Is there a list and definition of terms associated with the tin whistle?
Since I’m new to the tin whistle there are a few terms I have no idea what they mean, such as backpressure, chiff, timber, etc. I’ve seen reviews with the word “pure” tone as apposed to what?
Thanks.
Whew! You don’t ask small questions, do you? 
I’ll take a shot at some of these, if I leave something out or don’t get something just right, other folks will chime in, until you share (roughly, anyway) the same confused understanding as the rest of us! 
Whistles are tuneable or non-tuneable. A tuneable whistle has some mechanism for shortening or lengthening the whistle to change its pitch to match that of other instruments. A non-tunable whistle lacks this ability, although some inexpensive whistles with plastic fipples can be made tuneable by a simple tweak that makes the fipple moveable on the tube.
Tube – the longest part of the whistle, which includes the holes your fingers cover. Usually made of metal, such as brass, aluminum, nickel, or tin.
Fipple – the part of the whistle that goes between your lips and either includes the entire windway, or makes one surface of a windway with the other surface being made by the block. Fipples are often plastic, particularly a tough acetal resin called delrin is often used on high-end whistles. Fipples can also be wood or metal. Sometimes they are separate from the tube, and sometimes part of it.
Block – a piece of wood, plastic, or metal which fits inside the fipple to form the inner surface of the windway.
Blade (or labia) – the sharpened (or shaped) surface which breaks the airstream you blow into the whistle. The air breaking over the blade produces a stream of oscillating turbulence (via the Bournelli effect) which causes the air inside the whistle to vibrate and produces the sound.
Chamfers – small slanted cuts on the blade side of the windway which help direct the air against the blade.
Tone holes – the “finger holes” of the whistle.
Timbre – the characteristic of sound that makes an organ sound different from a trumpet, and both different from a flute or an oboe.
Pure – the tone of a whistle is “pure” if it contains no extra air and has a “hollow” sound more like ringing crystal than like an oboe; there are almost no non-musical components of the sound. Opposite of “pure” is often considered to be “traditional.”
Traditional – the tone of a whistle is traditional if it contains some nonmusical elements in addition to the tone itself, such as many overtones, extra air, little popping sounds at the beginnings of notes, rasps, squeaks, etc.
Chiff – little popping sounds in between and at the beginnings of notes.
Backpressure – the amount of air you have to use to make the whistle sound. Whistles with high backpressure use little air and must be blown harder than whistles with low backpressure, which use much more air. A related term is “resistance,” which is how hard you have to blow.
This is just a bare beginning, hopefully others will add to and/or amend this list.
–James
Well, I guess I could ask “smaller” questions! 
Thanks for the intro to whistle terms. A few I knew, some I wasn’t sure of, and the rest I hadn’t heard of at all.
I see these terms when I’m looking at reviews of whistles and wonder just what they meant.
If there are more out there, hope others will chime in and add to your list.
I’m sure other newbies out there would be interested too.
I didn’t know if this question was ever asked before. I find no way of searching.
Donn
James,
It’s my understanding that “block” and “fipple” are the same thing. The fipple is the plug stuck in the tube help shape the windway. On one-piece mouthpieces, some people call the entire mouthpiece the fipple, but I prefer to think of those whistles as not having an actual “fipple”.
Excellent thread. This should be captured to become a permanent FAQ on the main page!
James, thanks for taking the time to explain all of that!
Hi Greg! 
With all respect to wikipedia, I believe they’ve got this one wrong.
Even on recorders, the block doesn’t equal the fipple. The fipple is not removeable; the block is (unless it’s glued or swelled in place). Note that just because it’s “removeable” doesn’t mean you’re supposed to remove it–please no one go banging on your fine whistles or recorders trying to get the block out!!!
Ok, let’s take the head of the new O’Brien whistle. It’ll work well for this because of its three easily visible materials:
In this image, the black delrin is the block. There brass “bands” are the end of the tube, and the fipple is made of bocote wood.
As I said, that’s my understanding of it. You may be right, though–maybe Loren will pop up and settle the debate.
–James
http://www.tinwhistles.us/fipterm.htm Has a picture and terms.
Much as I’d like to give a definitive answer, “Fipple” is, oddly enough, a bit of an ambiguous term: You will find it defined variously as the block, the entire mouthpiece, or even the labium (blade)!
For the record, I never once heard the term used at Von Huene: The terms used there, to describe the various parts of the headjoint were: block, beak (the part you put in your mouth), labium, ramp, chamfers, walls, windway, and so on.
Before my time at VH, I thought of the fipple as being the same as the beak - the entire bit you stick in your mouth to play. And by some definitions this is correct. However, at this point, I find the term not so useful, because it means different things to different people, which just leads to misundstanding and confusion. Of course, this suits the crystal people just fine, and goes right along with that other ambiguous term “chiff”.
