I am new to the tin whistle. I have both a D and a C. I am trying to play “Greensleeves” and one of the notes is “low b#” but the fingering it shows has only the top hole covered - the regular “b” so of course the sound is incorrect for the song. How do I get the “low b#” sound? How do I change octaves? Thanks… Judy
Hi Judy, welcome.
Unfortunately, you’re probably reading that music wrong - since, for beginner’s purposes, there’s no such note as B#.
What music are you using? Was it written specifically for a whistle? And which whistle, D or C?
We can also probably figure things out if you answer these 2 questions:
-
What are the first 2 notes of the melody? This are the notes that match the word “Alas” (or “What child”). The first note should also be the same as the last note of the song.
-
What is the written key signature of the song? That is, how many sharps or flats?
Get back to us with that info, and we’ll take it from there …
Greensleeves is usually played in A minor on the C whistle, or transposed to B minor on the D whistle (same fingering)… I think there is no other way to play it without octave folding. So what you are probably looking for is the G# (A# respectively), to get the major dominant. This can be achieved by either half-holing XHO OOO or cross fingering XOX XXO or XOX XXX… depends on the whistle.
But you’ll also need the F# (G#) in the second last bar of each part, and there you have to half-hole XXH OOO.
It is melodic minor, which makes this special sound of the tune, and so some notes just are not in the diatonic scale (in contrast to natural minor). So this might be a really good occasion to practice this half-holing!
'Tis an interesting tune you are learning, Judy. It was first licensed as a song with not very respectful lyrics, to a guy named Richard Jones, in 1580. Some say King Henry VIII actually wrote it… His daughter Elizabeth I certainly danced to it. Shakespeare mentions the song… Traitors in England were hanged, while the music was playing in the background..
In 1865, the owner of a marine insurance company in Bristol, UK - William Chatterton Dix - published a poem called ‘The Manger Child.’ Three stanzas from that poem became the Christmas Carol, ‘What Child Is This?,’ when set to the melody of Greensleeves.
No one is quite sure whether or not the original melody used what we now refer to as the ‘melodic’ minor scale. Some feel that the original used the natural minor scale. In other words, whether the 6th and 7th scale steps are raised, or remain in their natural minor scale form, is up to the performer. Our band prefers the natural minor version (Aeolian mode). It is odd, and audiences react very positively to it…
Best to you in your endeavor.
Bill
No definitive answer to the best key when there are multiple variants of the tune with different inflections (eg minor or major sixth etc.), but of course there are other ways (to play it without octave folding) when you can start on a notional A or even second-octave E.
It is melodic minor
No, it’s not really. More like modal/modified modal for some versions (with which mode depending largely on which version you play and the one with the major sixth being effectively modified Dorian).
so some notes just are not in the diatonic scale (in contrast to natural minor).
Note that this usage of diatonic (while making sense in the context of whistle holes) is not universally agreed.
Byll and Peter, that wasn’t meant to be kind of definite… Sorry for that… I just didn’t reflect much about the different variants in traditional music, but just referred to the “standardized” version every student of the classical guitar learns at some time (as once I did). It’s the only version I knew and played so far.
The tune works fine on a D whistle starting on A. Here are two versions in ABC. The first waffles about F# or F natural. We tend to play an f natural in the A section and F# in the B section (as marked) Whistles can leave out the f and adjust the rhythm, half hole for the f natural, or play the F#. It works just fine on a D whistle. The modal harmonies are just fine here also.
X:215
T:Greensleeves (Modal)
M:3/4
L:1/8
Q:250
C:First published 1580
R:Air
K:Am %Transposed from EM
A2|"Am"c4 d2|e3 f e2|"G"d4 B2|G3 A B2|
"F"c4 A2|A3 G A2|"Em"B4 G2|E4 A2|
"Am"c4 d2|e3 f e2|"G"d4 B2|G3 A B2|
c3 B A2|"Em"G3 E G2|"Am"A6|A6||
"C"g6|g3 ^f e2|"G"d4 B2|G3 A B2|
"F"c4 A2|A3 G A2|"Em"B4 G2|E6|
"C"g6|g3 ^f e2|"G"d4 B2|G3 A B2|
"F"c3 B A2|"Em"G3 E G2|"Am"A6|A4||
W:
W:F sharps can be F natural to complete the modal sound.
