’t tell my family!
of course you’re right.
keep buying those whistles!
no…your right, If your learn a tune in D on your D whistle, and then pick up a whistle in C, and play it with exactly the same fingerings, then it will be in C.
also…are there more cross fingerings out there? or is it just for the Cnatural?