CHIFF & FIPPLE:  A SPECIAL WEB EDITION OF THE NEWSLETTER

 Subject:  A special comparison chart

 I.  LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:  THE CHIFF & FIPPLE GREETING

 Hi. 

 

II.   A CHIFF & FIPPLE SPECIAL COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Bob recently wrote:

Dear Dale,

After reviewing your…uh...unusual website, I don’t really understand why tinwhistle players don’t take a little extra time and learn to play the recorder.  It’s a much more flexible instrument.  Let’s face it, the tinwhistle is a watered-down version of the recorder anyway.

Bob

Now, Brother Bob here expresses a common if somewhat deranged point of view.  For fear of offending those Chiff & Fipple subscribers who play both instruments (“cross-fipplers” as they are known in the trade) I won’t be too partisan in my reply.  Instead I thought it might be helpful to readers to provide the definitive comparison of the tinwhistle and the recorder.  However, as you all know, here at the Chiff & Fipple Musicology Desk (currently “manned” by interns Gwynneth, Rachel, and another intern named Rachel) we strive to go the extra mile.  So, I recently gathered the interns together and gave them my vision of this definitive comparison.  “Gwynneth, Rachel, Rachel,” I recall saying, “the easy and obvious comparative analysis would be between

the tinwhistle

and the recorder

 

and all our competitors would stop there.  But not us.  A more interesting comparison would be between

the tinwhistle

and the recorder

Norelco Triple Rotary Head Electric Shaver ™

 So, here we go.

 

Feature	Tinwhistle	Recorder	Norelco Shaver
Blow into it?	Yes	Yes	Yes[1]
Has 6 holes	Yes	No	No
Has, like, more holes	No	Yes	No
Has trio of floating heads	No	No[2]	Yes
Self-cleaning	N	N	N
Free long-distance	N	N	N
Chromatic	N(ot really)	Y	N
Tunable	Maybe	N	N
Rechargeable	N	N	Y[3]
Used by people with a sense of humor	Y	N	N
Sounds crappy	Rarely	Usually	Always
Comes in cashmere	N	N	N
Removes facial hair	Y[4]	N	Sort of
Makes you look slightly seedy	Y	N	Y
Promoted by a website which also keeps members apprised of the coming of the Crystal People who are coming to feed us Special Foo\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\BRK/////////TABLE DATA FEED INTERRUPT PROTOCOL  GAMMA///////BRK///END

 

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