So, those of you who play in church regularly, do you play solo or accompany members of a choir or congregation? I’d like to know what key of whistle or flute (other than the D flute & whistle I have) would be useful for accompanying singers? So far, the band has a piano, electic bass, acoustic guitar, tenor sax, alto sax & trumpet…
I play D flute and D whistle only in church - sorry. If the music isn’t in D or G, I just play something else (trumpet) or not at all. As far as the solo/group, normally I’m part of the group, but I usually play in the upper octave without a mic. Sometimes the director has me solo the intro for a song as well.
Pat
I play guitar, whistle, flute, and clarinet in an Episcopal folk service.
Seems like a lot of church music is in F. C, G, and D come up too,
but it’s a lot of F. You should definitely at least have a C and D whistle,
and an F whistle might eventually be interesting.
There’s a whole forum on the subject:
http://www.praisewhistlers.org/
Hello, springrobin.
First, if you haven’t visited there yet, check out
http://praisewhistlers.org/forum/
I pretty much get to do whatever I like at my church. We do a non-traditional service and I happen to be the worship leader for that service. I play whatever works with that week’s readings and message. It could be classic rock, contemporary pop, puink, grunge, traditional Irish, American folk, blues, or popular praise and worship songs - whatever gets the message across. I expect that is an unusual set of circumstances.
Most of the year, I use the whistle to accompany songs. I do get to play solos with the traditional choir at Christmas each year. The current choir director sang with me before she took responsibility for the traditional service.
I have used whistles from High E down to low D. It depends on the music and the range where the singing sits. So I have to have quite a few whistles from which to choose. I guess some sort of whistle makes an appearance about once a month.
We do not have the luxury of a lot of players, so I pre-record all or most of the parts I use to back-up the singers. Then I can sync visuals to the music including lyrics for projection during the service. It works out well and while it is not entirely “live” it still comes across pretty nicely. That gives me the chance to do a four-part whistle chorus now and again.
That’s just my experience.
Feadoggie
I’ve found C to be a pretty reliable key for singing in. Although when I play some Taize melodies for folks I try to play them in the key in which they’re written which is often G, Eb or F. When I transpose them they can become too high or too low for folks to sing comfortably. I usually only do that with small groups, though. I haven’t played in an actual worship service. I happen to be the pastor, so my mind is usually on other things. I’d like to get up the nerve to play once or twice in church, though. Maybe someday…
Whistle is awesome for Taize! Great stuff. They usually have flute,
trumpet, clarinet, and oboe parts written out. If the flute or oboe part can’t be
played on a D whistle, often the clarinet or trumpet part can be played as
written on a C whistle.
I thought you got whacked on the behind if you whistled in church…
I attend an Episcopal church and have whistled a few times. A solo verse with organ accompaniment between verses, once with Be Thou My Vision, the other time with another hymn i can’t recall just now. I’ve also played a solo as a prelude (with organ accompaniment). All were on a D whistle.
I have also played with fiddle, flute, organ and cello at 2 weddings - folks really seem to like it, too.
Reg
We play mostly contemporary praise/worship music, and it seems like a lot of the songs are in A or E. I think maybe those keys are easier for the guitar players? I’m not sure. I play my A whistle more than anything.
Jennifer
Nah, going to Catholic school we’d get a steely soul crushing stare down from the Dean of students we used to call Father Freeze.
He never walked but merely floated about on this half inch icy of fog.
Thats how you knew he was coming.
The fog would precede him.
That Stare.
You could feel the life force being drained right out of you.
It was rather effective.
Glad to see another church whistler. there are four of us in our Catholic folk group at the moment. An electronic keyboard, guitar, singer, and me. The instruments that I play in church are guitar, harmonica (can you believe it?) whistle, irish flute, and silver flute. What I do depends on which instrument works best. Our folk group transposes down a lot for the three of us who sing and D is the most common key for us. That makes playing the whistle and flutes easier. C, G, and F would be the other most common keys. I’ve been in other folk groups and choirs that would never ever tranpose, even if this was simple for everyone. There is such a range of church music types and groups that I think you’ll need to talk to your music director about what you folks are actually doing.
