My son just got himself a nice Dixon Low G (I am green with envy). Will he have to transpose the songs written for a low D or can he play them as is.. I am not sure I understand what is meant by transposing a song anyway..can anyone explain this or do you have a site that is easy to understand I can go to?
Thanks
When you say “as is,” do you mean reading music? If so, I fear it doesn’t work that way. But a tune is a tune, and if he plays it on the G, it will be in the key of G.
On the D whistle, when you cover all the holes, the note is a D. On a G whistle, the same action will give you a G. If my logic is correct, you have to go up to two fingers on to get a D, with all other notes similarly moved to different fingerings.
Disclaimer: not an expert opinion!
M
Cee, this is really a lot easier than it sounds.
If you look at music written in D and play it on a D whistle with normal fingering, you get a tune played in. . .D.
If you look at music written in D, and play on a G whistle with NORMAL fingering, you get that same tune played in. . .G.
Still with me?
Okay now what if the tune is written in C? What do you do? Regardless of the whistle you’re playing, you need to figure out how to finger it in D, which isn’t really very hard. Mentally imagine that that typesetter screwed up and printed EVERY NOTE one step too low. If the note is G, he really meant A. If the note is D, he really meant C#. You transpose this up that step, and voila, a tune WRITTEN in C, but played on a D whistle in D.
Don’t let the next step confuse you.
Take that SAME C tune that you now can visually transpose to D, DON’T WORRY that you’re now holding a G whistle, transpose it to D and play it on a G whistle in the key of G.
Basically, if its written in D or G (or any of the associated keys that you know how to play), and you play it with the same fingering on another whistle, the whistle transposes for you.
Best of luck!
Tyghress
…And I go on, pursuing through the hours,
Another tiger, the one not found in verse.
Jorge Luis Borges
[ This Message was edited by: tyghress on 2003-01-20 18:39 ]
Heehee. Tyg, if I didn’t already know what you were talking about, I think I’d be very confused. 
And can you tell me what “one step too look” means, please?
OOKKaay… so from the info I have let me see if I understand this…Basically if the song is written in C then I need to transpose it up to play it..If its written in D I dont need to do anything because it will sound good in G or D…Is that right?
Technically correct…
What Tyg was trying to explain was that, once you know the fingering of any tune on a D whistle, you can play it with the SAME fingering on any other key whistle to put it into that other key.
So, if I had a tune like “Hot Cross Buns” (hey, it’s an easy one to notate) written for a C whistle, it would look something like
A G F
A G F
F F F F G G G G
A G F
Played on your C whistle, it would look like this in whistle notation (the head of the whistle is to the left, a X is a covered hole and a O is an open hole):
XOOOOO XXOOOO XXXOOO
XOOOOO XXOOOO XXXOOO
XXXOOO XXXOOO XXXOOO XXXOOO
XXOOOO XXOOOO XXOOOO XXOOOO
XOOOOO XXOOOO XXXOOO
That’s the fingering for Hot Cross Buns, in C, on a C whistle. But you can pick up a D whistle, use the same fingering, and be playing in D. You can pick up a G whistle, use the same fingering, and be playing in G. Once you know the fingering for a tune on one whistle, you can play it in any key as long as you have a whistle in that key. (This is part of why whistlers want SO many whistles!)
So:
…Basically if the song is written in C then I need to transpose it up to play it..If its written in D I dont need to do anything because it will sound good in G or D…Is that right?
If the song is written in C, you have to transpose it up to figure out how it would be played on the “standard” key of D, i.e. on a D whistle. If I were you, I’d spend $3 on a Meg whistle in C and learn the fingerings of the tune with it. You’ll want to eventually memorize all the tunes you play anyway, so the fingering will be more valuable than the sheet music.
–Beth
Not “sound good”, but “sound the same” just higher or lower. The [bold] whistle [/bold] transposes it automatically for you.
But if a tune is written in something that you don’t think you can play normally on a D whistle, [bold] you [/bold] have to do the transposing.
FOR EXAMPLE. A tune is written in E…I can mentally shift everything DOWN a note…
If it gets too hairy, you have to physically transpose it on paper, maybe (transcribe). But its rare. I can do a bit of a mental swap with C and E, F and A. I have D and G pretty much figured out but if the tune spends too much time below the bell or above the high D…I have to transpose even THOSE.
Ashokan Farewell…lovely waltz in D, that just can’t work well on a D whistle unless you move everything up into G…but now you can’t play it with the fiddler, so you pick up your A whistle, play that G fingering, and voila…you have a D tune again!
I now return you to your normally scheduled program.
On 2003-01-20 16:22, C4 wrote:
Will he have to transpose the songs written for a low D or can he play them as is..
If your son is going to playing by himself, then he can play them as they are on his G whistle (just as if it were his low D). There will only be a need to transpose if he plays along with others.
All right I think I understand now.. if I cant play all the notes then I need to transpose.Otherwise I can play it as is.I would have to write it out to transpose it or it would be too confusing for me…I dont think we will ever get the opportunity to play with anyone else so thats not a problem either…Thanks for all the help…
“Transposing” means to put a tune into a different key (usually for ease of playing or singing, or for the purpose of playing with other instruments). As others have mentioned already, it’s not a worry if you want to play a tune you already know on, say, a D whistle on a C whistle instead…you use the same fingering you always do, and the whistle will take care of the transposing for you.
