The definitions of chiff in the latest newsletter really helped…and got me wondering…
If chiff is just the attack sound at the very beginning of the note, can a pure (non-breathy) tone follow? For instance, my Generation has a wonderful chiff but a bit of a breathy tone as I sustain the note, whereas my Burke AlPro has no chiff and a very pure sustained tone. Can I get the best of both worlds? If so, what whistles have this sound?
Feed my WhOA…
Micah
I chaff at this definition of ‘chiff’!
I think ‘chiff’ is the breathy sound
at any point in the sounding of
a note. Well, maybe that’s not
what the word means–but it would
be helpful to have a word
for the breathy non-melodic part
of a whistle’s sound, whenever
that occurs, and that would seem
to be ‘chiff.’ As opposed to
“Well, that whistle has lots
of chiff, alright;
also it sounds breathy
throughout the whole note.”
Rant, rave, gurgle, snort…etc.
If this has all been settled, please
ignore me. One day I’ll become
acquainted with the Platonic form–
The Chiff–and then I’ll know for sure,
but not in this life. Till then I’m
the chief chiff chaffer.
Anyway, to at last try to
address your question:
if the whistle’s breathy on the attack,
it’s likely to be breathy throughout.
If it’s pure on the attack, it’s probably
going to be pure throughout.
The combo of breathy and then pure,
or pure and then breathy, is
a long shot, I’d say.
My understanding is that chiff is any “non-musical” sound heard during the duration of the note, which would include the “breathiness,” but I admit I’m somewhat unclear on it myself. There’s a guy in our choir who’s an organ maker…maybe I’ll ask him at rehearsal tomorrow night.
So here’s a really dumb question…is it pronounced “tshiff” or “shiff”?
Redwolf
Chiff is onomatopoeia. It occurs at the beginning of a sound and the word chiff is how it sounds. Just like bang, click, doing, and dink, are other sound words. Some electronic organs have a stop just for chiff.
Now does a chiffy whistle always have a breathy tone? I’m not sure. I know that a breathy whistle that plays chiff might not be the sound I want. You can make your own chiff by how you decide to tongue, which is entirely something you have to figure out, through trial and error. And maybe only a few whistles will do this for you. It’s elusive. It’s hard to find a nice sounding whistle with lots of chiff.
Chiff sounds like it’s at the end
of ‘hanker..’ except the ‘i’ sound
isn’t ‘e’ but the ‘i’ of ‘if.’
John’s onomatopoeia argument is
forceful, I admit. I think
that Copelands typically have a goodly
amount of chiff and also sound
really nice.
When attempting to describe the sound of my newly"tweaked" Susato to a friend,I used the word “chiff” and she had no idea what I was on about.She is an excellent recorder player and music teacher who also plays tin whistle and flute.Her prefered tone is Susato for its breathy loudness and closer tonal colour proximity to the recorder.It has occured to me that “chiff” as most of us define it is essentialy a whistle thing and may not be applicable to the recorder or even flute. Shaw or Clarkes original are certainly breathy and “fluty” sounding but not “chiffy”. Mike
I think “initial-attack-chiff” (as exemplified by tracker-action organs) is a good thing. If you want to emphasize a note with an attack, there’s nothing wimpier- sounding than a sort of “whoooo”, as if you’ve just turned on the vacuum cleaner.
The other non-musical sounds in a sustained tone are more problematic, I think, and may merit a different term than “chiff”, just in order to make a distinction, but I don’t want to get into semantics.
It does bother me somewhat (with some whistles), that when playing in the second octave, you can hear a very breathy fundamental (sounding an octave below what you’re playing). All whistles seem to have this to a greater or lesser extent. Of the ones which I own, the Susato VSB is least offensive, then the Burke Al Pro, then the Ó Briain Improved. However, this does not prevent me from favoring my beloved Gen Folk Whistle, although it does have this fault. It has such great virtues (responsiveness/playability) that its faults are gladly overlooked.
[ This Message was edited by: Ridseard on 2002-11-13 03:14 ]
Oh no! I may have restarted the age old recurrent What-Is-Chiff-Debate (WICD, pronounced ‘wicked’)…not my intention, I promise.
Micah
[ This Message was edited by: Micah on 2002-11-13 16:09 ]
Just because chiff only sounds at the beginning of a note on the organ doesn’t seem to mean that it can’t apply to the whole tone of a whistle. Surely two instruments producing different sounds can have similar features in different ways?
But I definitely think that chiff and breathiness are unlikely to be the same thing, even if they might go together. I don’t think they do, however, necessarily. I would say my Walton’s is pretty chiffy without being breathy.
Maybe I don’t understand what’s going on either, though.
I can not believe this debate is still going on. Chiff is, as John pointed out, the initial attack sound of “breathiness” (if there is any for a given whistle) and it sounds like the word.
The sound of breathiness after the initial attack is, just that - breathiness. It applies to sustained notes.
