Tin whistles in a variety of makes and keys The tin whistle, also called the flageolet, pennywhistle, Irish whistle, or simply whistle, is a simple six-holed breath instrument. It can be described as an end blown fipple flute, putting it in the same category as the recorder, Native American flutes, and many other wind instruments found in traditional music.
The names tin whistle and penny whistle date from when the instrument was first mass produced in tinned sheet metal. Early mass production of the metal itself occurred in Wales, in the United Kingdom, and the best known (most successful) early producers of tin whistles is Robert Clarke (? - 1882) who lived and worked in the UK territory of England. Norman Dannat boasted in “The Penny Whistle” (The Clarke Tinwhistle Co c1993) that Robert Clarke’s whistles ‘produced a unique sound which, though attempts have been made to copy it, no-one has ever improved’. In his tutor “Timber” (ISBN 185700322) Fintan Vallely calls the whistle’s fingering system the ‘simple’ system. It is also that to which the side-blown six-hole flute responds and was of course well known before Robert Clarke began producing his tin whistles circa 1843.
The most common tin whistles today are made of brass tubing, or nickel plated brass tubing, with a plastic mouthpiece, or fipple (Generation, Feadog, Oak, Acorn, Soodlum's, and other brands fall in this category). The next most common form is the conical sheet metal whistle with a wooden stop in the wide end to form the fipple, the Clarke's brand being the most prevalent. Other less common variants are the all-metal whistle, the PVC whistle, and the wooden whistle. Whistles are a prevalent starting instrument in Irish traditional music, since they are cheap (under US$10), relatively easy to start with (no tricky embouchure such as found with the flute), and the fingerings are identical to those on the traditional six holed flute (Irish flute, baroque flute).
Whistles may or may not be tuneable. If they are, tuning is done by moving the mouthpiece in or out, either the mouthpiece itself sliding over the whistle body, as in the metal tube/plastic body model, or else with a tuning slide such that the mouthpiece and the upper part of the body form the 'head' of the whistle which fits into the main body. Some whistles allow one head to be used on differently keyed bodies this way.
The whistle is in a single key, usually D for Celtic music, and C for American folk music, though whistles are available in all the major keys. The notes are generated by opening or closing holes with the fingers, such that with all the holes closed the whistle generates the tonic, with the lowest hole open it generates the second, and so on. Once the seventh is reached, the next note is achieved by closing all the holes but the top and blowing more forcefully to achieve the octave, and the next by closing the top hole and opening the lowest. In this way, one can go up two full octaves. The standard range of the whistle is from the D above middle C, to the D two octaves above middle C. (It is possible to make noises above this range, by blowing increasingly forcefully, but it is not recommended, both because the sound will be off pitch, and because it may result in an aggravated assault by nearby listeners...)
Although the whistle is essentially a diatonic instrument, it is possible to get notes outside the principal major scale of the whistle, either by half-holing (partially covering the lowest finger hole) or by cross-fingering (covering some holes while leaving some higher ones open). In this way, for example, a whistle pitched in D can easily be made to play in G (or E minor), and other keys are available with a little more work.
There are larger whistles, which by virtue of being twice as long are an octave lower; whistles in this category are likely to be made of metal or plastic tubing, with a tuning-slide head, and are almost always referred to as low whistles but sometimes called a concert whistle. The low whistle was first produced by Bernard Overton, but is now available from most whistle makers. The low whistle operates on identical principles to the standard whistles, but musicians in the tradition may consider it a separate instrument. The low whistle rose to prominence thanks to its use by Davy Spillane in the theme to the movie Titanic.
A whistle can be made to produce a glissando effect by fitting it with a slide which can be moved up and down within the central cavity of the instrument, changing the frequency at which it resonates. These kinds of whistles are known as slide whistles, and the sounds that they are capable of making are referred to as chirps. A chirp is a sound that has a frequency that changes while it is sounding.
See also Whistle, Whistling
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