I love many of the sea chanties I hear in various places and recall, I think, whistles were used on some of the old time tall ships. Most of the chanties I find, however, are in the keys of F and Bb - not compatible on the whistle unless you do some fast transposing. I’m not averse to that but prefer not to have to.
Anyone know of a site where I can find some chanties for the whistle? In Whistle keys?
Thanx,
BillG
Will check out when i get home, Bill.
The group that I perform with produced a modest spiral bound sea chantey book in friendly keys but not necessarily all d or g.
You may just have to do some transposing on paper. The first time is awkward but you get good at it as you go.
If you could find them in abc program, it will transpose for you to key of choice. A great tool. I use Barfly (for Mac)
I will assume, without necessarily agreeing, that your statement of sea shanties being primarily in Bb or F is accurate.
While its true you can transpose the tune so as to accommodate your D whistle, if you intend to play with musicians who will play in the proper key or against a CD with a Bb/F tune, then why not consider supplementing your whistle collection with a Bb or F whistle (or an Eb, which I use periodically to play against Bb tunes on CD). You totally avoid the transposition, and easily play in the written key.
[ This Message was edited by: bob baksi on 2002-08-22 16:42 ]
[quote]
On 2002-08-22 16:27, bob baksi wrote:
While its true you can transpose the tune so as to accommodate your D whistle, if you intend to play with musicians who will play in the proper key or against a CD with a Bb/F tune, then why not consider supplementing your whistle collection with a Bb or F whistle (or an Eb, which I use periodically to play against Bb tunes on CD). You totally avoid the transposition, and easily play in the written key.
Bob - BUT, if I use the other keyed whistles, which I have, the base note is still D - correct? - and some tunes go below to C and or B. Or are you suggesting that I learn the fingering for each different key? I hope not!
Billg
Try learning a tune or so by ear - most sea shanties have simple tunes with phrases repeated many times.
Jo.