okay folks. being off work today I was able to get out my two whistles and really practice. Once they and I were warmed up I got out my tuner. I was able to keep both of them (Meg and Clarke Original) on pitch for low D through high E (the notes I’m most confident on) EXCEPT for low B, that was flat for both of them no matter how I tried to play.
Any suggestions. This little test is telling me that I am the problem, not the whistles. 
That’s what your tuner tells you, now what does your EAR tell you?
A flat B (or F for that matter) may or may not be a conscious choice of the maker of a whistle, in the past whistle may not have necessarily been tuned to equal temperament. Whistles are intended to play in a limited number of keys, to flatten some notes from the equal tempered scale may well be a better choice.
Furthermore, the B might be intentionally slightly flat in order to help you play a cross-fingered C natural in tune.
My ear also tells me that they are flat. But, given the explanations in the responses I can accept this for both whistles. I’m delighted that I can get them to play in key as much as I can. 
Or, making the 1st-octave B in tune may have made the 2nd-octave B
unbearably sharp, so it may be a compromise between a slightly flat
1st octave B and a slightly sharp 2nd-octave B…
Those cheap whistles will never be in tune. Your ears and the tuner are correct. The reason a Meg is so out of tune has more to do with manufacturing than temperament. It’s a toy, not an instrument. You need a decent instrument. Even the best ones require some breath adjustment, though. But you’d have to adjust breath volume on every third note to play a Meg in tune.
I recommend Abells. If that’s too pricy try Burkes. If you don’t mind the low volume, go for Hoovers.
Sorry but I need to ask, because I don’t understand this yet… what do you mean with “some breath adjustment”? Where would be the exact breath point in every single whistle to make them decently in tune?
I agree. Tuning is everything to do with your ears. If you are playing an instrument like a whistle, where you are at the mercy of hole position etc., you will expend a lot of energy simply trying to play in tune - energy which you could more usefully employ on such things as tone quality, phrasing and generally making music which is, let’s face it, what it’s all about. Yes, get a good whistle. If you think they’re expensive, try buying a good cello.
here’s my two cents. play the meg with other musicians or to a recording and see if you can get that note to sound pleasant with everyone else. with a meg, i can believe that would be most difficult, unless you became super-experienced. in which case, you’d have a much better instrument than a meg. in which case, your point would be moot. sincerely, mutepointe.
The Chief knows what he’s talking about. I usually don’t weigh in to discussions like this but there seem to have been a few lately and it appears there’s some unhealthy misinformation floating around about tuning. In related threads people have thrown out terms like tempered tuning and perfect intonation and such without providing much detail about what these things really are.
Electronic tuners have given people the notion that for every note there is a specific frequency of sound waves- for example, A=440. Yes, most modern western instruments are tuned relative to an A that is 440 Hz, but this does not mean that 440 Hz is the definition of an A. Tuning is relative. Tuning is always relative. The A you play as the root of an A major chord will not be exactly the same A you play as the third of an F major chord or the fifth of a D major chord. If you tune a piano so that every key matches the dead nuts accurate pitch on an electronic tuner, it will sound like a train wreck. That’s why they temper the tuning, a practice that came about around Bach’s time, hence “The Well Tempered Clavier.”
The reason for this has to do with overtones and the Harmonic Series which is a term you might recognize from a calculus class, not surprising because it was all thunk up by Pythagoras, the guy with the dandy rule about triangles that forms the basis of modern mathematics- turns out he was real into music and thought it was the fundamental building block of existence or something like that. The explanation is too much to go into (as is the calculus) but suffice it to say that all musical instruments work on the basis of the Harmonic Series which is fundamentally out of tune. The good news is you don’t have to worry about any of this. Your ears can tell you far more than the tuner can. The tuner can tell you that a given pitch is a certain frequency faster or slower than 440 Hz. Your ears can tell you if you are in tune.
Try this experiment: take an electronic tuner to a performance of the finest orchestra you can get tickets for. Take a reading of the general intonation of the orchestra at the beginning of the concert and again several times throughout the performance. Dollars to doughnuts, you will notice that the tonal center of the ensemble shifts as the group plays. Why? Because of a constant variation of an infininte number of parameters, the most likely culprit being temperature. So why don’t these classy groups sound out of tune? Because they use their ears and adjust to what they hear, sometimes with a tuning slide or peg, but mostly with air and chops and fingers.
