Hi all, i am new here 
i have a variety of different whistles. I have just bought myself a G whistle from MK and have trouble hitting the high b note cleanly, it sounds very pushed, i know some whistles are easier to hit the high notes esp the soprano whistles and i have no problems hitting high c with them but this one gives me trouble, strange because i have the Mk pro low d and i can play the high b easy on that one. Are there any excercises that i can train myself to hit those high notes better or is it just a case of PERSEVERANCE . I have simillar problems with my Kerry busker Bb, squeeky up in the very high notes i just canât produce a clean nice sound there. I have an older Thunderbird non tuneable a by Kerry and she hits those notes easy and clean⌠why is this happening is it me or are some whistles just un co operative or harder to play or what? Any ideas?
I struggle with the same issue on one of my svirels: the upper octave needs quite some blow, and sounds âpushedâ or âforcedâ. It highly depends on the whistle, because on another svirel I have no such issue, and I am even able to go for the 3rd octave. The workaround I found to cope with this, is to play the lower octave slightly louder, so the volume difference between low and high octave is not so large. Then, I also noticed that if I blow less air but faster (ie. a fast, narrow air stream), it makes the 2nd octave nicer and quieter. Easier said than done, though!
Iâll have to respond in multiple comments, because C&F is glitching and giving me âinternal server errorsâ every time I try to post any more than a few lines at a time.
Two things Iâve noted from my experience are 1) that some whistles probably shouldnât be played that high much/at all, and 2) that how/if itâs possible to learn techniques to play the high B more quietly depends a lot on the whistle.
If you experiment a lot and practice for some time, youâll probably find that you can play B more quietly and less squeaky as you get more experienced. What youâre actually changing embouchure-wise is difficult to say (and, as I mentioned, it probably depends on the whistle). I think I find myself naturally constricting my throat and lips a bit to narrow the airstream when I play higher notes. I also find that playing with just the tip of the instrument in my mouth usually helps with high notes.
Another technique Iâd suggest, if all else fails, is learning to use some alternate fingers for high B. High B isnât a note that you play very often (in most tunes), so it isnât that much trouble to learn a different fingering for it. This is very whistle-dependent. But on my Colin Goldie high D whistle (which is my favorite), I use XOO XX1/2 instead of XOO OOO for high B. Iâve found that on this particular whistle, high B can be played in tune MUCH quieter with this fingering. For physics reasons I do not understand, covering holes with the bottom hand while fingering a high B can sharpen the high B, allowing you to blow more lightly and still play it in tune; effectively, this lowers its volume. Iâve found that other alternate fingerings work on other whistles. On some whistles, XOO XXO works greatâŚon others, that will make high B be too sharp. On some whistles, XOO XXX or even XXXXXO works for high B. Experiment with all of these, and pick the one that allows you to play that note the quietest while still being in tune.
But remember, as I mentioned at the outset, that some whistles simply do not handle that note very well, and thereâs not much you can doâŚand thatâs ok. High B is rarely played in Irish or Scottish music, and you can usually get away with relegating it to an occasional staccato note. Playing the note staccato without really sounding it out can make it sound acceptable even on a whistle that simply isnât good at playing that high. And if you ever need to really sound out a high B, you can always simply switch octaves and play a lower-octave B instead. So overall, I wouldnât really worry about it if a good-sounding high B is more-or-less off-limits on your particular instrument.
Thus ends my annoying comment sequence.
Mods, please fix this issue. This is very annoying!
Nobody else is reporting this issue, so it might be on your end. Weâll look into it nevertheless.
Thank you! And sorry I didnât ask more nicely.
In playing through dozens of different makes of Low Whistles it became clear that the voicing of Low E vis-a-vis High B is the Achillies Heel of the breed.
In general, anything a maker does to sweeten High B will weaken Low E, and visa versa.
The bottom line is that all Low Whistles are bundles of compromises. Each maker builds into their whistles the system of compromises they want, and each player has to decide what system of compromises suits them.
Which is not to say that all Low Whistles are created equal! Though thereâs no such thing as a Perfect Low Whistle, some makers do a bit better job of juggling the conflicting requirements than others.
Personally I just refuse to play a whistle with a stiff 2nd octave. Iâm willing to give up a bit of power in the low notes to get sweet high notes.
As I had mentioned High B is the most difficult 2nd octave note for a maker to get voiced well. Unfortunately itâs an important note in Irish Traditional flute and whistle playing, in the vast majority of tunes being the highest note.
So a stiff High B is a no-go for me.
However be aware that on Low Whistles the voicing of High B is often impacted by the fingering, so that on Low Whistles finger High B like this
xoo|ooo
and not like this
xoo|oox
which fingering sounds fine and is often seen with flute and High Whistle players, but on Low Whistles often makes High B coarse-sounding (with strange low undertones) and difficult to hit.
About exercises, especially on flute I love this one
D E D F# D G D A D B D c D d D e D f# D g D a D b D
all done legato with NO tonguing or other interruption of the airstream.
