I believe so. It happens to me too. It’s something to do with muscle memory. Practice it enough and your fingers remember how to do it without much conscious effort (or sumfink!). If I think too hard then it all goes to pot, especially if I’m trying to work in a new cut or tap. 
“I think, therefore I am.”–Descartes. “I try to think and nothing happens. Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!”–Curly.
I’m an SS (senior citizen) and I took up the whistle about 3 years ago. Ive got the time to practise a lot and recently I decided that I’d become good enough at last to join in sessions. BUT at a recent workshop where I had a wonderful tutor (Terry Coyne) I was disappointed to learn that my playing was not very good. TC instructed me to exclude ‘all’ ornamentation for several months and to focus on melody and tone; it makes sense. And I hadn’t realised how much you can vary the tone with well controlled breathing. Now I’m no long able to hide my dud notes behind brilliant ornamentation and at times I do cheat – but I’m determined to stick to this new rule for a while. (I expect most of you are aware of the side effects of over ornamentation but just in case………)
How long to get any good
I’m afraid you really don’t want to know.
According to Malcolm Gladwell, about 10,000 hours of practice.
Patience is of great value in this enterprise. It’s hard to be patient.
I agree with ‘patient practice’ too. There may be talented people
who need less of it, but these are real instruments and
the technique is demanding. Also ITM is intricate and hard
to get right. Especially if one starts later in life. No question
that it helps to be born in Ireland of musician parents!
One of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, which is part of why I like it.
And if one is going to be good, one won’t be satisfied for a long time.
Patience! It’s good that there are difficult and beautiful things.
Also I’ve noticed, and it also said, that the people who turn out to be
very good at something weren’t necessarily those who had great
facility for it, for whom it was a snap. Those who overcome
difficulties sometimes get deeper into what they do.
But one has to address them.
There’s some brilliant advice in this thread! Some surprising stuff too.
In my short (just over a month) experience of the whistle I’d say it is a great instrument to get started on and after that the sky is the limit. I’m up for being patient, doing much practice and enjoying the journey and one day hope to be good enough.
One little stumbling block I’ve found is this. Many people say it is best to learn to play by ear and chuck out the sheet music ASAP. Other folks tell me to listen to good players and watch Youtube videos to absorb the music. I’ve taken to using a combination of sheet music converted to whistle tabs as I can’t currently do the conversion in my brain in real time and then I listen over and over to someone good playing the tune I want to learn. That way I learn the notes from the sheet and the rhythm and intonation from the recording. This is fine but there’s a Catch22. When I compare what I’m playing with the recording I can hear noises on the track that I can’t play. In fact I don’t know how these “noises” are created or what they are. Are they rolls, crans or whatever - I don’t have a clue.
I guess that I need to forget this process until I’m much further on in my (to quote Monty Pythons) “practice makes perfect of psychoanalysister and brother” process. Any comments on this would be much appreciated.
I’ve joined Blayne Chastain’s program which I think will help me massively. I also intend to continue with Ryan Dunns’ excellent introduction. I think his process of first learning a tune until you can play it in your sleep and then add in cuts, taps etc is so simple it is genius.
Anyway thank you all for your helpful advice and insights.
HS
I’d advise attempting to put off worrying about them.
You’ll figure a good few of them out along the road by accident.
That’s the same thing that I teach in my kung fu class.
Well, since it’s my site and my quote, I guess I’m qualified to answer this one. 
I can’t really speak for anyone else but me.
When I first started practicing, I would practice for hours every day. I had sold some technology, and wasn’t working. I lived for 27 months off of those payments, and spent a great deal of that time practicing the whistle. I drove my girlfriend crazy, my neighbors crazy (I lived an apartment back then). I drove my friends crazy. I had an old clarke original with the wood fipple. I would practice for so long that the wood would suck the moisture from my lower lip, making the skin adhere to it. It’d tear a nice square of skin off when I pulled the whistle free.
That’s probably a little obsessive.
I didn’t have access, at the time, to a lot of Irish music resources. The web was very new, and I found a mandolin site with recordings, midi, and sheet music. That gave me the idea to start my site. Dale started his at around the same time, I think, and I actually ran across his site a few months later. But I was mostly learning in a vacuum. If I’d had access to more musicians/recordings/knolwedge/etc then, I’d probably have progressed much faster.
