I have a Oak classic and I have to blow very softly to get it to play along with some you tube videos.
With that being said. How can you tell if it’s a high D or a low D whistle. It’s marked D.
Hi, welcome!
Your Oak is a high D, since there is no Oak low D.
Otherwise, how can you tell? A high D whistle is around 12 inches / 30 cm long, a low D around twice that length.
A high D sounds a bell note (all fingers down) of D5 on a piano or tuner. A low D has a bell note of D4 and a range one octave below the high D.
A high D whistle sounds one octave higher than the written notation.
A Gen/Oak type high D sells for around $10. Low D whistles generally cost around $100 and up.
Thank you MT for clearing that up for me. I am already looking to buy another whistle. what would you recommend? Also, is there somewhere or someone I could buy an already tweaked whistle from? Possibly a member on here?
Actually, the Oak is one of the best whistles around IMO, so you’ve already made an excellent choice. You might want to pick up an Oak C as well. I like it with the putty tweak (look it up). For Freeman tweaked whistles, you can contact Jerry via his C&F profile (PM or e-mail).
blow very softly
New whistlers, especially those who come with wind experience on flute, clarinet, oboe or the like, often are surprised at the lowered air requirements of the fipple flute (whistle). Breath control to avoid flipping up an octave when you don’t want to is one of the earliest things that needs mastering on the whistle. That being said, there are some whistles that need appreciably more air than the standard plastic fipple Generation/Oak/Feadog style whistle. One of these is the Clarke Original, famously needing appreciably more quantity of air.
As MT said, you already have a great whistle to learn on. However most of us seem to have succumbed to WhOA http://www.chiffandfipple.com/whoa.html to some extent, so who am I to try to stop you going that route. I have a Freeman Mellow Dog that I think is quite wonderful.
Best of luck,