i recently found a feadog D that my grandparents bought for me in ireland in the mid-90’s. i decided to learn how to play it, and ive been practicing, but it sounds scratchy and plays much higher than D on occasion. does anyone know whats wrong or how to fix it?
There might not be anything wrong with it, more practice might do the trick. If it’s possible, find somewhere in your area that sells cheap whistles and pick up a Sweetone or Walton and you can figure out whether it actually is the whistle or not.
If you’re convinced it is the whistle, plenty of info on tweaking is floating around the website and the board.
The other note instead of D is probably the next octave D. If you blow a little harder than necessary the note will jump up an octave. Play the D gently and slowly increase how hard you are blowing. At some point the note will jump up. Learning to control the breath pressure is an important part of learning the whistle. It probably is not the whistle. It will take quite a while to learn to control the transition. BTW you can try this with every note. It will jump to the same note one octave up.
Keep whistling.
Ron
To add to this…a “scratchy” sound may be a problem with the whistle, but it may also be a FEATURE of the whistle. Whistles aren’t flutes or recorders…they often have a bit of texture to the sound that some might describe as “scratchy” or “raspy.” If you don’t like this sound, you can buy a purer-toned whistle (they’re out there), but give yourself time on this one first…inexperience with the instrument can also create “off” sounds. If, after playing a while, you still really don’t like the way this whistle sounds, by all means, buy another one, but do give this one a chance to grow on you first. It takes practice (and breath control! Remember, you don’t “blow” a whistle so much as you “breathe into it”) to get the best sound out of any whistle.
Redwolf
Maybe a raspy whistle that flips easy, or it may just be inexperience. Try another whistle. Sweetones are supposed to be good for beginers, and from experience with the ones I’ve had I’d say that’s true. I’d also say a susato would probably be good too, although people will say ugly things about them. The Clares I’ve had probably would be good too.
The thing about all three of these are the fact that they arn’t very low air volume whistles. They all take a moderate about, without taking too much. The difference in the amount of air needed for the upper and lowwer register is pronounced enough to make it easy not to constantly flip between the two.
That’s just my two cents worth.
And my opinion is always right.
My Feadog was raspy and squawky. I replaced the mouthpiece with a Hoover Whitecap and it became a very nice whistle. The same with an Oak that was at least as bad.
Practice will make all the difference.
Although it is true that a lousy whistle makes playing well hard, it is even more true that an unpracticed whistler will have a great deal of trouble getting even an excellent whistle to sound decent.
I speak from experience, LOL!
Instead of wondering what’s wrong with the whistle, just keep playing with it until you figure out how to make it sound pretty good… then you’ll be a whistler! … Then, you can spend the next 30 years or so working on becoming a good whistler. 
And when you feel discouraged, take comfort in this - each and every excellent player had trouble at the start… they just kept playing anyway.
I agree with the practice thing. It can take a bit to get a hang of it. If after a good while practice doesn’t seem to help, try out another whistle somewhere or have someone who knows how to play try out your whistle to see if it really could benifit from tweaking.
Don’t give up… whistles can be wonderful!
Sara
thank you all very much. i enjoy playing the whistle and i plan on practicing a good deal. you all are much nicer than people in most forums. i appreciate the help!
A related thing… expect to find a bit of this happening with just about every whistle you get… each one has it’s own eccentricities, and you may find some take more getting used to than others. I’ve had my Howard Low D for about a year, and it’s a much better whistle now than when I got it, LOL!
I have some older whistles that no-one else seems to like, but I like them very much, now that I’ve figured out how to deal with them.
One thing you might want to do is check the windway for plastic burrs left over from casting that might be interrupting the air flow. If there are any, ***CAREFULLY cut away the burrs with an exacto knife or razor blade. Be sure and not damage the actual blade or shape of the windway, though. I had the same problem with a Waltons and a really good whistler told me to do it and it worked like a dream on mine.
I killed one of mine trying to do that… I don’t recommend it. There are several people who have loads of experience tweeking whistles, and IMHO, it is better to pay them for an already tweeked one than to try to do it yourself until you have a good deal more experience with whistles and what works and doesn’t work between your mouth and the whistle. Chances are great that the problem is with you and not the whistle, and I don’t suggest any ‘repair’ worn on your mouth either, LOL!
Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t some junky whistles out there… there are… and it may be the problem… I think buying another might be a good investment anyway. The Sweetone is a pretty nice chap whistle, and will at least give you a fairly reliable practice instrument while you find your way.
Mine was too, especially on E, F, high D, and high E. Naturally, I tweaked it to death.
welcome to the board, booby-man.
Tweaking a whistle to death…a scary thing but I’ve done it many times 
Anyway, welcome abard, forkman!
Have you looked into the fipple? There might be some burrs, so in that case use a toothpick or something sharp and long (like a needle) to take them away.
It’s good to practice but “untweaked” – that is, before improvement by professional whistle tweakers – Feadogs truly vary in their playability, so when you’re comfortable with the fingerings,you might want to consider something reasonably priced and well-made, like Sweetones. My first whistle was Feadog too, but it kept jumping the octaves so often and so after having learnt the fingerings on it I proceeded to buy a Sweetone which I still sometimes pick up and play.
As a fellow ‘newbie’, I’d agree with the answers that talk about breath control. As a beginner, it is my biggest challenge!
If you aren’t using a tutorial book - you might think about buying one. The guidance they give should help shorten your learning curve.
As well, keep in mind that the lower the note the less breath that is required; as you play down the scale you need to reduce the amount of breath to keep from jumping to the higher octave, with each lower note requiring less breath than the previous one.
The first tip that really made a difference in my learning was to “breathe into the whistle NOT blow” (as was already mentioned above).
Good luck and don’t get discouraged - you will start to get it!
Bill
I had this Feadog whistle that I bought in Ireland around 1998 and it was scratchy sounding. There were hanging pieces of plastic in the windway created from the molding process. I cut those away with an Exacto knife it plays great. I didn’t change anything else, no additional tweaking. It does play little sharp though.