Years down the road, I ran into the local Houston Irish session for the first time (which had been playing in the same spot for like 15 years, go figure), and my playing improved by leaps and bounds. There’s just no substitute for being exposed to real musicians who really know how to play the tunes.
I joined a band probably way before I was ready, and was the lead melody player. That taught me a lot about performing, probably more than it taught me about music.
At one point, I got to a point where I felt like I knew quite a bit about the instrument and the music and I had very strong opinions. I like to think I’ve mellowed out of that hubris a little bit, though naturally, I still have my opinions on things.
These days, I’m mostly happy with how well I can play. I still practice an hour or two at a time, a few days a week. I’m not a virtuoso, and I’m not really striving to be one any more. I’m mostly just striving to make music that makes people happy, and strive to play in such a way that I mesh well with my band (where I am no longer the lead melody player, which suits me just fine). I’m hoping, when my son is a little older, he’s still as excited about music as he is now, and I can help give him the gift of music. That’s something I didn’t have as a child, and it would be something awesome to lead him into, no matter what kind of music he ends up wanting to play.
When I practice, I play tunes for fun, and learn new tunes for fun. That’s probably 70-85% of my practicing. The other time is spent repeating troublesome phrases and bits, so that I can get them down.
But that’s me…like I said, I’m no virtuoso. If you’re wanting to be just an awesome player, it might be wise to ask someone who is one
Thanks for that. Interesting reading.
To Hissing Sid - Maybe you could get hold of Grey Larson’s Essential Tin Whistle Toolbox which comes complete with a CD and descriptions (and audio clips) on how to play taps, cuts etc. It’s an excellent book. I’m using it myself. It has links to further finger excersises on Grey Larson’s web site.
There is a bigger more in-depth book, ‘The Essential Guide To Irish Flute and Tin Whistle’ you’ll find in the same link as above if you wish to go deeper.
Isn’t the Internet a small world!
Hotblack,
I think that someone else recommended that book in another thread. I in fact bought “The Complete Irish Tinwhistle Tutor” by LE McCullough. I think this may be like throwing a dart at treble 20 and hitting treble 12. Very good but not quite what I was aiming for.
Cheers
HS
I ran into a whistler and when I told him I was learning he said, “Have you got over the hump yet?” and I said ,“What?” and he said ,“The Five Year Hump, that is how long it takes to start to get any good,”
Well, I’ve been playing 3 years and I play every day and go to sessions weekly and try really hard and can now learn tunes by ear but I reckon he could be about right.
My tunes can canter along well, my rolls are coming in (with some concentrated practise I might add) I love playing but I am still no where near the point where anyone would conciously ask me to play a tune so they can just listen to me.
That is my main goal. I want people to be pleased or even amazed when I play and I’m at least two years off that.
[REVIVAL - MOD]
OK, I know this is an old thread, but I just have to comment.
I’m trying to use the search function and read and find answers, etc. I came across this thread by accident. I’m glad I did. This is one of the most encouraging threads I have read so far.
Now, it may not seem encouraging to a lot of folks because it is talking about how long it takes to really play the whistle well. But, for me, it is very encouraging. You see, on the NAF forum, all I heard was that you just pick up the flute, blow into it, and move your fingers and everything would be wonderful. Problem was, I did that and everything was not wonderful. Others were getting good but I wasn’t making progress. I think the reason was that folks kept saying it was SO easy and I knew it was not. This thread has helped me to see why I stopped trying.
It is encouraging to me that others aren’t playing the whistle prefectly the first or third or hundredth time, either. It is encouraging to know that it is a learning process and we all go through it. It is encouraging that it is OK that it takes a long time to learn.
So, thank you! Thank you for giving me hope and encouragement! This makes me want to really apply myself now because I now know that others have been and are in the same boat with me and it’s ok to be there.
THANK YOU!
Jan, don’t feel bad. Enjoy the journey and it will come.
I have been playing electric guitar since the 80s and while I know I am a decent player, no one in their right mind would call me great.
I do expect that if I keep up the effort in 6 months time I should be able to play some tunes solo that people will enjoy listening to and that is all I really have as a goal. I do think that if you have got to a fairly advanced state on any other instrument that the time to learn will be a little shorter, just because you will have already developed a good sense of rhythm and developed a musical ear.
-Max