Clearly the Crystal People put these terms into Dale’s mind…
Loren
No disrespect to Daniel, or anyone else, but as I said, different people/makers define the term differently. One can search the web and find sites with various definitions. If one looks to a dictionary, like dictionary.com one gets:
"3 results for: Fipple
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1) - Cite This Source new!
fip‧ple /ˈfɪpəl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[fip-uhl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun Music. a plug stopping the upper end of a pipe, as a recorder or a whistle, and having a narrow slit through which the player blows.
\
[Origin: 1620–30; perh. special use of dial. fipple loose lower lip, pouting lip; cf. ON flipi lower lip of a horse, Norw flipe flap, lappet. See flip1, flap, flabby]
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source new! fip·ple (fpl) Pronunciation Key
n.
A whistlelike mouthpiece for certain wind instruments, such as a recorder or flageolet, that channels the breath toward the sounding edge of a side opening.
An object similar to a fipple in an organ pipe.
[Origin unknown.] "
And if you search different recorder makers sites you will find somewhat varying uses of the term as well, so it’s not a standardised term, unfortunately.
Loren
Well, several dictionary definitions also give the fipple the same definition as the “block”..That’s just always been my understanding of the term. So,
I just now did what I always do when confronted with the possibility that I could be wrong about something: I looked it up
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fipple
To be fair, one reference there does call the entire mouthpiece the fipple, but the other two references there define it as the plug.
The Encyclopedia Brittanica also uses the term “block” and “fipple” enterchangeably: end-blown flutes having a plug (“block,” or “fipple”)
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9034317
Webster’s calls it: A wooden plug forming a flue pipe (as the mouthpiece of a recorder).
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/fipple
and Webster’s 1913 calls it “A stopper, as in a wind instrument of music”
Wordnet calls it: “a wooden plug forming a flue pipe”
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Granted, these are all encyclopedic and dictionary sources…more telling would be a more musical authoritative source. As it so happens, the Virginia Tech Department of Music calls a fipple “The end of a pipe or flute that blocks the flow of air and directs it through a flue” which seems to mean the plug to me..(end..blocks), and when they describe duct flutes, they describe them as “blocked by a fipple”
http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/textf/Fipple.html
In your picture of the O’Brien whistle, I’d call the wood bit the “mouthpiece”, the brass bit the “tube” or “body” and the delrin bit the “fipple”. Abells, which have a similar construction, I’d describe as “Blackwood body, silver mouthpiece, and delrin fipple”
Clearly, like “chiff”, "fipple has come to mean different things to different people. But I always think of it as the block. I think I’d accept whatever the OED said as pretty authoritative..unfortunately, I no longer have access to one 
Look it up all you want my friend: As I said, the definition varies, but I can tell you, without reservation, that if you walk into a recorder maker’s shop, and point to the piece you are describing, he’ll refer to it as the block. Recorders are know in some parts of the world as Blockfloten not fipplefloten for a reason.
I’m not saying fipple is a wrong name for the block, I’m simply saying the fact fipple has multiple definitions, and is used by some makers(primarily whistle makers) to mean one thing, and others to mean something else, makes it more or less useless - I mean one can’t have a simple conversation without stopping to define terms when using this word, as we are having to do here. Simply a poor choice of terms, when one wants some sort of clarity, IMO.
Loren
I think I’ll just start calling the thing the beak.
Didn’t realize I was going to stir up a hot pot full of whistling ambiguity! Sorry bout that… 
-James
Does that make this the “Chiff, Block and Beak” forum?
Dude, I agree with you..i think I said up there “Clearly, like chiff, fipple has come to mean different things to different people.”
Well, I’m simply not going to be happy until we come to blows about this.
Loren
Well then…I think that fipple probably orginally meant the block (and the OED would likely shed some light on that). But definitions change.
I mean, just today, I’m told that Pluto is no longer a “planet”.
Of course, we all know that Pluto is still a planet..and the fipple is still the block.
[edit] this last bit, of course, is all in good fun.
James,
I wouldn’t get up tight about the terminology. Many manufacturers will call the same thing by a different name. The main thing is you took the time to go into a little more detail on each part of the whistle.
It would be nice if your explanation could be added to the FAQ. I think it would be of help to all newcomers to the tin whistle.
Donn
No worries! Loren and Greg and I are all good folks and all friendly with each other.
–James
True that, James
I consider “fipple” to mean the combination of the windway and soundblade, since there are no fipple-flutes that don’t have both. A “block” can be used to make up part of a windway (example: Clarke Original, etc), but not all windways use one (example: Generation, Soodlums, Feadog, etc).