I say, "Whistle, schmistle!" The whistle is a cheap instrument, usually badly made, which was played by the poor, the young and the bored in the days of yore. {Picture someone about 14 years old watching a flock of sheep alone all day with nothing between him/her and insanity but that little instrument.)

Some people can get an octave plus on some instruments, but usually once you get past an octave, the tone is enough to jar your fillings. In the olden days, people could live with that, as if to say, "We know what note you mean, even if you can't get it out."

One way to cope with this is to play music with a range of about an octave. (Most vocal music.) A better way is to put the whistle away and get a recorder. For sweetness, reliability and range, even a plastic recorder is a real improvement.

I once owned a whistle, (I'm pretty sure an Oak) and one day I took the mouthpiece off and looked in the barrel. The holes on the inside were surrounded by splinters left behind from drilling. What sloppy work!

(My cat used to cry whenever I played it. I'm sure from high frequencies it was generating which were beyond human hearing. Perhaps the splinters were speaking.)

Of course, I have heard tell of a $150 penny-whistle. Now that's getting ridiculous...