Here is the natural minor version ()most common outside the trad world. Now you are faced with lots of half hole work, still probably no more problem on the D whistle than the C whistle. Half holes either way.
X:1
T:Greensleeves
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:Amin
z4 z A| c2 d e3/2- f/2 e| d2 B G3/2- A/2 B| c2 A A3/2- ^G/2 A| B2 ^G E2 A|
c2 d e3/2- f/2 e| d2 B G3/2- A/2 B| c3/2- B/2 A ^G3/2- ^F/2 G| A3 A2 z|
g3 g3/2- ^f/2 e| d2 B G3/2- A/2- B| c2- A A3/2- ^G/2 A| B2 ^G E3|
g3 g3/2 ^f/2 e| d2 B G3/2- A/2 B| c3/2 B/2 A ^G3/2- ^F/2 G| A3 A2 z|\
I just hope all this info doesn’t just confuse the OP Judy even more, since we don’t yet know the actual problem until she gets back to us.
I’m guessing … only guessing … that she’s looking at some kind of wind tablature, maybe whistle tab. Maybe the “B#” is a misprint. If that tablature B is the low**est** note, that implies a setting in some flavor of E minor. Either starting in the 1st octave, with the B folded up. Or starting in the 2nd octave and going up to 3rd octave D, and maybe Judy didn’t see the litle “+” signs in the tab that usually indicate playing up an octave.
But we’ll have to wait for her response to be sure.
Boy that ABC tab is confusing for me to look at.
Anyhow, I play What Child Is This? AKA Greensleeves in the key which would be A minor on a D whistle, but no matter what key, it requires some tricky half-holing because the leading tone alternates between sharp and flat.
So I play it, the first part
A Cnat d e f e
d B G A B
Cnat A A G# A
B G# E
A Cnat d e f e
d B G A B
Cnat B A G# F# G#
A A
it’s tricky nailing those G#s.
Solving that would be to move it up to the key of Dm but now you have to half-hole all the Fnats
d fnat g a b a
g e Cnat d e
fnat d d C# d
e C# A
d fnat g a b a
g e Cnat d e
fnat e d C#B C#
d d
If I made any note errors, sorry, it’s early in the morning and I’m not actually playing it on a whistle but going from memory (too early to be tooting a whistle in the house).
BTW I feel it’s necessary to get the accidentals right, because that’s the most outstanding characteristic of this tune IMHO, and quite typical of these Renaissance melodies. There are plenty of other tunes that don’t have such accidentals in them if you don’t want to play accidentals.
Well, it’s not tab(lature). It’s notation. And you’re not (necessarily) supposed to look at it. You’re supposed to run it through your favorite ABC program to produce standard notation, and look at that. Just saying …
Ach, Pancelticpiper, that version with G#s in the second phrase really grates on my ears, doubtless because I have a deeply, early ingrained earworm-memory of the tune. Versions with F#s in the first and third phrases of the first section/verse are just as grating for me. They sound ( I know this is personally subjective) like “classical corrections”. Of course the G#s and F# in the fourth, cadential phrase are integral to all versions, and give that Renaissance feel you refer to. In the second section/chorus I go with the 2nd 8ve F#s coming down-scale from the high G, then all plain until the cadence comes again.
As for playing the G#s, most of my keyless instruments, whistles or transverse flutes, have a usable, if rather sharp, cross-fingered bottom 8ve G# with xxo xxx, so there is at least a choice, though half-holed G# is probably the easiest/least objectionable half-holed fingering if needed. The F nats have to be half-holed, of course.
And yet that’s the Dorian feel I was talking about, which sounds (if you’ll pardon the expression!) natural to me…
…sounds wrong to me if you don’t play f#s …
… and that’s despite that fact that it does look, from a 5 minute net search for early versions, as if it may originally have had those fs as natural.
Don’t care. I prefer the sharps. 
I shall make a point, from now on, of starting that tune frequently and always playing the fs as sharp whenever I play with Jem. 
Just dug out two ‘arty’ versions I used to play on recorder, with the Vaughan Williams Fantasia taking the ‘Dorian’ route and Greensleeves to a Ground (anon, 17th century) the ‘Aeolian’ (in both parts of the tune, though it avoids the sixth altogether in the first statement of the first part). But what’s also interesting about the latter is starting ‘off-centre’ on the C chord to follow the Romanesca pattern throughout. So guess I can live with it either way, though I don’t actually play it much these days except to demonstrate concepts to my music classes!