does anyone know of any songs written in duet style for whistles?
I have been playing for several months now and every Tuesday night my 13yo daughter and I spend at least a half hour playing together, she on the violin and me whistling. This week she talked me into a whistle lesson instead of our usual thing. She has picked it up really fast. We are working on Good King Wenaslas sp? Does anyone know of any others that we can locate online that have two parts?
Thank you in advance
Karen
I don’t know of any duets arranged for fiddle and whistle.
However… in the traditional Irish style, duets are normally played in unison. (Well, since the fiddle and whistle are an octave apart, it’s not really a unison in that case, but close enough.) You can play any old Irish tune, both playing the same notes, and claim to be playing a proper traditional duet.
Some of the best music ever recorded was done that way…
Any song that has a soprano and alto part notated can be played in duet, just like if you were to sing it. You just have to make sure that the notes are within range of the instruments you are playing. If not, play them an octive higher or lower if the notes allow, or get a whistle in a key that can do it. For example:
A song is written in the key of D but there is a note or two that go below D. One option is to shift the octive or to play it on an A whislte and use the 0XX000 fingering for the G#. This allows you to play in the key of D with A, B and C notes available below the D!!! 
One of the reasons I have whistles in various keys is so that Renee and I can play duets such as you desire. We do a lot of church hymns that way as well as other types of music.
A lot of Fife Tunes are duets and they can be played on a whislte but I suggest playing it down an octave as Fifers usually play in the second and third octave.
Be certain that the parts are for instruments in the same key. For example, if you buy a book of duets for flute and clarinet, then you can’t play them on the same keyed whistle, because a flute is a C instrument, and a clarinet is a Bb instrument (I am using the concert pitch method of naming, not the Itrad way of naming keys here).
But you COULD do any of the following:
- play out of a duet book that is made for two of the same instrument on the same keyed flute (e.g.., you could play duets written for two clarinets on D whistles, or Bb whistles, or G whistles – as long as they are the same).
- play some flute/clarinet duets, with two whistles that are tuned one step apart – a D whistle could play the flute part, and a C whistle play the clarinet part, or a C whistle on flute and a Bb whistle on clarinet.
- transpose a part that is written for an instrument in a different key.
Here are the keys of some common instruments:
flute, oboe, bassoon – C
clarinet - -Bb (usually – if it’s a different keyed clarinet, it should say)
English horn – F
French horn – F
trumpet – Bb, I think.
Our local music store has a few collections of “music for four,” “music for three,” and music for two" books – these are individual parts, but they make several versions for different instruments. For example, for an oboe english horn duet, you’d buy a “book 1” for oboe, and a “book 2” for english horn. If the oboist quit and a clarinettist took over, then you’d just go out and buy a “book 1” for clarinet. It would be exactly like the book 1 oboe part, except that it would be written in a different key to compensate for the clarinet being in a different key.
I hope this is making sense. I don’t feel like I am explaining it very well.
http://www.colcannon.com/music/corvus.html
Listen to the Olaim Punch/Pigtown Fling MP3.
This group has a very nice set with Olaim Punch/Pigtown Fling. Olaim punch is a song with an unusual (for ITM) counter whistle melody to the vocal. Listening to this will give you an idea of what you can do with 2 parts.
Pigtown is Pigtown.
http://tinwhistletunes.com/clipssnip/slowairs.html
Here’s a whistle duet, just scroll down the list until you find Down by the Sally gardens , James Peeples.
OK this will probably be no help because I doubt it is still available.
I have two books called “Airs for Pairs” Vols I and II arranged by Matt Seattle. They were published by Dragonfly Music in 1991 and 1997 respectively. The address inside Vol I is: 10 Gibson Street, Newbiggin-by-th-Sea, Northumberland NE64 6PE, Tel & Fax 01670 818540. The ISBN # is 1 872277 07 1 (vol I) and 1 872277 24 1 (vol II)
There are about 20 duets in each book. Examples of some of the tunes are
Haste to the wedding
Mrs McCLeod’s Reel
Harvest Home
Banish Misfortune
Off to CA
Boys of Bluehill
Most of the tunes are well arranged with a few wierd exceptions. As I recall I had to write to the publisher to get these.
Clark
I tried to find a duet called Crab Cannon (Canon?). It is sheet music that two people play across from each other so that one of the players is looking at the piece upside down. It was in “The Whistler’s Pocket Companion”.
I am surprised that no one has mentioned “The Fifer’s Delight” by Ralph Sweet and it’s companion volume, “The Fifer’s Delightful Companion” by Carol Greenfield.
I play a number of the tunes with a fiddler and we find the tunes are quite a lot of fun. Music includes the guitar chords so all the bases are covered.
Get the pair of books directly from Mr. Sweet and happy “duetting”
Chuck
I bought a copy of The Fifer’s Delight a long time ago and didn’t realize there was a companion book. I’ll second the suggestion for that book. Here’s the relevant Sweet page.
I have that. It is in the book titled The Whistler’s Pocket Companion. I found it by searching on
This book has a ton of duets in it as well. Duh, why didn’t I think of this earlier! 
OK, all fixed up. In case you are wondering, this post was posted like a billion times 
(well, 4 pages worth) and I just went through and deleted them all. I sure hope THAT does not happen again.
this would definately be a good one to try as it was the first song that I learned on the whistle.
thanks for all the good hints.
my computer speakers have disappeared(I have 17 yo too!) so when they get back we’ll be able to listen to some of the ones I haven’t heard before
Karen
Please check PMs!