OK… MT and I have been burning the midnight oil, and have distilled a good bit of the info and grappled with differences, and now we need guinea pigs…er I mean… volunteers to test drive the newest version(s)… yes… two… Both include modes.
One keeps the focus on the A and G fingerings, while the other assumes knowledge of what those entail, and uses “G#” to equal the A fingering, and “Cnat” to equal the G fingering, with “Ø” to equal the no changes fingering. The first is simpler, the second a bit more in depth…ish.
We’re debating which way most whistlers will find most useful, and/or easiest to use… after all, a tool that is too hard or confusing to use is not really a tool at all.
I’ll send PDF files via email. You’ll need to print the pieces out, assemble one and/or the other (a pair of scizzors, a thumbtack and a pencil eraser will work for making a usable model), read the attendent info and give feedback.
It pays… well… no, that’s a lie, but it will earn you our sincere thanks and a notch on the stick of good Karma*… … and, if I can ever get around to it, a real live laminated copy of the final product. (Just in case there’s some wrinkle in the fabric of the universe, and everybody and their uncle respond in the affirmative, I’ll take the first 5 volunteers)
So… anybody game??
(Of course, if you’re keeping a ‘stick of good Karma’, you’ve blown the whole concept anyway.. )
Hey, can I ask .. what is A-fingering? I’m assuming it’s some sort of cross-fingering to give G#, and thus enable key of A playing.
You’ve said “any whistle” … But the only references I’ve seen to this say “sometimes it works”, and a friend who’s got a better ear than me tells me that my whistle is one that it doesn’t work on. (And of course I can’t even remember what it was now).
In this context, “X-fingering” simply means the fingering used to play the particular scale or mode X. Yes, for A Major, that means A B C# D E F# G# A.
Every standard whistle has the G#s available in one form or other, by means of either half-holing or cross-fingering the note. Half-holing can be awkward, particularly at dance tune speed. Fortunately, many/most whistles can produce a usable cross-fingered G#, using (xxo xxx) in the lower register, and (xxo xxo) or (xxo xox) in the upper register. The lower G# is tends to be fairly sharp and/or weak, but can often be nursed toward proper pitch with breath control, or substituted with a different note if necessary.
But many A tunes avoid that lower G# anyway - Boys of Malin and The Reconciliation come to mind as examples. And some A tunes avoid the G#s altogether by using gapped pentatonic or hexatonic scales - such as Loch Lomond, for example.
Of course, in a stretch, the same reasoning could be applied to E Major, F Major, C Major, and other keys. But these require notes for which half-holing is the only option, and these keys are relatively rare in the common Irish session repertoire. At some point, grabbing a C whistle or other keyed whistle is the sensible thing to do.
But A tunes are both fairly common, and fairly easy to play. So I see little reason to exclude A fingering when thinking about the standard capabilities of the (D) whistle.
Fortunately, many/most whistles can produce a usable cross-fingered G#, using (xxo xxx) in the lower register, and (xxo xxo) or (xxo xox) in the upper register.
Tried that on my Sweetone. Tuner shows that xxo xxo in second register really is a G#/Ab, but not in first one. In the first register it is smth between A and G#, and no breathing can make it sound properly. Other notes are in tone - this whistle has quite good pitch.
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