Obviously G# can be played on all whistles by half-holing G. On some of my whistles I can play G# with the fingering XX0XX0. On others (eg: Susato) this fingering only works on the lower octave. When I try it on the upper octave it is WAY off.
What does everyone else do to play G#? I’m thinking I should just work on getting better at half-holing G. I assume it’s possible to get good enough to do it at speed (without having the skills of a Paddy Maloney).
Keep yer ring finger straight, tap the G so that the finger is diagonal to the whistle.
Works at any speed, high or low D whistles.
HTH
A trick I’ve learned from playing keyless flutes:
X X 0 | X D 0
will almost always make a good high G-sharp. (X = closed, D = halfholded).
On narrow bore whistles with open voicing (Generations, Waltons, Oak, Clarke) is usually where the X X 0 | X X 0 works well for the upper G-sharp but usually nothing but half-holing will work for the lower octave G-sharp.
On wide bore, tight voiced whistles (Sweet, Susato) X X 0 | X X X will yield a lower G-sharp that’s pretty decent, but the X X 0 | X X 0 won’t work in the upper octave.
Something to try: on some whistles X X 0 | X X X will yield a very good upper octave B-flat, and X X 0 | X X 0 in the upper octave will be a B-natural that has a different timbre than the regular fingering.
Also some whistles will give a decent high B-flat with X 0 X | 0 0 0 .
Best,
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
Shee, EDF…that’s the answer!! I’m not into complications that work for some whistles but not others, or only in one octave. This is BRILLIANT. And you were right…diagonal works. Forty five degrees and it’s perfect. If you ever need a place to stay while in Dallas let me know.
Wow… i didnt know that you wanted to know that bad…
(im only kidding)
Err…sorry but…how does E equal f flat?
F flat (e sharp) doesn’t actually exist, does it? Is it a coded messsage? have I been drinking? Does anybody care?
Steve 
E equals F flat the same way F equals E sharp. From a music theory point of view, F flat and E sharp are both perfectly valid notes in some of the weirder key signatures.
Sorry Steve, but Fb and E# are not the same. (I’m sure it was an oversight.)
As for Fb, it would be the flatted second in the key of Eb, just as Db would be the flatted second in the key of C. (Look up Metropolitan 2nd’s.)
As for E#, that’s easy. It’s the 7th in the key of F# maj.
This was fun. It made me think!
Thanks,
JP
I forgot about the G# question.
If I am going to play a song on a D whistle with lots of G#'s, then I will change to a whistle in another key. You’re obviously trying to play a D whistle in the key of A, where G# is the 7th, or in the key of E, which also has a D#. So why try to play G#? If the song only has a few, then I will slide into the G#, so that the intonation doesn’t have to be that exact. And if you have to play G#, depending on the whistle, it’ll have to be a fingering that you are very used to, for that particular whistle.
Sometimes I’ll play in the key of Eb, on a D whistle, just for the challenge of half-holing all those notes.
JP
On 2002-08-31 00:02, JohnPalmer wrote:
Sorry Steve, but Fb and E# are not the same. (I’m sure it was an oversight.)
Not really an oversight, John, but thanks for being so kind! It appears I’m ignorant on this one. I have always been led to assume, from my theory days - many moons ago - that a sharpened note, in a chromatic scale, was equal to (produces the same sound as) the flattened note of the one above it. So, F# is equal to Gb, C# is equal to Db, etc. There are exceptions in this ‘theory’, as some notes don’t exist. But, it has to be a sharpened and a flattened ‘pairing’. So, following this theory, E couldf not be equal to Fb. E# Could. But it doesn’t exist, either.
Did I dream all this?
Steve 
The handle is E = Fb, not E# = Fb. It’s musical theory from an alternate universe.
My mother said that E is Fb. I like my mother. She’s an honest person.
Well, I didn’t start all this theory stuff here, but since you brought it up …
On an equally-tempered instrument like a piano, the notes E and F-flat would be played with the same key, and are referred to as “enharmonic notes.”
They are not the same note though, as has already been pointed out, and on instruments from before equal temperament, there are often two different fingerings for enharmonic notes. For instance, on a Baroque flute there is a different fingering for first-octave A-sharp and B-flat.
Anyhow, as to the usefullness of cross-fingered G-sharp on a whistle, I find that some whistles respond well to half-holing at speed, but other don’t.
The more options you have at your disposal, the better a player you’ll be.
Best,
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
There are actualy not that many tunes in A that require G#.Jennys chickens is a noteworthy exeption but tunes such as High reel,athol highlanders and Langstroms pony have a G nat and some tunes such as bill malleys simply omit G altogether.There was a discussion on this some time ago. Peace, mike
The tune in question is “Art O’Keefes”. It’s in 2/4 time.