Tin whistle The whistle's fingering system is similar to that of the six hole, "simple system English flutes" ("simple" in comparison to Boehm system flutes). The six hole, diatonic system is also used on baroque flutes, and was of course well known before Robert Clarke began producing his tin whistles. Clarke's first whistle, the Meg, was pitched in high A and was later made in other keys suitable for Victorian parlour music. The company showed the whistles in The Great Exhibition of 1851. The Clark tin whistle is voiced somewhat on an organ-pipe with a flattened tube forming the lip of the
Tin whistle tonic note of the first register; this makes it harder to accidentally drop into the first register and helps to correct pitch. Recorders perform this by "pinching" open the dorsal thumb hole. Various other notes (relatively flat or sharp with respect to those of the major scale) can be accessed by "cross fingering" techniques, and all the notes (except the lowest of each octave/register) can be flattened by "half holing". Perhaps the most effective and most used cross fingering is that which produces a flattened form of the seventh note (B instead of B on a C whistle, for example,