Of course make sure each note is blown correctly so as to be in tune.
thanks for that yes i have experimented with that now a bit more on the G whistle and noticed this about the faster air stream and yes it sure is easier said than done especially consistently 
Ah thank you so much for your detailed explanation . Yes i am beginning to notice the delrin whistles seem to cope much better with the high notes than some of the all aluminium whistles i have . Although strangely from the same maker Kerry whistles i have the old thunderbird a non tunable which is great hitting all the notes yet the new busker Bb that i have is not always in the âmoodâ shall we say a lot depends on the warmth of the metal with that one and it seems to âcoolâ down every so quickly as itâs quite thin material. I find the brass whistles i have have a much easier time going there. The kerry f busker again is a different biest and it just sails up there compared to the Bb . Funny that i wonder is it the density of the material? Itâs all very interesting. Made me feel better though you saying that , ie some are just not meant to go there
thanks for all that 
i am going to try that excersise. I am not familliar with how everything works here yet so sorry for the late response. trying to work out how the answering and everything else works here lol
You are right there about the different whistles i think some whistles may also be more for players who have played longer and are better at air control, i had to drop using one for a while and when i came back trying it worked better.
D E D F# D G D A D B D c D d D e D f# D g D a D b D
all done legato with NO tonguing or other interruption of the airstream.
thatâs hard .. 
Dunno why you say âHigh B is rarely played in Irish or Scottish musicâ, but Iâd regard it as a required note and personally go further in not giving house room to whistles that canât play two full octaves D-to-D comfortably. Dropping to the lower B is no substitute for a whistle that plays properly!
I mean that itâs rarely played other than once or twice every 4 or 5 tunes. So itâs not something youâre playing continually, or for an extended period of time. Usually you can get away with playing it staccato.
And as for âplaying properlyâ: every single whistle Iâve played that plays high B quietly and perfectly in tune has a garbage lower range that basically canât be heard at all in a session. If you can show me a whistle that 1) can play 2 full octaves without being overpowering or out of tune, and 2) isnât insanely quiet in the lower range, then Iâll buy it.
In Cathal McConnellâs whistle tutorial (my copy is so old I have it on cassette tape), he says that the old whistle players he learned from played those high notes very staccato because they were annoying in an enclosed space like a close in a pub or a private home.
Maybe whistle is one of those instruments that have two different playing stylesâone for indoors and one for outdoors. Similar to a toddler, I guess.
And as for âplaying properlyâ: every single whistle Iâve played that plays high B quietly and perfectly in tune has a garbage lower range that basically canât be heard at all in a session.
Perhaps you have unrealistic expectations with regards to what a whistle is, what it can do or canât.
Playing in a group a whistle is not going to stand out. To me the ideal whistle will blend and add texture to the overall sound without out screaming the company. And usually they can be heard quite nicely, even if that isnât always obvious to the player themselves. Ofcourse there are loud environments where instruments drown, and personally, I would nor put myself in such an environment.
If you want loud(er), you can always take up the flute, thatâs what the old people used to do, to be heard at noisy dances.
[Fixed a few typos]
In a flute workshop he made a statement along the same lines about flute playing, not using the word âstaccatoâ but saying- oh how did he word it exactly- that the highest notes are shorter, âyou make less of themâ or something.
At that time, me being a relative newbie, I didnât know quite what to make of it.
Many years later I was playing flute at a small house session and there was some reel that had lots of high work in it. A flute newbie took me aside at one point and asked me to play that tune, saying he couldnât figure out how I was hitting all those high notes so softly and effortlessly.
So I played itâŚand guess what? Those high notes sounded like that because they were an illusion, smoke-and-mirrors. Some of the highest notes were actually coming out in the low octave, or sort of âbetween the octavesâ you could say. I âwas making less of the high notesâ just as Cathal had said those years ago.
About the term âstaccatoâ I would take that with a grain of salt. Iâve heard both âstaccatoâ and âtonguingâ commonly used by trad Irish fluters to mean things other than what those words mean in mainstream flute playing, something for people coming from a âclassicalâ background to keep in mind.
Right, thereâs a built-in volume differential that all Low D whistles have. (Iâll address the Low D because thatâs what most of my experience has been in.)
After decades of playing flute, where you can play any note, no matter how high or low, as loudly or as softly as you wish, it was a grim fact to come to grips with.
It became most clear when at a session there was me on Low D and four flutists. My low octave was pretty much inaudible. On the lower notes in the second octave I was on par with them, and on High B I was louder than all four of them put together.
I played dozens of Low D whistles from every maker I could get my hands on and they all had this issue, which tells us that itâs built into the breed.
As Iâve mentioned a number of times one maker, MK, came up with an interesting way to address that issue.
What Misha did was tune the 2nd octave a bit sharp. This means that to play the two octaves in tune with each other you have to blow the low octave harder and the 2nd octave softer than with other Low Dâs.
It does two things 1) lessens the volume differential between the octaves and 2) means that a more subtle change in blowing shifts you between octaves, making the thing very nimble and responsive.
Iâll just echo what Mr. Gumby says about the volume of a whistle to the player vs others. I play frequently in a louder pub setting, and a piper I often play with has a Sindt whistle. Itâs not known for being the loudest whistle out there by any stretch, but I can hear him just fine across the table. Iâve also gotten compliments on my playing while playing a Killarney whistle that I could barely hear myself, but that apparently others could hear just fine.
Of course, itâs annoying not to be able to hear yourself well, but others can hear you better than you think!