I need some help with keys. Is there any place that would say what the notes are that are in each scale? I also need help figuring out how to transcribe music. I tried to talk to my wife about this today and she confused the hell out of me. She got her undergraduate in opera performance and took some physics classes on harmonics. She started spouting terms like minor, major, tonics and I kind of tuned out after that.
I need to also learn more about how whistles in each key work. Some of my other questions are:
Is the scale always named after it’s bottom note?
Do whistles only play in major keys?
What does diatonic mean?
If I bought a whistle in a key like B flat do the songs that I know in the key of D play with exactly the same fingerings? It seems to me that they would if the scales had the half steps and whole steps in the same places in the scale. However, wouldn’t that also mean that keys are transcribable into any other key without using accidentals? I don’t think that that’s the case since I can’t figure out how to play a hymn that I really love (Poor wayfaring man of grief) with my D whistle no matter how I play it. That song has 4 flats in the arrangement that I have (A flat, B flat, D flat, E flat – what key is that?).
This has nothing to do with whistles, or maybe it does, but something has always made me wonder. I used to play a trumpet (played for about 8 years but haven’t played in the last 15). The trumpet is a chromatic instument. The piano is a chromatic instrument. Why, however, if we were to look at the same sheet music and play did it always sound terrible. Both instruments are capable of playing every note, so if we both play a C why would it sound like we weren’t playing the same note?
I want to order some more whistles in different keys but I almost feel like I need more info before starting to order.
Oh, one more question, and I’m embarrassed to ask since I’ve been playing whistle for a while, what is the whistles “bell note?” Is it just the lowest note that it plays?
I can’t answer all of your questions, but I can help you with some. When you play a whistle in a different key from D, finger it the exact same way and it will be automatically transpose to the key of the whistle you are playing. Now, if you want to transpose manually, it’s a little bit different. Say for example you want to play a song on your D, but it goes all the way down to C. Play it on a C, but keep in mind that the lowest note is C not D and so on. If you write this down in D key (meaning you play a C, finger it like a D on a D whistle, and write it down as a D), then it will be transposed. I hope that didn’t confuse you too much. Keep in mind, I’ve only tried this with simple songs. It works with Carrickfergus (that’s what I’ve tried it with), and I’m sure some others. Good luck!
If I bought a whistle in a key like B flat do the songs that I know in the key of D play with exactly the same fingerings? It seems to me that they would if the scales had the half steps and whole steps in the same places in the scale. However, wouldn’t that also mean that keys are transcribable into any other key without using accidentals?
When you switch to a diffrent key whistle, you’re basically changing your key signature. D is a key signatuer with two sharps. Bb is one with two flats.
You’re right about the half-steps and whole steps- as long as the pattern’s the same, you’ve got the same song. To learn waht keys go with what, you can memorize the key signatues (google it, I’m sure oyu’ll find a chart), but it’s better memorize the pattern of steps in a major scale, and the circle of fifths- that way you can figure out any key you want!
This has nothing to do with whistles, or maybe it does, but something has always made me wonder. I used to play a trumpet (played for about 8 years but haven’t played in the last 15). The trumpet is a chromatic instument. The piano is a chromatic instrument. Why, however, if we were to look at the same sheet music and play did it always sound terrible. Both instruments are capable of playing every note, so if we both play a C why would it sound like we weren’t playing the same note?
'Cause you aren’t. A trumpet is a B-flat transposing instrument, whcih meanms that when it plays a written C, it’s actually a Bb, and so on up the scale (D is C, E is D, F is Eb, etc.). When you played in band and you had a key signature of, say, C, us flutes over tehre in the corner were acutally playing in Bb. If you had a piano, so was he. So to play with a piano, you need to eitehr transpose in your head (so liek whe nthe music says “C” play a “D” instead), or get different sheet music.
'Cause you aren’t. A trumpet is a B-flat transposing instrument, whcih meanms that when it plays a written C, it’s actually a Bb, and so on up the scale (D is C, E is D, F is Eb, etc.). When you played in band and you had a key signature of, say, C, us flutes over tehre in the corner were acutally playing in Bb. If you had a piano, so was he. So to play with a piano, you need to eitehr transpose in your head (so liek whe nthe music says “C” play a “D” instead), or get different sheet music.
That’s cool. Thanks for the reply! However, I now have more questions. When you say that a trumpet is B-flat what do you mean? I can see how a whistle is B-flat because it only plays the notes in the B-flat scale. However, when we talk about a piano being tuned to C or a trumpet to B-flat, what are we talking about? They are chromatic, aren’t they? My wife said something like this. She said that no instrument is truly chromatic and started explaining how once a piano was tuned to C it was then tuned more to itself than to the actual harmonics of the chromatic scale. That didn’t make any sense to me so I thought I would post while she was at school.