That’s what I thought too when I saw the title of this thread. I would love to lip whistle in church but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m still surprised that I didn’t start a revolt when I started playing the harmonica at my church.
I usually play solo, so I just play what the spirit moves me to play.
I prefer to play my Hoover Blacktop fipple on a Generation brass Bb tube, but sometimes I play my low D or low G.
I usually play with the band in a few songs, and usually play in C or Bb.
I play whistle in our Catholic Church alongside a flute and two guitars.
To cover all the keys I use a high D, C, B, Bb A, G and low D. This collection covers the range that I have tried.
I find that I have to play in D or G on an A whistle (or a G whistle) because the range is too low for the high D. I could play the upper octave on the Low D but I lack confidence on that one.
Since I am comparatively new to music I often find that I only play the refrains since I can’t learn the whole Hymn in a week. But I am improving. I must be doing OK since the congregation (of St Patrick’s parish) likes whistle music.
When we pray in song we pray twice!
I play in a small (15-25 people) Pentecostal congregation. I usually use my flute but will get my whistle out sometimes (in a small room the whistle can be a bit too strident). I usually accompany my mom, so most of the music is kinda 80’s/90’s-style, keyboard driven stuff. She prefers sharp keys, so I usually wind up playing whistle-friendly keys like D, G, and A. C and F are common, btu all that takes is a C whistle. Guitarists I know have a real unhealthy fixation with E and B, so you may want an E whistle for that. Guitarists also have a real unhealthy fixation wtih capos, so if you’re playing with guitarists, if you can’t convince them to hav a reasonalbe key progression you may need a LOT of whistles.
But different peopel like different things- ask the group you wanna play with. Maybe even sit in on a few practice sessions if they let you.
For most Church hymns, the consideration they use when choosing the key to put the tune in is the range.
They usually will place the tune in whatever key is required, up to three or four sharps or flats, to get the tune into the standard C to C range (if the tune has the range of an octave). If the tune’s range is over an octave, they push up and down equally from that C to C core, for example if a tune has the range of a tenth it would usually have a range of B to D, etc.
I just last Sunday played as part of a large “praise band” which included trombones, trumpets, cello, sax, piano, keyboards, several guitars, two percussionists, and a 300 member choir. We were playing for a congregation of around 40,000.
I ended up using low whistles in C, D, E flat, and E, as well as the uilleann pipes, and even bodhran on a couple pieces I didn’t have scores for. (This was all pretty much sightreading, with one rehearsal, and we weren’t allowed to take the music home to practice after the rehearsal.)
Playing on the refrain would add a nice power to a song, including the Responsorial song. Does your music have a harmony or descant? That would sound great too.
I’ve played some of those songs that go into the high second octave on a whistle in practice and the rest of the folk group usually asks for that song on a flute. They don’t want the dog to come howling.
I deffinitly thought of sound of music and when they sing about maria being a problem
I dont whistle in church..yet I just joined the choir I think I’ll wait a bit before offering
I started playing whistle again in Church a few months ago. We are a congregation of about 60, with an average Sunday attendance of about 40. Our music ministry consists of drums, 1 or 2 guitars, mandolin, whistle, a couple of vocalists, and occasionally keyboard. One of our guitar players also plays the fiddle, but he has only played that in church a couple of times. We play mostly contemporary praise and worship with some of the traditional hymns mixed in.
Since we’re mostly guitar-driven, we do play a lot of songs in E - I either don’t play on those songs or play some sort of harmony on my D. (One of these days I’m gonna get an E whistle). I usually play my D whistle but occasionally play my C and my A. I have a Eb and a Bb but I don’t play those very often.