Hi everyone! I’ve been a classical flutist for more years than not in my 45 year life so far. I play in a church orchestra that uses a lot of “irish inspired” tunes. Sometimes the flute part says “optional Irish whistle/flute” so I got very interested in learning to play one. In my utter ignorance I purchased a low c whistle thinking “I wouldn’t have to transpose”. I’m loving learning to play this whistle! But of course it just won’t play those sections in 3 sharps.
My lowc is a Susato Oriole - nice tone - hard for me to get a good sound from those top few notes and hard for me to play in tune with itself. Is this the instrument, or do I just really stink at the Irish whistle and need to practice more??? tone and tuning tips would help me to be a happier whistler.
I think being a classical player really brings some special challenges to playing Irish music! Can’t wait to unlearn some of my good habits and pick up some that are way more fun!
So - I’m looking to add a new whistle or two to my collection. The keys seem to be mostly c d f g and a. I don’t want to spend a ton, I’d like easy to play and in tune with itself. Again - I’d love some tips if you’ve got them.
Jamie
I think you mean high C, not low C. I don’t think the Oriole comes in a low C. (If so, it would be more than two feet long and a major stretch for the hands. And the lowest note would be the same as the low C on your flute.)
If you’re looking for a concert pitch (non-transposing) instrument, that’s a D whistle. It gives you access to D and G major, E, A, and B minor (and A major, but you have to half-hole the seventh). A C whistle will give you C and F major, along with D, G, and A minor, so those two keys should cover a lot of the repertoire. The only catch is if a tune goes below the the range of the whistle. In this case, an A whistle is nice because it puts D major in the middle of the instrument, so you can go below the tonic. For C, a G whistle will do the same trick. Here’s a handy chart: http://www.chiffandfipple.com/whistlekeys.html
As you’ve inadvertently discovered, whistles (and Irish/simple-system flutes) use a different nomenclature than orchestral instruments. In orchestral terms, a D whistle is a C whistle, because it’s non-transposing (finger a C, and that’s the actual note that will play); the orchestral logic would call a C whistle a Bb instrument.
But that naming system is irrelevant for whistles: they’re simply labeled according to the lowest (six finger) note. So a D whistle plays D when you finger xxx xxx. If you finger xxx xxx and get a C note, it’s a C whistle, etc.
Tuning is largely based on breath pressure–harder=sharper, softer=flatter. But there’s only so far you can go before you switch octaves. Many whistles take a bit more push for the top end of the second octave (xxo ooo and xoo ooo – people don’t typically push whistles much higher than that), so don’t be shy! Underblowing can create some unpleasant sounds. (My preference is for whistles that don’t take much extra push up top, but the sacrifice is a bit of volume/solidity at the low end.)
EDIT: By the way, here’s a fantastic resource for learning to play Irish music on the whistle: http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/
The $10 Inexpensive whistles are often not in tune without adjusting the head a little. Even so, the intonation can be quite off, which is irritating to someone who can perceive pitch. With time you can make it sound okay, but… you’ll have less frustration if you jump up to the $40-$100 price rang.
A Jerry Freeman’s tweaked whistle plays easily and nicely in tune (with itself and other instruments), at a very reasonable price.
Syn is another decent whistle in that range.
Welcome to the whistle forum. There is a wealth of information loaded in the threads and archives. As for whistles just get any of them Generation, Feadog, Oak, Freeman tweaked, and play the music you want to play. Enjoy it and have fun.
You’ll definitely want a D whistle. Your C Boehm flute is really a flute in D, with the lowest notes just tacked on at the bottom. The fundamental scale is D. As you learn a D whistle you’ll find it’s fingerings to be fairly similar to your flute: top three holes or pads closed gives a G, etc.
I took classical flute for a while ages ago, and my teacher was huge on tongue technique. I had to learn to tongue a lot more gently when I switched over to recorder, and on whistle even more so. Many whistle players hardly use tongue at all, emulating piping technique where tongueing is impossible.
Good luck-- you’re in for a whole lot of fun.
I used to own a large number of Susatos- from the huge angled-neck Low C on up through low D, Eb, E, F, Gb, G, Ab, A, Bb, B, etc.
What I found is that while on their Low Ds (I had three or four of those over the years) have good tuning, some of their other whistles can be all over the map.
The strange thing was the inconsistency. It’s not like I could say "Susatos tend to have a flat ____ " or "Susatos tend to have a sharp _____ ".
One would have a very flat bellnote, so I would have to chop the bottom. One would have the bellnote sharper than all the other notes so I would have to carve all the holes. (Happily Susatos are made from a plastic that’s easy to cut and carve.)