So what does any of this crapola have to do with the Meg or the Abell? Simply that if you check each note of either instrument you will find some that the tuner says are out of tune. The difference, then, is that because of different manufacturing processes there is a statistically better chance of the Abell being closer to “in tune” on more notes, thus the higher cost. So why do we use electronic tuners? Because they give us a good point of reference to work from- or more to the point, they tell us if we might be better off if the instrument was a little longer or shorter.
There seem to be two schools of thought among people on this forum, but they are not unique to tinwhistles. One school of thought is that some of the greatest traditional tinwhistlers extant play on whistles that cost less than $10 - Paddy Moloney, Mary Bergin, Micho Russell, Peter’s neighbor Brid O’Donohue to name a few - and if they’re good enough for these cats they’re good enough for anyone. This is the “Learn To Play the Instrument You Have” school. With enough practice you can learn to play that Meg as “in tune” as can be, and if you can’t then you can tweak it, and if you’re not craft-oriented have Jerry Freeman tweak one for you.
Then there is the “Use the Best Tool For the Job- The Technology’s There So Why Not Use It” school. Sure, you could get to the point where you can play that Meg in tune, but why not save yourself some work and get an instrument that’s closer to begin with. You pay a premium for it, but you get a guarantee from the manufacturer that the instrument will be as close to “in tune” as can be reasonably expected or they’ll fix the problem.
I seem to remember Mr. Freeman once posting that he had to get several Generations in order to find one that was tweakable to his standards, and if I’m misquoting I apologize. I would be interested to know what the ratio of servicable cheapies is to non-serviceable, because if it takes ten $10 whistles to get one good one, then you really don’t have a $10 whistle any more, you have a $100 whistle and a bunch of scrap.
All that being said, in my most humble opinion, the decision whether or not to Use the Best Tool For the Job or Learn To Play the Instrument You Have should be based on which whistle you think sounds the best when properly played by someone who knows what they’re doing. I am personally mulling over this question because my WhOA has me at the brink of poverty and I must use any means at my disposal to control it. So I am making good use of the excellent resources on this site to guide me, specifically Clips and Snips.
Having concluded my manifesto, I’m tired and I’m going to bed.
Cheers
I don’t think you get my point completely, I am all for getting the best tool available BUT I also do think a lot of beginners are fooling themselves into buying very expensive whisltes without gaining anything. I already mentioned that each and every Abell player I met last year was glowing about their whistles ‘but this is a CHRIS ABELL’ interestingly they all put that forward as if that said it all. What they failed to pick up on was that their instruments were invariably considered by the rest of the company as too loud and of a tone that didn’t blend at all in the setting they were brought into. And interestingly none of the players managed to play their octaves even nearly to being in tune which each time had a room full of people plolitely hoping they’d go away. What did these people get from their whistles?
On the other hand, maybe it’s good to realise that those who do choose a cheap whistle don’t do this because they are trying to be contrary, all whistleplayers you mention are very well aware of high end whistles, some (including Brid Donohue) play a Sindt occasionally. They have generally chosen what they consider the best tool for the job, made an informed and rational desiscion after trying a variety of instruments. Any of these whistleplayers would jump at a great whistle that would suit their needs but lets face it apparently Burkes and Abells just don’t fill that gap while a well picked cheap whistle often does.
Now tuning wise, the point I was making was not that I favour playing out of tune whistles. I have said often enough I wouldn’t go near Sweetones, Megs etc these are toys and bad ones for that matter. I do think your ear should be your guide and when using a tuner, please use it in an informed way. Horses for courses, sometimes an equal tempered whistle is called for (I imagine the chief, playing in the settings he does, would go with that) and in other circumstances maybe a deviation from the equal spaced scale is appropriate and a deviation from that scale is not necessarily a reason for immediate dismissal of the instrument. The subject of scales by the way has been beaten around so often that refering to it is not ‘unhealthy misinformation’.
Well put peter 
To me it’s very simple: If your meg makes you unhappy, well it was only a couple of bucks - try a gen or a feadog. If you are playing with others and your whistle sounds like it’s not with the music and no amount of practice or grunting gets it back in the same room - it’s either a bad whislte or everyone at the session is stoned except you If you’re playing by yourself then, so long as the noise doesn’t frighten you - it’s a good whistle no matter what your tuner says (btw, for the price of a tuner you could get a good tweaked whistle - tune-up to the fiddle at the session). Then again, if you are playing with realy realy good players (realy nice ones), they may follow your pitch - then anyone listening will think it was meant to be that way.
