Lately I’ve been playing church music with my D whistle; it works well for hymns with 1,2, or 3 sharps. Duets with a flute is kind of fun…
Whats the best way to play hymns in different keys? One whistle and learn all the fingering tricks (half holing, etc) or just get a whistle in that key? Lots of tunes in the hymnal have multiple flats…
What are the pros and cons of single vs multiple?
Anybody use just a D whistle to play along with tunes with lots of flats?
In Dec. we did a whole lot of hymns/winter slostice music for a holiday program and I played both whistles in different keys, but, on some it was best to just have the organist transpose the music to a key that worked better for me on a particular tune. I actually played most on the D, with a few on the Bflat and C. Hope this helps.
I say the more keys you have, the better, especially if you are an ear player with good relative pitch. Considering that most trad hymns are three chords and don’t have huge jumps in pitch, with a full set of whistles you should be able to cover about anything your church music leader picks.
You’d Be amazed at how many hymns are in the key of G… (or D for that matter) If you look in the back of a hymnbook they usually have a list of tunes by what key they’re in… What’s fun is to take the Soprano & Alto lines… Use a Soprano D to play the Melody (Soprano Line) and use a low G for the Alto… I’m actually a full time music director for St. Patrick Pres. her in Colorado and we use whistle just about every week… I’m actually playing my Dixon low G on a duet with our flautist on “Be Still My Soul”… We rehearsed today… and beautiful! Hope this helps… And by the way… I’m a fan of having just about every key that you can afford! I’m actually about to be a proud owner of an Abell Db! (Along with the rest of his full set…) Yes… we do tunes in Db! Most of my trad irish friends think I’m crazy… and… welll, I am 
Peace,
Blayne
I’ve started playing for church services and I’m finding its handy to have whistles in as many keys as possible, not to mention a lot of fun. If I don’t have a whistle in the key we are playing in, I use one that’s as close as possible to minimize half holing.
Also playing whistles in a church setting, I would have to say that I agree - use the right tool for the right job… half-holing into other keys is certainly possible, but the way the tune is pitched can make playing sweetly very awkward, as things can be either too high or too low.
Fortunately, you probably won’t need to cover every key to hit the majority of the music; most things (at least in my church) seem to be C,D,E,G,A, which really helps
Richard