Tin whistle part of several folk traditions. Whistles are a prevalent starting instrument in English traditional music, Scottish traditional music and Irish traditional music, since they are often cheap (under US$10), relatively easy to start with (no tricky embouchure such as found with the flute), and the fingerings are nearly identical to those on the traditional six holed flute (Irish flute, baroque flute). The tin whistle is a good starting instrument to learn the uilleann pipes, which has similar finger technique, range of notes and repertoire. The tin whistle is the most popular instrument in Irish traditional music today. In recent years
Tin whistle moving in this direction. Since the majority of popular tin whistle music is traditional and out of copyright, it is common to share tune collections on the Internet. Abc notation is the most common means of electronic exchange of tunes. It is also designed to be easy to read by people, and many musicians learn to read it directly instead of using a computer program to transform it into a standard musical notation score. During the 1960s, Tommy Makem played the tin whistle as a member of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, one of the most influential Irish folk