About Pennywhistles
Pennywhistle (aka tin whistle, Irish whistle, flageolet) is an excellent starter instrument for kids. It is easy to learn and teach, very inexpensive, and makes real, honest-to-goodness music. A grade-school age child can begin to play tunes with some instruction and a couple hours of practice. Since the first hurdles are easy to get past, the child can experience success quickly, and this serves as motivation to learn more.
Unlike some gimmicky "children's" instruments, however, the pennywhistle offers an amazing expressiveness and range of repertoire as a player advances.
The pennywhistle has very simple fingerings and doesn't require learning embouchure. The pennywhistle plays straight up the major scale simply by lifting one finger, then the next from the bottom to the top. Since the whistle has a mouthpiece, or fipple, creating the tone is as easy as blowing gently into the whistle.
Pennywhistles are made in many keys - the most common are C and D. D is the more traditional key, especially for folk and Irish traditional music. I have transposed all the music on this website for D whistle (two sharps in the key signature). The musically-inclined among us will notice that some of the songs are actually in G (one sharp in the key signature)..
Playing notes that aren't part of the scale (accidentals) is a more advanced skill. The beginner can learn many songs before having to learn a couple of accidentals.
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