What’s so complicated about this? Other than the fact that some people just want Chiff to be something other than it is… Remember, we didn’t make this word up, it already existed, so we don’t get to define it. Now if we want to create another definition for the word as well, then fine…but what’s the point? Then we’d still have to distinguish between attack chiff and sustained chiff, and on and on and on.
Chiff = Breathy sounding component of the initial attack on first blowing a note
Breathiness = The rushing wind type noise you hear (if any) while sustaining a note. This would be noise not associated with the specific note being played - Overtones etc.
Rasp, Growl, Buzz = More sounds that sound just like the word, not to be confused with the rushing wind noise formerly known as Chiff.
It’s all really very simple, honestly.
Loren
Ethnomusicoetymologists of the future may yet stumble on this site and decide that it was the site or indeed catalyst of a semantic shift, whereby a distinction in meaning developed between “organ chiff” (the attack sound) and “whistle chiff” (the sustained quasi-atonal harmonics accompanying a note).
\
An PluiméirCeolmhar
[ This Message was edited by: Roger O’Keeffe on 2002-11-13 10:48 ]
On 2002-11-13 10:02, Loren wrote:
I can not believe this debate is still going on. Chiff is, as John pointed out, the initial attack sound of “breathiness” (if there is any for a given whistle) and it sounds like the word.The sound of breathiness after the initial attack is, just that - breathiness. It applies to sustained notes.
What’s so complicated about this? Other than the fact that some people just want Chiff to be something other than it is… Remember, we didn’t make this word up, it already existed, so we don’t get to define it. Now if we want to create another definition for the word as well, then fine…but what’s the point? Then we’d still have to distinguish between attack chiff and sustained chiff, and on and on and on.
Chiff = Breathy sounding component of the initial attack on first blowing a note
Breathiness = The rushing wind type noise you hear (if any) while sustaining a note. This would be noise not associated with the specific note being played - Overtones etc.
Rasp, Growl, Buzz = More sounds that sound just like the word, not to be confused with the rushing wind noise formerly known as Chiff.
It’s all really very simple, honestly.
Loren
Exactly, Loren! The attack and sustained note are two separate, distinct actions depending on the physics of the instrument. The attack sound produced when the air fills the instrument is the chiff. Once sounded, the breathy, airy quality being discussed is related to the acoustic impedence ( ratio of pressure to flow), which determines the acoustic response. The sound depends upon how the jet of air moves across the blade -if the jet flows across the blade edge in just the right phase to reinforce the sound then a sustained note is produced.
Chiff is the filling of the tube, breathiness is how the air meets the blade.
Teri
Geeze Teri, you didn’t need to get all technical on us and…stuff. 
Loren
I’d swear I saw a muscle twitch on that horse. Quick, gimme the stick.
I’d further elaborate that some whistles have a lot of breathiness that comes at the expense of the musical tone, and others don’t. In the first category, I’d put the Clarke original, and in the second, the Abell, which, in my infallable opinion, (I may run for pope) has a nice ratio of breathiness to a strong, clear tone. I never realized how strong the “chiff” (per the argued definition) was until I heard a good (electronically speaking) recording of myself. Since hearing that, I’ve felt more assured about playing staccato notes here and there for effect (like 6 in a row in a jig). I hadn’t noticed their impact while I was playing.
Trust me, the horse is dead… Who wants to go next?
Tony
My original question was operating from the premise that chiff is only the beginning of the note and breathiness is a characteristic of the sustained note. So back to my original question…are there whistles that have chiff but have pure sustained notes?
Perhaps someone who makes whistles could say if this is even possible.
Micah
So back to my original question…are there whistles that have chiff but have pure sustained notes?
With my Burke Al Pro NB, it’s possible to make it sound chiffy, but to do this you have to attack the note fairly hard. The sustained tone is always pure.
You know, I really don’t know the answer to your question about there being pure-toned whistles with lots of chiff. Some of the chiff I’ve heard from some of the older whistles, were less of a breathy sounding attack, and more of a percussive kind of attack, with a pure-sounding harmonic starting the tone, more like the old Hammond organs and their percussion attack capabilities. That’s the kind of chiff I really like, but I don’t have a whistle that sounds like that, like some of the old Generations. -JP
[ This Message was edited by: JohnPalmer on 2002-11-13 23:58 ]
Of the many “chiffy” whistles I have, not one of them translates the chiff into a pure tone afterwards. Now, that could be due to my ever-advancing emphesema, but who am I to say?
~Larry
On 2002-11-13 13:07, TonyHiggins wrote:
I never realized how strong the “chiff” (per the argued definition) was until I heard a good (electronically speaking) recording of myself. Since hearing that, I’ve felt more assured about playing staccato notes here and there for effect (like 6 in a row in a jig). I hadn’t noticed their impact while I was playing.
Question Tony: Can you elaborate a little?
It’s possible to create that effect on a flute, as the shape of your lips determines the type of sound. on a whistle, the embouchure is fixed, so I would have thought that it was not really possible, but the player could create a bit of chiff on a pure toned whistle through using the diaphragm to accent the start of the note.