Whistles in different keys, the how, the the why and the Oh, my goodness! What in the world?

[mor.whistle]

That's why Amazing Grace can work from D to C just by playing all notes a hole higher while, say, Auld Lang Syne can't. I think that now I get this. (Do I?)

Hmm. Have you tried it with Auld Lang Syne ?

When I was thinking about an example I thought of Auld Lang Syne since almost anybody knows it and I remembered that even though it only has one F (third note: D, G, F#, G, B, A, G, A etc.) it would suffice to make my point. So I checked the sheet I have and right after seeing the F I thought I could use the tune for my example.
Now that you have suggested me to check again, I did so and I looked at another sheet I have (the one on the leaflet that came with my Waltons in the key of D) and surprise surprise the third note is a G. If the right third note is a G of course my example can't stand, otherwise I might have a case, but I'm sure that you know what I was trying to say regardless of this error I made.

Not all is bad though because while checking I noticed one thing I hadn't noticed before (and how could I have, being clueless about it?).
I noticed that the key signature in my sheet for Auld Lang Syne is not D-major as I might have supposed, but G-major. At that point I thought that even if the third note was an F and not a G, it didn't matter because it might have not been a sharp as in the key of D so I checked which were the notes on a G key and I have seen that there is an F# which, still, would help my case as well provided that there is an F at least.

Anyway, I hope you can see what I was trying to point out though, pick a song that has an F# or a C#, it can't be played by just going one hole up (am I right?).

As for TTSTTTS, I have never heard it before and I can say it is pretty confusing at a first glance, but I'm going to check it immediately because I suspect that this is the key to understanding keys (pun intended).

Ciao

[Peter Duggan]

Not all is bad though because while checking I noticed one thing I hadn't noticed before (and how could I have, being clueless about it?).
I noticed that the key signature in my sheet for Auld Lang Syne is not D-major as I might have supposed, but G-major. At that point I thought that even if the third note was an F and not a G, it didn't matter because it might have not been a sharp as in the key of D so I checked which were the notes on a G key and I have seen that there is an F# which, still, would help my case as well provided that there is an F at least.

It's pentatonic (five-note scale) G with a low D and E below the key note, so uses D E G A B D E.

Anyway, I hope you can see what I was trying to point out though, pick a song that has an F# or a C#, it can't be played by just going one hole up (am I right?).

Yes, you're right there.

[mor.whistle]

It's pentatonic (five-note scale) G with a low D and E below the key note, so uses D E G A B D E.

Does this mean that there's no F# on a G-major key?

I will point you to a page on wikipedia where there is a picture of the same key signature of Auld Lang Syne and right below it the so-called component pitches that are: G, A, B, C, D, E, F♯, G.

That's why I assumed that an F in that key was sharp too.

There's a lot of work to do!

[Peter Duggan]

It's pentatonic (five-note scale) G with a low D and E below the key note, so uses D E G A B D E.

Does this mean that there's no F# on a G-major key?

No, it means there's no F# in a normal major pentatonic G. You'd still have the F# in the key signature and probably use it for harmony (eg for D chords), but it's not in the scale of the tune.

I will point you to a page on wikipedia where there is a picture of the same key signature of Auld Lang Syne and right below it the so-called component pitches that are: G, A, B, C, D, E, F♯, G.

That's why I assumed that an F in that key was sharp too.

Well, it might well be if there was one!

[david_h]

Peter is your expert on this. I was coming at it from a 'not stupid but didn't do it at school and like to work things out for myself' angle. You mentioned the diatonic scale so you ought to know about the TTSTTTS business. I didn't until the first whistle tutor I used told me to listen for the difference. I was used to the scale (doh a deer etc) but I had never noticed that the gaps were different.

I picked a pentatonic tune to help give an answer to your simplest question because it can be 'played with' on a couple of whistles. And I didn't use Old Land Syne (or Skye Boat Song) because some versions fill some of the gaps with unimportant notes. If you want and Irish tune try Egan's polka - it has a lot more notes though