Hello everyone! I am eagerly waiting for my first whistle, a Tony Dixon high D 
I recently talked to a friend who has two whistles himself, and he mentioned that each whistle can play in two keys?? Is that right? Thanks in advance, and by the way, this forum was invaluable in helping me make the first of (what I think will be many) whistle purchases.
Peace,
matt
Yes. You can play in D major and G major on a D whistle. (Thatâs the short answer.)
Thanks Bloomfield! Would a C play a F then?
Yep.
But an F whistleâs secondary key is B-flat (not B Major).
â
Mark
Here you go. This will explain a lot about keys on the whistle:
With a bit of fancy fingering and half-holing you can play in the Key of A on a D whistle too. Or at least my whistle teacher said you could, I could never master it! 
Hi Matt.
Yes by using the cross-fingered or half-holed 7th note of the whistle (the top hole) you can play a major key starting with all fingers down and another starting with the top three fingers down.
On a D Whistle this gives you D major and G major. The same scales give you what are known as the ârelative minorâ, for D this is B minor and for G, E minor. These start two holes down from the Majors.
But their are other scale patterns called modes which have the property of key but different intervals than major and minor (using the same notes just starting from different positions.
For instance there are five note âPentatonicâ scales, four major and their relative minors, for D Whistle, D major/ B minor. G major/E minor, A
Major/F# minor, C major/A minor.
John S
Thanks guys! that was a bit more info than I was expecting
The variations with keys and such seems mind-boggling right now, so Iâll start with one foot in front of the other.
matt
In the lower register, I find that I am more apt to play in G major than in D major on a D whistle for the simple reason that itâs usually good to have a few notes available below your keynote, which is to say a lot of tunes have notes below the keynote, and, since D is your key note, and the lowest available, it works out thus
Which, of course is why an A whistle is useful to have at a session.
Actually a D whistle can play in a number of keys such as D, G, E-minor, A-mixolydian. The later âkeysâ are often refered to as modes.
There is an excellent article by Jos Hendriks called Irish âModes and the âDâ Tin Whistleâ. You can find a link to it at the bottom of the page on the NoVa](http://www.geocities.com/novairishsession/%3ENoVa) Irish Session site. It explains the various âkeysâ and âmodesâ available on a regular D whistle.
I feel like a kid ready to learn to skate for the first time . . . a bit apprehensive, but excited. Everyoneâs comments and encouragement is a blessing. I can already tell this is going to be great fun learning the whistle! I look forward to future postings:)
matt
No need to be apprehensive. The whistle is about the easiest instrument to learn to play to a basic level of competence.
Itâs just that once youâve achieved that basic level, youâll also start to identify all the things you should be doing better, and the things you donât know how to do at all yet, and all the tunes you donât yet know well enough to play . . .
Iâve been playing tinwhistle now for about a year and a half. Non musicians might even think Iâm a good player 
but I know I have a long, long, way to go yet. If I had to rate myself (for a group lesson, say), Iâd say âadvanced beginner or low intermediate at bestâ. But I am playing better than I was a year, or even a few months, ago. And Iâm enjoying myself along the way. Isnât that what itâs really all about?
In theory there is only one major key that is natural to the whistle (and itâs relative minor). A D whistle is made to play in two sharps (F# and C#) and Bm has also got two sharps. However, by the way the whistle is made and played it is so easy to play a Cnat in stead of a C# eighter by cross-fingering or half holing, so you will easily get the scale to play one sharp, which would give you the key of G major and the relative Em on a D whistle. You can play other keys aswell by cross fingering and half holing but they are harder.
There are some B minor tunes that can be played on a D whistle as well, although itâs not exactly B minor (what would it be called, if the A is natural instead of sharp?)
Does anybody know a few ITM tunes that are in B minor? We were trying to think of these a few days ago, but we couldnât come up with anythingâŚ
In B minor, youâd have
B C# D E F# G A
so it is actually B minor. If you have A#, thatâs the âharmonic minorâ, easiest way for squares like me to sound exotic.
In practice a lot of music would temporarily have an A# in order to have a stronger resolution from the V chord to the I chord.
Musical Priest, Earlâs Chair, at first blush (maybe wrong though, I donât usually think about it).
Ugh! Bah! Yuk! Nassssty Western Art Music. Nasssty cadence.
Seriously, though. You have to be very careful since that sort of harmonic structure applies only to a very limited degree to ITM (if at all, Iâve been arguing about that for years with the experts).
True enough in (some) other Music, though.
Yeah, I guess the âmodalâ sound is part of the appeal of ITM. I did generalize inaccurately, though we should probably include nassssty rock music in there with the artsy stuff.
If the tune fits the whistle, play it.
I do notes, not keys (not until I get some regulator reeds made, that is..).