Some had some notes very sharp, some very flat, so that a combination of chopping, carving, and taping was required to get an in-tune scale. As I said is was quite random, each whistle having its own unique bad scale built into it. As one might expect the most popular keys were the best, the odd keys the worst, as if they hadn’t done their R&D for those.
However the octave relationship on all the Susatos I’ve owned has been spot-on.
I’ve taught Irish flute and whistle to a large number of “classical” players over the years, both in private lessons and festival workshops, and I see them having trouble with the same things over and over.
The first is wanting to tongue every note. Yes I’m aware that there’s a spectrum of Irish styles, but in general the Irish whistle/flute style is legato, “on the stream”. Even whistleplayers who do loads of tonguing are using the tonguing to accent and articulate a fundamentally legato style. It can be extremely difficult for “legit” fluteplayers and recorder players to imitate this. (The traditional musicians themselves are often not aware of it, and think of their playing as being very articulated. Yet when they hear a Boehm flute or Recorder player doing Irish tunes it doesn’t sound right to them.)
I’ve had people in workshops who were utterly unable to play legato no matter what I said or demonstrated. I’ve had to resort to telling people to play with their tongue held against the roof of their mouth, so that they can experience (for the first time in their life) what playing utterly legato, without the ability to resort to tonguing, feels like.
Irish players tend to do with the fingers what Boehm fluteplayers do with the tongue and diaphragm, articulation and vibrato.
The other thing Boehm fluteplayers are never able to do initially is play cuts and taps quickly enough. They’re used to holding their fingers very low, in contact or nearly in contact with the keys (to avoid key noise). Watch Irish fiddlers and whistleplayers and if your eyes are quick enough you’ll note them raising a finger high off the instrument a split-second before the finger strikes; the added distance enables the finger to reach sufficient velocity. Boehm flutists want to just move the finger up and down from its “guide position” which makes the pats far too sluggish.
They also want to turn Long Rolls into Turns. The two things have the same notes but are timed completely differently.
It’s not rocket science! Here are all the articulations you’ll need, the cuts and pats. People always call them “ornaments” but they’re really articulations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfu_fDUyNHs
Here’s that stuff put into a tune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35SqhcSojn8
About the names for pitches, yes Orchestral woodwinds do it differently that Irish woodwinds.
Boehm flutes are named for the note that comes out of the upper-hand’s thumb key, or one could say the note that comes out of the foot (originally Boehm flutes had C foots) , what one might call the “seven finger note”
xxx xxxx
Irish whistles are named for the bellnote, the “six finger note”
xxx xxx
As was pointed out above the Irish “D flute” and “D whistle” are the same pitch as the orchestral “C flute” thus:
xxx xxx D
xxx xxo E
xxx ooo G
xxo ooo A
xoo ooo B
and Irish musicians name the notes and think of the notes as if a D whistle were being played. In other words all Irish whistles besides D whistles are “transposing instruments”.
Sure enough - it’s a high c. Thanks so much everyone! I’m loving the links - send more if you’ve got 'em!
I think the ornaments/articulations are especially frustrating for me - I’ve spent countless hours making sure every time a finger moves, the tone that follows is full, in tune, focused, etc. I’ve got a couple of friends who play Irish flute and I never believed them when they told me my silver flute wouldn’t be able to do what an Irish flute could do. I was oh so wrong!
I believe I’ll be picking up a Syn D whistle very soon. Maybe a tweaked whistle after that.
Thanks all!
That would be a “B flat” instrument in orchestral terminology, because when you finger C the sounding pitch is B flat.
Yes you’ve put your finger on exactly what I’ve spent countless hours trying to get “classical” players to overcome: the desire for each note to be a perfect pearlescent individual entity with a beautiful attack, focused pure strong core, and elegant decay. Irish woodwind music isn’t like that. You play on a flow, a stream, and the digits articulate it. The articulations aren’t notes, but rather interruptions of the stream.
Now there I’ll disagree, because it’s possible to play Irish flute music in a very nice traditional style on the Boehm flute. One only has to separate that instrument from the style usually associated with it, and use an entirely different style.
Paddy Carty is perhaps the most famous old-school traditional Irish example of the playing of traditional Irish flute on a fully keyed, fully mechanized flute. (His flute was a Radcliffe System one, which uses the full Boehm mechanism and covered keys, but has a couple fingering differences from the Boehm fingering.)
Also old-school is Paddy O Donahue. The modern American example is Joannie Madden.
Paddy Carty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m724W5vDiQ
Paddy O Donohue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U__WjRen-eo
You might notice that both of those guys have a rather flowing unpunctuated style.
Here’s Joannie Madden, playing flute at 3:45, in a style more typical of Irish fluteplaying nowadays
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOrU5sVUyqs&list=RDhOrU5sVUyqs#t=14