I’m fairly new to the whistle and I’ve been learning mostly jigs and reels. I’d like to branch out to other types of music.
What do others out there play on their whistles? Classical, blues, pop, traditional Native American, Asian??? What are your favorite sites for scores?
Thanks for any advice and suggestions.
Airs, hornpipes, polkas… 
Seriously, with classical, blues, jazz you’re likely to find the whistle doesn’t handle accidentals too well… And keyed whistles remain a rarity.
Check out Cape Benton tunes. They are a lot of fun to play on whistle, although sometimes a challenge. A good Cape Benton reel is Brenda Stubberts (good practice for C NATS). Also check out stratspays. Walking the Floor and Waulking O’the Feld are good stratspays to try.
Good Luck!
Caryn
Some Old Time (Appalachian) tunes work well on the whistle, such as Over the Waterfall, Sweet Fern, Wildwood Flower, Red Wing, Ragtime Annie. Some of these can be found at http://tunedb.woodenflute.com/
Folk songs in many styles work well. South African township jive of many kinds, not just kwela, works a treat.
Blues also works very well but to play it in a sophisticated way you’ll need to get very adept at half-holing and slurring. Well, is that much more difficult than learning to bend notes in a controlled way on harmonica? It is more difficult I think, but it isn’t impossible.
I like to play rap music on my whistles.
Two favorites of mine are Japanese and traditional French.
French tunes are available at www.tradfrance.com, I recommend that site highly. You might need to transpose a lot of the tunes from here into whistle-friendly keys, or get a few more whistles.
Japanese tunes are harder to come by in the US. I bought most of the music I play from bookstores in Japan. If you’re in NYC or a big city on the west coast, you might find something in one of the Japanese bookstores in those cities. Nobarasha publishes a few interesting songbooks.
I may be unusual on this, but I tend to play Southern Gospel on it.
What do you do, bang it against a table?? 
Rock and roll (especially if it’s old or has a “Celtic” flavor)
Renaissance music (some of these tunes call for a rec****r, though)
Blues (use a D whistle for the blues in A - you can get the true-blue C note in this scale by using only the left middle finger, and always keep your fingers close to the holes)
Tex-Mex/Tejano music (isn’t a lot of this like reels and polkas?)
Lol! That’s right, Cran raps it one the table. Very good one, geek.
I play all different types of music on my whistle: Clare, Sliabh Luchra, Donegal, Sligo, Kerry. It’s Galway, where I draw the line.
You have a line, Bloo? Frankly, I’m disappointed.
I use the Fiddler’s Fakebook, the Portland Collection and old copies of Sing OUT for some music…snatches of old prayer tunes (Eastern European Jewish), and Baptist hymns that I remember. . .a little bit of a show tune repertoire, Stan and Garnet Rogers, Priscilla Herdman, Woody Guthrie and tunes from Bok Trickett and Muir albums. . .Pete Seeger. .
But some day I’m gonna be able to do swing music like I heard Tom Walsh do this past week on my whistle (he’s the guy who’s adopted my Thin Weasel…but now has covetous eyes for the Abell…fickle man!).
Some non-Irish tunes I like to play include a small reportoire of Welsh tunes (which are pretty similar but you can tell a slight difference in the style of tunes from the two countries), a modified form of the soundrack from the Japanese film Princess Mononoke, the gypsy tune known as the Basso (which I’ve only just learnt, much fun), the Can Can, there’s a Moose a Loose about this Hoose (whatever that tune is actually called) and basically anything else which takes my fancy. I’m going to try and learn some tango off a friend and some salsa as well (I’m already learning to play salsa on my bouzouki).
TTFN.
What are some titles of the Welsh tunes - and where have you heard them? Does the group Ffynnon do Welsh trad?? (unfortunately a Green Linnet group) The info about their album on the Green Linnet site says it includes Scottish, Breton tunes, etc., and only that the group is FROM Wales, so I don’t know just how much Welsh trad is included.
Susan
the anniversary waltz is the only classic i play
there’s some good scores at http://supersearch.mudcat.org/@NewSSResults.cfm
Hey Tyghress,
Is the Portland Collection any good? I’ve been tempted by it a few times but haven’t gotten it yet. Is it repetitious of say the fiddlers fakebook? The reason I ask is I play whistle primarily for a contra dance band and am always looking for good dance tunes.
Thanks for any info in advance,
Mark V.
The Star Wars Theme, of course.
BTW, one of the guys in the pipe band here likes to play “If You Want My Body” on the GHP’s. It’s funny.
I play both Chinese and Japanese melodies on Irish whistle at my music shows now.
That makes me think of 'Fat B**st*rd from 'Austin Powers ’ - “Ahhm DEAD SEXY me!”