I am almost ashamed of my lack of theory knowledge… but… A friend asked me to play some whistle on a song of his. Gave me a track yesterday. The song is written in A, all my whistles are Ds. I suspected it wouldn’t work out, and it doesn’t (not without half-holing every other note, which is way beyond my capabilities).
What key would I need to be able to play on this song? I want to say A or G, but I need confirmation.
Thanks in advance,
PT
Patrick, if you want to play in A major, you can use a whistle in E (not E flat, just E).
Merci Claudine. Sans toi, je me serais plante! 
There seems to be more problems than just the key. With a D whistle, the only note you’d have to half-hole for the key of A would be the G#, and that’s one of the easier notes to get. Or depending on the song, you could even get a cool effect by playing the G naturals instead of sharp (A mixolydian). But if you’re half-holing every other note, this melody may have a lot of accidentals in it, and may not work well on the whistle anyway.
g
You can also us your D whistle and play the extra sharp ( D is in 2 #'s (F# and C#) and A is in 3 #'s (add a G#)).
The scale starts on A (duh) and you half hole or cross finger to get a G#. G# is fairly easy to half hole.
For more information you can go to the main page and go to the Deciphering Whistle Keys page.
http://www.chiffandfipple.com/whistlekeys.html
It gives the vast majority of key transitions and fingerings for them.
Good luck,
This may help:
http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/~bjs/key-change.jpg
Find A in the middle block since the actual sound is in A. Look on the left for the accidentals that you can cope with and find which whistle to pick up at the top. For A though its probably going to be your bog standard D whistle and play the g# cross fingered or half holed. Alternatives would be an E whistle or a B whistle - whistles most of us don’t have.
Brian
Dare I suggest a low A - this is one of my favorite Burke “sewer pipe” whistles
What’s the range of the tune? And are there any g# in it at all?
The point being, you may be all set with a D whistle. Also, the g# is not that hard to half-hole. Especially in the upper octave xxo xxo will give you a pretty good g# on many whistles (or sometimes xxo xoo).
Thanks all!
Of course, I could also ask him to transpose the song into a more friendly key…