Hi! I have never played whistle before but would love to play along with my Flogging Molly CD. The question is, how would I decide what whistle to buy (or do they use multiple). They do change keys alot (as in Devil’s Dance Floor) and they do play in minor keys alot. Any help would be appreciated! Travis.
Every whistle has three major keys that are reasonably achievable, the key of the whistle, the key a fifth above the key of the whistle, and the key a fifth below the key of the whistle. For D whistles, these are D, A, and G.
You get a minor key (or at least a modal key that sounds minor… It might be that there’s a difference of a half-tone somewhere for a true minor) by playing up a note (full tone), but keeping the same keying as the major scale a full tone below… So, a D whistle can play in E minor by playing its natural keys but treating E as the root tone of the scale. (Try running a scale from E to E, or every other note in a scale E to E …)
Similarly, above G gets you A minor (and A without flattening the C still sounds minor, but it’s a different mode that’s not as close to a true minor), and above A gets you B minor.
As for what keys they play in, you’d have to check the CD sleeve, or else buy a bunch of whistles and find the right keys. I’d start with a D whistle to learn on, because it’s the standard… once you can play well enough, you can play along with them and see if they’re flat or sharp to you, try to guess by how many steps, and find the right whistle… or maybe someone else knows the answer. That’d be easier. 
–Chris
Hi,
Flogging Molly uses a lot of traditional melodies in their music (Their song “Salty Dog” uses a traditional melody called The Kesh Jig, and I heard the Jig from “Black Friday Rule” played at a session before—I don’t know what it’s called.)
You should be just fine with a standard D whistle.
–Caj
[By the way, if you like Flogging Molly, you might want to check out the Tossers]
Speaking just for Devil’s Dance Floor, it is played on a “D” and starts on E (xxx xxo). Almost everything I’ve heard from them is in either D or G or can be played resonably well with these whistles. I saw them in concert a month ago but didn’t get to check out what types of whistles they used. Hope that’s of some help
BTW. Get their new CD called Drunkin’ Lullabies. It’s got some great tracks on it and I like it much better then others like Swagger.
Seth