A little “cheat” for you…if I have a tune written in C and I want to play it on a D whistle, I just “pretend” that the bell note on my whistle is actually middle C and read the music accordingly 
.
Outside of whistle-switching, learning to transpose on paper or by ear takes practice and a basic understanding of the relationship of notes within a scale. A scale is made up of whole steps and half steps between the notes, and all major scales follow the same pattern:
whole|whole|half|whole|whole|whole|half
It’s easiest to envision if you look at the keys on a piano. White and black keys, right? OK…when two white keys are separated by a black key, there’s a whole step between them. When they aren’t, there’s a half step between them. So, if you play a scale in C (starting on middle C), you’ll take a whole step from C to D, another whole step from D to E, then a half step from E to F, a whole from F to G, a whole from G to A, a whole from A to B and then a half from B to C.
Still with me?
When you’re playing a major scale in C, you don’t need to write in any sharps or flats. But what if you want to play a major scale in D? If you just shift your fingers up a note and try playing on just the white keys, it doesn’t work…the spaces (“intervals”) between the notes aren’t right. You start by moving from D to E…that’s a whole step and it works fine. But the interval between E and F is a half step and you need a whole step here. So you play the black key next to F (F#). Next you play the next white key (G) because the interval between F# and G is a half step, which is what you want here. You continue on up the white keys on the keyboard until you run into another problem…the interval between B and C is another half step and you need a whole…so you play the black key next to C (C#).
So the trick in transposing music lies in knowing which notes must be sharp or flat to produce the appropriate scale. Transposing among majors isn’t too hard, if you keep the image of a piano keyboard in mind…minor scales are a different ballgame because a minor scale uses different intervals.
If you want a book that will lay all this out for you and give you a handy reference, there is actually a “Music Theory for Dummies” (or perhaps it’s “The Idiot’s Guide to Music Theory” (which, like most of the “Dummies” and “Idiots” books, isn’t for dummies or idiots at all, but simply spells out things in plain language for those of us who don’t have years to devote to studying such things ). It even has a chart that shows you all the key signatures (i.e., requisite sharps and flats) for both major and minor keys…useful if you actually want to do some transposition on your own. Probably not a problem you’ll run into a lot on the whistle because you DO have the option, quite often, of just switching whistles and using your regular fingering, but handy if you have a D whistle and someone wants you to play something you normally play in D in G or A.
Does that help at all, or just confuse matters further? I must admit that theory has never been my strong suit…I even had to run down to my piano to remind myself of the proper intervals for a major scale just now! 
Redwolf
FOllowing on from Redwolf’s post, if your son wants to play on his low G together with you on your high D, one of you will have to play a different fingering, because if you both play the same fingering, you’ll be playing in diff keys.
Let’s say you continue to play in D major (as in, you follow the normal fingering you use for the tune) on your D whistle, he’ll have to play with a diff fingering to get D major. On a low G whistle, the fingering for the D major do-re-mi scale is (where the bottommost hole is h1, and all holes below the hole I mention should be open [oops - edited to correct word to “open”]):
d = h5
e = h6
f# = all holes open
g = h1 (2nd octave)
a = h2
b = h3
c# = halfhole h4
d = h5
This fingering basically gives you the do-re-mi scale starting on the h5 hole of any whistle in any key. So if you have a D whistle, this fingering will give you the A major do-re-mi scale (A is the 5th hole/note on a D whistle) while playing on a D whistle.
If you use this fingering on a C whistle, you’ll be playing the G do-re-mi scale. And so on.
[edited to correct the c to c#, and add some more stuff]
I’ve seen some basic whistle primers like Bill Ochs teach one to play G major on a D whistle. That is learning how to play a do-re-mi scale starting on the h4 hole of any whistle (just start “do” on h4 and the 4th note “fa” is as if you were playing C natural on a D whistle).
So if you and your son plays together (assuming the tune is written in D major) and you let him take the normal fingering, the tune will be in G major, and you will have to change fingering on D whistle to be in the G scale.
[ This Message was edited by: tuaz on 2003-01-20 22:59 ]
[ This Message was edited by: tuaz on 2003-01-21 02:09 ]
To play a D whistle with someone who is playing a G whistle is quite easy.
First Choose a song in the key of G. Use that music for the D whistle. Now transpose the song into the key of D. Use that music for the G whistle and they will both be in tune.
Transposing:
This is a chromatic scale. If you were to play one on the piano, you would play all the black and white notes. Here goes.
A Bb B C C# D Eb E F F# G Ab A Bb B C C# D Eb E F F# G Ab A
Now take the key you are in, (Example G) And the key you want to go to: (Example D) Count the steps between. In this case, walk back 5 steps from G you get D.
All G notes are now D notes.
Try it with another note. For example F#. Walk back 5 steps and you have the note C#. All F# notes are now C#.
You can do this from any key to another, find the distance between the two and change all notes accordingly.
*note: Some notes have a common name, Bb = A#, C# = Db, Eb = D#, F# = Gb, Ab = G#
Example: If you are looking for a G#, it is called an Ab in my chart!
Best of luck!
Sandy
[ This Message was edited by: Sandy Jasper on 2003-01-21 02:22 ]