Before you buy your whistle, you may find interest in learning about the materials that make up the instruments.

Common Metals
Tin: This metal is common in whistles. It is not durable. It does vibrate well, so those practice hours can pay off. It is shrill. The best way I can explain what shrill may sound like to your ears is the example of getting irritated when trying to cut steak with a dull knife… shrill can irritate your ears like that. As a lighter metal, tin is easier to play higher with less effort than heavier metals.

Brass: This metal is not shrill. Tone appears to make no improvement until a large jump after a significant amount of practice. Very durable. A challenging metal to get steady natural vibration.  Frankly, new brass is the hardest metal to play music out of. As a heavier metal, it is difficult to play high with compared with lighter metals. Age does make noticeable tone difference compared with lighter metals. Age also makes brass much easier to play.

Nickel: This metal is more shrill than brass, less shrill than tin. Nickel can be plated over Tin to reduce the shrillness of Tin. Tone improves noticeably as you practice.

Uncommon Metals
Silver: The best metal for horns and pipe music. Not shrill. Actually sweet. Tone continues to improve and sweeten as you practice. Age does make noticeable tone difference. (In shopping, you may see ‘sterling silver’ which is 92.5% silver. Well played sterling silver sounds better than any other metal I’ve heard.)

Other Materials
Wood: Easy to play. Capable of full sound. Somewhat sweet sound. Sounds best when played for a gentle sound. Wood does have a disadvantage of splitting. Even expensive wood instruments can split, as a nice recorder of mine did not long ago. Shop with an experienced person to get a better chance that your wood instrument won’t split.

Terms as used in this page:
Vibration: the vibration that occurs when the wind created by your breathe and the excellence of your posture merge and the sound wave oscillations vibrate the instrument in your hands without you moving it yourself. **comment – Works on all winds, though some more difficult than others. Takes a great amount of practice on the heavier metals like brass and materials like plastics. Easiest to perform on wood.

Age: the decade rule applies here. every ten years(i could argue 7 in the case of one of my brass Walton D whistles) solid brass mellows and solid silver sweetens. sweetens is not the best word here, but I have no better written way of describing silver instruments aging. plating metal on top of other metal has no long term redeeming qualities. (there is a sales pitch in student sales, that silver plated trumpets and flutes are better, yet since the plating will not improve in tone quality as the years pass it’s rather a pricey gimmick.)

The Musical Application of Cryogenics
There is a way that may make your whistle sound better. It’s called Cryogenics. Apparently, when you take a solid metal… such as silver, and freeze it in extreme sub zero temperatures in the correct ways, the metal seems to harden and perform with a greater range in volume and a greater response to attack. (When you ‘attack’ a note.)

In what limited research I have done, it would seem that pure metals gain the greatest benefit. In other words, while there is no doubt that brass would be positively affected, an identical instrument in copper might be affected to a greater extent. The implications to a somewhat soft metal like pure silver(they make sterling silver 92.5 because 7.5 of other metals adds a bit of toughness.) turned into a durable metal post-cryogenics process with a 30%+/- sensitivity for a wind instrument makes a person wide-eyed in imagination. Can you imagine the potential control of the timbre?

Obviously, it’d be a complete waste of money to apply this to your inexpensive whistle. If you happen to have paid over a hundred dollars for your whistle or are feeling ambitious, this is an option you may wish to research.