The second octave is a challenge, I’m sitting between two veritable hard places, keeping practice going and dealing with this mountain for me anyways i.e. the high note. High “D” is walk in the park but please tell me that High G, (gimme a sec till I grab my Ever so quiet less company annoying Clarke high D whistle) and “High A” “High B” are head wreckin’ I’ve sorta picked up from MTGuru confirmation needed that you can do a low octave rehearsal of the melody to familiarise yourself with the tune then apply the high octave when calm times arrive. Still I find the octave work frustrating and hard work. Newbies please share your experiences 
1 Like
Hi John,
Can I clarify do you mean octave shifting like instead of playing original 1st octave notes you play the 2nd octave,
which also translate to instead of playing the original 2nd octave notes you play the 3rd octave notes? 
The 3rd octave is somewhat non-existent to many whistles that I have tried. It is but a shriek sound on any different breath velocity and control configuration, and combination.
On third octave I can manage to play D-E-F# (being sharp by 10-30 cents) and G-A-B-C are not soooo good.
Hi John,
I consider myself a newbie still. For a start I wouldn’t worry too much about high notes. They will come in time. I found G difficult to start with, A & B impossible but gradually you find a way to play them. Now I can play third octave E without too much difficulty. Anything beyond is unnecessary and dangerous to your hearing. But here’s the thing. If you want to practice scales (always useful) get used to making you mouth cavity and the gap between your lips as small as possible without tensing the mouth. It is possible to constrict the lips such that you are only through part of the windway. Doing this the notes are much quieter in the higher second octave. It might be good to practice high notes with earplugs to begin with so you are not afraid of blasting air through the whistle. It takes courage even when the result is not too loud.
I also practice argeggios which I find helpful for reaching the higher notes. Start with D - D FsharpADFsharpA . . .D (maybe), and G - DGBDGB . . . D (maybe).
Hope this helps.
no problems with this here
first i was surprised how much i had to blow on seome whistles but once i found out how much, it was easy
but playing a melodie and not just a few tones, than it was easy to come out of breath first, but even this was no porblem after a little practise
of course some whistles need just a little bit of air even in the second octave but some realy want a lot of air, they are very different in this, dont u have a sweettone? it needs just a little bit of air, i would say
It’ll come with time. Really. Was once the time when I cringed anywhere above 2nd-octave F# or so, avoided any tunes that used anything higher, etc.
Then one day, I couldn’t remember what the big deal was…
(These days, I cringe a bit when it comes to 2nd-octave C/3rd-octave D, but what I find is that if I just go for it, it’s fine. It’s when I’m timid and try not to blow too hard that it tends to not work out so well…)
Basically what Mikethebook said~Practice enough and it gets easier.
For some whistles it helpful to tounge the top notes to start them, particularly a and b.
Some whistles have an easier and sweeter second octave, but the price is often a weakened bottom and bell note. TANSTAFFL- There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
I forget now how long it took me to get comfortable with the entire second octave.
Probly 3-4 months of playing everyday.
And take it from me, acquiring a small pile of whistles will not buy you what only pratice brings.
Stay with it and don’t get fustrated. Improvement may seem glacial but it does come.
Can I clarify do you mean octave shifting like instead of playing original 1st octave notes you play the 2nd octave,
which also translate to instead of playing the original 2nd octave notes you play the 3rd octave notes?
No, instead of playing the 2nd octave notes they would be dropped to the first octave.
I had the same struggle with the 2nd octave G through B, Jleo Fipple. Those notes really have to be committed to, and I was trying to play them gently. It won’t happen, at least not with the Waltons D I have. It took mostly a change in attitude to really get those notes to belt out and sound good. What I did was play scales and just nail those notes like I didn’t have neighbors. They won’t sound so head wreckin’ after a while. As others have mentioned, tonguing helps until you get to know the sweet spot for those notes on your whistle.
A lot of wisdom there, and a whole lot more daily “practice with breath control” helped the higher notes here. Everyone seems to want quick answers, shortcuts, and the answer is “practice” will get ya there. Its slow going for me. Keep whistling
In teaching whistle to beginners I have found that very often people are afraid of the high notes. You can’t make the top of the second octave, esp. high A and B, sound clear and confident if you’re shy about making a lot of noise. You just have to go for it, and never mind the neighbours!
A good way to help learners get over their reluctance with the high notes is to have them learn a slow tune that makes a lot of use of high A and B - and have them play it solo for their classmates.
I don’t get why you’d want to play up in the third octave unless you’re training a border collie? I don’t think i have ever played, or heard for that matter any tune going above high/second octave C# (I am sure someone will write a list of tunes now..)
Sometimes late at night when playing i play everything in the first octave only, but that is just concern for the neighbours, not because i can’t get a full second octave
Mr_Blackwood, I tend to agree with you that third octave notes are seldom required . . . and on a high whistle very unpleasant to be around; on a low whistle it’s not quite as bad. I have as yet to master Davy Spillane’s opening low whistle solo on Riverdance which reaches third octave E and that’s as high as I’ve heard anyone go. It’s quite doable on my low D Goldie . . . but I wouldn’t go near that on a high D. No, thank you.
