I find that I have a better grip this way, and yes, I have had the whistle fall out of my mouth when doing C sharp without supporting it with the pinkie. Is this a bad habit to get into for later whistles of different sizes?
Also, I got a Kokopelli soap dispenser today at Walmart…very cool…my husband hasn’t seen it yet, he still thinks I’ve gone off the deep end… 
Sure! Most of us do, I imagine. Some whistles tolerate this better than others (I find my Elf Song likes to flatten the note if I keep my lowest finger on the tone hole, so I’ve learned to drop it to the side of the tone hole instead…works just as well. My Susato does OK with it until I get to high B…then, for some reason, it destabilizes the note). Every new whistle is a learning experience. But if your current whistle tolerates it, by all means, do it. Your playing will improve faster if you’re not worried about dropping the whistle because your fingers will feel freer to move.
Redwolf
Oops…I just noticed you said “pinkie”…I was thinking of your bottom ring finger, which you can generally leave on the tone hole.
Redwolf
Keeping my pinky down was one of the first things my current whistle teacher had me work on (except when rolling on E).
-brett
I never used the pinkie till I tried to learn Langstrom’s pony - so many Cs in it that I just had to do it. But now I have a tendency to have that finger stiffen up and get sore when playing, because I use it to support in other tunes. Even if I’m not using it, it’ll get tense, and I have to work on that sometimes.
On the other hand, there’s only that one tune where I have ever worried about dropping a whistle. Hold it a bit more horizontally and maybe it won’t be a problem for you.
Have you seen Dale’s Posture graphic?
No.
It’s not okay.
Go directly to jail. Do not collect $200.
Use the pinkie if you like. It’s a common thing, and I’ve even seen it recommended in tutorials. It won’t hurt nothin.
Whenever all the fingers of my bottom hand are up, the pinkie’s down..it just seems simple that way. So everything from XXX000 (G) to 000000 (C#), my bottom pinkie’s down.
My instructor keeps his down. He says its a carry over from fifing. I’d like to learn to keep it down, but it stiffens up everything else.
Cool! Thank you very much for the input…it just seems natural to support it this way, but I just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t cause future problems.
Thanks!
Robin
On 2003-01-11 23:38, tyghress wrote:
My instructor keeps his down. He says its a carry over from fifing. I’d like to learn to keep it down, but it stiffens up everything else.
I noticed that too. After reading this thread, I decided to try it, but I can’t lift my ring finger much at all if I don’t move my pinky too. Stiff hands, I guess 
Redwolf
There are two standard strategies.
Pinky down, which is widely
used and endorsed, and ring finger
down on bottom hole, which is harder
but, once learned, can simplify
fingering.
I’ve used ring finger. One advantage
of pinky down, however, is that
it transfers better to the
flute, if/when one goes there. Best
As an uilleann piper, you use the pinkie finger to cover an extra hole (D# or “ghost D”) I find this carried over to my whistle playing somewhat too. I didn’t find it to hurt my playing any. Just feels natural. I did used to hold the pinkie of my top hand out when I played too, and only recently started working on keeping it curled and tucked under the whistle instead. This DID make a noticeable improvement for me both in stability of the whistle, and ease of some ornaments on the top hand.
B~