Low whistle grip" may be required due to the distance between the holes. They belong to the same woodwind instrument family of end-blown fipple flutes. Though the tone of this instrument varies subtly among makers, low whistles are generally characterised by a more breathy, flute-like sound than traditional tin whistles. While the precise history of the low whistle is often debated, it is known that various kinds of vertical fipple flutes have existed in antiquity. The fipple flutes developed during the 16th century were the ancestors of today's low whistle, carrying through from early transverse flutes the six-holed design tradition and conical
Tin whistle apartheid-era townships; the Hohner tin whistle was especially popular in kwela performance. The kwela craze accounted for the sale of more than one million tin whistles. In the late 1950s, mbaqanga music largely superseded kwela in South Africa, and so it followed that the saxophone surpassed the tin whistle as the township people's wind instrument of choice. Kwela master Aaron "Big Voice Jack" Lerole continued to perform into the 1990s; a few bands, such as The Positively Testcard of London, continue to record kwela music. Kwela sheet music is rarely published, and many of the recordings of founding kwela artists