That exactly I had first two, three months .
When I bought my first whistle, I was surprised how noisy instrument it is.
Is it just my perception (or whistle-damaged hearing), or does one eventually get the control to make the high notes sound sweeter and less piercing? I definitely had to let go of self-consciousness and play more aggressively to get a reliable hold on the high notes, but now that I’ve gotten more comfortable up there in the stratosphere my high notes don’t seem to sound as raucous as they used to.
Here’s a completely different perspective on the question: When I was first getting a handle on the high notes, I tweaked a couple of whistles to make the whistle softer and the high notes easier to reach (and yes indeed, the latter tweak did make the low notes weaker). Toning down the shrill factor helped me get comfortable with making such a piercing, high-pitched sound. I live in shoddily built but gentrified, high-density urban housing, so I’m forever aware that the neighbors can hear me just exactly as well as I can hear them (so you have a hot new boyfriend, eh?)
As I said with experience and awareness of embouchure, one can reduce the volume level of the high notes. I’m not totally confident of that ability yet to go for the really high notes with earplug protection but I have managed to play third octave E much quieter and comfortably than at first. It’s not a question of backing off with the air because you can’t do that and get the note but by restricting the air through a tiny hole made with the lips. For some reason I find D more difficult but it is, I’m sure, practice. I went out and bought a sound-level meter which I find very helpful for monitoring decibel levels and there are good web-sites that can tell you what levels you can cope with and for how long. Earplugs do help when venturing into the upper second octave and beyond until you gain more confidence.
seems like i am unusual
maybe i dont care for the neighbours, am very self confident or have really big lungs 
Thanks everyone for the insightful replies lots of good information and much needed encouragement for new whistlers
Jleo, welcome, and I’ll add a little of my experience to what you’ve already heard. Of course practice. I matriculated from rec*&^der to whistle so I was used to practicing intervals as well as scales. I’ve learned that scales are fine to do occasionally but once one gains the muscle memory to be comfortable with note locations, they don’t provide much beyond what you will learn from playing tunes. However, I find practicing intervals invaluable as a tool to overcome any shyness about reaching notes up to that third D or E.
I start with octave jumps, first D-second D-third D. Then I might go first B-second B or second A-first A. Any notes beyond the second F# are often helped along by tongueing at the start until you develop more sophisticated breath control. I also play first and second octave jumps for third’s and fifth’s, sometimes going up and other times down. Play slowly and hold each note for the same length of time as you’re jumping octaves during practice at first. This is one of the rare times I advocate for the use of a metronome, the other being when in the very beginning stages of learning a new tune from scratch. After you’ve become used to doing the intervals, vary the length of time you hold the notes, one beat for the first note, then maybe three beats for the second, varying it often. If you do this for 10 minutes a day I’ll bet you’re over the problem with fear of high notes in about two weeks.
Finally, I want to dispel any previous absolute statements about high D whistles and high notes. Not all high D whistles need an ear-piercing volume to reach the high ranges. It is absolutely true that you will develop better breath control as you become more proficient but that can only do so much. If you get a whistle from a maker directly, they will tweak the whistle to balance that out for you. You may have to sacrifice a little bit of that rock bottom D, but not much, to gain a much sweeter high range that is actually very pleasant and beautiful. You’re not likely to find this in an off-the-shelf Feadog, Walton’s, Gen or Clarke unfortunately. That’s why there are custom whistle makers available to us. We can get what we want. Now you won’t likely get what you want on the hand-made whistle second hand market either unless you’re very lucky because that whistle’s original owner had the whistle made the way he/she wanted it at the time and a quiet high range is not usually why one goes to a custom maker.
But, I’ll put my Sindt high D (stock-brass head/silver tube), my Impempe custom high D, my Hudson Winds (good luck finding one) or my Busman custom D+ (just contact Brewer Paul) in the hands of any decent player and you won’t hear one unpleasant high note out of them. You can ask my wife and dog if you don’t believe me. 
ecohawk
Sometimes fingering as well. Two-octave D generally responds usefully to a variety of fingering adjustments on different whistles, with ‘standards’ like OXXOOO and OXXXXX often tamed by only partially venting (or even completely closing) T1. So try, for example, XXXOOO or XXXOOO (where the underlining represents just a slight ‘leak’) to take the edge off and you might be surprised!
Absolutely agreed. But (accepting that some whistles and/or players get there more sweetly than others) I’d go further in saying I’d regard any whistle that can’t produce two octaves comfortably as compromised, and suggest that treating second-octave G, A and B as ‘high notes’ is probably half the problem when they’re not really!
I’m not sure, but I think no one says that the problem is in whistle.
(I apologize if it was squidgirl - her style of writing is very complicated to me and makes me very difficult to catch whole thoughts. Not her fault, it’s mine fault)
My fault also. My mother was a professional writer who used words as sharply-edged weapons, and I inherited her habit of using unusual and very idiomatic word choices to imply humor. It probably doesn’t translate well at all.