I have recordings of birdsong (magpies and currawongs - I was trying to work out how they did their cuts and crans) and they play way out of tune!
All this because I said that for the first 9 basic notes (D thru E’) I was able to get both my Clarke Original and Meg to sound in tune to both my ear and the tuner EXCEPT for B which was sounding flat and was wondering if it was me. I even went on to say that I was delighted in my ability to be able to do so. Although I must admit that I can’t seem to get high F and G as nicely on the Meg but they do sound better on the Clarke.
I have searched past threads and tried to be educated on both sides of this debate. I must admit that I am once again putting pennies in a can for a different whistle. I am now down to only 9 recorders as a recent deal has fallen through. (The current owner has found a group that plays renaissance music and and everyone else has the same type of instrument he was selling me..he hadn’t shipped yet). this leaves me with much more whistle options. In the meantime the Meg will remain in the car and I’ll be practicing and learning with the Clarke. I’m not that crazy about the “windyness” but I do like the tone.
Okay..please reference back to both my posts in this thread. I never said the Meg makes me unhappy. The tuner is used for many things, recorders, psaltery, daughter’s voice..but nary a fiddle in sight. And, the birds are singing in 415, adjust your tuner to compensate 
We go out of tune with your post!
could be the tuner’s battery is a bit flat - trouble is - no tuning slide!
It is, I tried the round ones but they kept falling out. 
My recorder friends think I’m a bit nuts 
to have picked up a whistle let alone spent money on any. The complaints are that they well “sound like whistles” and it is still another fingering system to learn. (as if the 3 I use for recorders is enough). But that’s okay..they all cringed when I said I wanted to leave a recorder in my car, even though it was bakelite. You whistle folk actually encourage leaving a whistle in the car for those “special” times. ie stopped traffic for an open drawbridge.
That reminds me - I must remember to use the road with the drawbridge more often - I need more practice!
I just got a new tuner - it’s a teeny-weeny little thing for guitars and fiddles with a clamp - It can sit on the end of my whistle - no problem, Only thing is it makes me go cross-eyed
We’re on the same page, Peter. The unhealthy misinformation I was referring to was the expectation that if an instrument is properly “in tune” then you can automatically blow every note into a tuner and they’ll be dead on, and this just isn’t the case regardless of how much you pay for it. This isn’t the case for whistles or clarinets or trumpets or flutes or euphoniums or temple blocks. It just isn’t practical, especially if you want to play your D whistle in the key of D major and G major and E dorian and A mixolydian etc. because the relation of a given note to the rest of the scale changes. So the notion that because a whistle is made by Chris Abell all the notes are automatically in tune is misinformed. Therefore we use our ears to bring these notes into tune, a job an electronic tuner cannot do for us.
I’m a newb, so please forgive me if I misunderstand everything. The impression I get from reading this thread and other comments is that there are different scales and that whistles are built to one or the other. Comments like “abells are out of tune with our sessions” or “sindts sounds like old generations” makes me think that Abells are probably tuned classically while session instruments and possibly sindts have a different more traditional tuning? Would it be possible to play an Abell in tune in a session setting through better breath control? Are cheaper instruments more traditionally tuned while the hand made ones tend to be more classically tuned? I’m sorry if I’m off base here, but knowing would help me decide which way to go when looking for a new whistle. (I’m not looking as I’m happy with what I have, but I might someday)
I have an old Generation whistle, and it sounds just fine to my unwashed ears. But that whistle has been through the wars, it has dents up and down the tube. The D-hole has a small tear in it which makes it hard to seal. If it were fixed it would be a perfectly fine whistle. I bought a new Generation in C though, and don’t like the sound of it at all. Is it because I’m not used to the tuning I wonder?
Yes, whistles can be tuned to different scales.
John Sindt tunes his whistles to equal temperament, I wouldn’t call it ‘classical’ but it’s probably what you meant. My comment regarding the Abells : they were loud and out of balance tonally with the other instruments and the people I encountered playing them lacked, I assume, the ability to play them in tune. Which in combination with the volume made for a particularly unpleasant experience. Mentioning this was meant as an example of the fact that a very expensive whistle doesn’t necessarily brings you a perfectly tuned musical experience. You bring yourself and your playing skills to the mix.