Beeing a musicologist I´m fascinated in the classification of musical instruments. We all have an intuitive notion of what a tin whistle is. My own definition would be: a fipple flute with six fingerholes, tuned in a diatonic major scale, originally made of tin but now more often made of metal and plastic or even wood (or metal such as aluminium or silver)
Well, this definition could cover a lot of folk music flutes all over the world. But these instruments ar clearly NOT tin whistles. So what is a tin whistle (or penny whistle)? Has it something to do with its celtic origin. Clearly one doesnt´t have to play reels and jigs all the time to claim that one is playing the tin whistle. For example the lead instrument in kwela is often the tin whistle and myself I play a lot of swedish folk musik on the whistle.
Shape yes, but lots more! It has a schismed past with separate branches of naming between England and the continent(mostly France) - the english development lead the Flageolet to become very much like a recorder. Also, Flageolets at one time were distinguished by having a “Sponge chamber” which seems like a pretty effective way to prevent clogging. they often had 10 holes. The Sponge chamber allowed for some more essoteric forms of multi-bodied gizmos - Mr Bingamon would know a lot about this.
Some makers have made tin whistles that have more than 6 holes. There has also been attempts with keys so that they are not really tuned to a diatonic major scale. We still call these tin whistles don’t we?
I have no idea what the answer to this question is, but I’m certain it’s not as simple as the quote posted by talasiga.
Whistles are always fipple flutes, I think we can all agree on that. But then what? One of those tin whistles with thumb-holes drilled in them, are they not tin whistles although they look and sound exactly the same as when they only had 6 holes?
But even if we can agree that those are still whistles, I don’t think anyone here would ever call a recorder a whistle (and if anyone did, I promise I would ***** **** ****** ).
A whistle could probably have 9 holes and be chromatic and it would still be called a tin whistle by the vast majority as long as it looks and sounds like the whistles we are used to.
At the same time, a 6-holed fipple flute that sounds like a cheap recorder and sort of looks like one too is still a whistle.
BTW, this had nothing to do with Colin and Brigitte living in Germany or anything like that.
Anyone who’s seen the brilliant movie Snatch will probably understand my bad sence of humour a little bit better.
To bring back a distraction on another topic. What about the Galician Whistle? Originally made from cane, now replaced by Whistles from all over the world. I remember a site where I found a bit about it, but I don’t have the link. In fact, I bet there are some peopla out there who use Whistles as practice chanters for the Gaita Galega (Galician Pipes), well besides myself anyway.
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