Hi Folks,
Hoping you can all help me out here?
I’m looking for a really strong “chiff” based sounding whistle in high D, other words the complete opposite of clear, sharp and clean…
By “chiff” I suppose my meaning is in relation to being “dirty, edgy, breathy” if that makes sense? (I hope my terminology is right here?)
Let me know your kind thoughts?
Sergio…
A Clarke maybe. It has a lot of wind noise.
Not shrill/sharp types are Clarkes & Tony Dixon ABS. of the two, I prefer the TD.
Another example would be a Shaw, which has a similar construction to a Clarkes but with better material and better craftsmanship.
https://daveshaw.co.uk/SHAW_Whistles/shaw_whistles.html
My TWZ “pure brass” also sounds rather breathy:
https://www.tinwhistle.de/tin-whistles/twz-tin-whistles-aus-eigener-fertigung/twz-pure-brass-whistle.php
Chiff is one of the things that someone needs to do a video on, I haven’t been able to work out exactly what people are talking about with it, there seems to be a couple of definitions going around.
A friend of mine has a husband who restores (and builds) pipe organs, and given that’s where you can compare a chiffy sound, I asked him about it, and showed him some of the definitions of it that I could find, one including a visualisation of it. He explained it simply as the attack on the note having a different wave form than the sustain due to competing harmonics.
But then I’ve heard people describing the texture of the sustain as chiff instead of just the attack, and then describe some really sweet sounding whistles as being chiffy.
For the descriptions you’re mentioning though, dirty, edgy, breathy, if you’re meaning you want a very textured sound, then I would suggest you listen to a lot of different players, pick the one that sounds that way to you and then see what whistle they are playing, and choose from them.
I love the sound Brian Finnegan gets from his Goldie Overtons, and I would definitely describe them as that when he plays them, but he plays ones that are custom made for him, with a hard breath requirement instead of a soft one. He gets a hard dark flute tone out of them, that someone else playing a different Overton may not. But other whistles have other highly textured sounds too, there’s reedy, woody, raspy, rough, harsh, bamboo (not the material it’s made out of, it’s a specific timbre/tone colour that flute players can get with alternate fingerings)
So yeah, I’d love someone to really explain the definition of chiff with examples considering the two opposing definitions Ive found!
I’m pretty certain that most of the time it just means “breathy” in the context of whistle-playing.
Yes, the word comes from the pipe-organ world, and applies strictly to a non-musical sound quality at the very beginning (attack) of each note. It means what it sounds like: CHiffff. In the whistle world, it is often used to mean a breathy sound throughout the note, but in keeping with the origin of the word, I prefer to use “breathy” or “windy” to describe sustained sounds, rather than chiff.
Whistle terms can be subjective and abstract at times. After thinking for a bit, you might be interested in a Milligan Dymondwood model. The one I have has a rich, complex tone, and is similar to the McManus in power. I wouldn’t call it “edgy” though, as I equate that to the term “sharp” or “crisp”. The tonal opposite of the Milligan might be the Burke Session, or the Killarney, which are both very smooth and pure.
The Alba soprano D has a kind of thick, husky, raspy tone to it that might be described as “chiffy”. I don’t know Stacy O’Gorman plans to re-open her whistle making business though. It’s been closed since COVID struck.
Another possibility is the Reyburn. I haven’t played his high D, but the low F I have has what I’d call an earthy tone, warm, thick, and complex. He has a few options at high D, and one of them might match what you’re looking for.
Then I can say my Walton’s High D is pretty chiffy, it really has that CH start! Here I thought it was just me, the Sweetone I have does it also, just not quite so pronounced. I’ll be able to compare once I get a couple more whistles, have a Dixon and a Becker on the way.
At least those are two really inexpensive options for OP to check out!
Chiff is nothing more than the “non-musical or disorganised sound” that a pipe makes when beginning to speak – it’s, as you organ restorer friend indicates, the attack.
It’s kind of like, literally, when you say the word “chiff”, chiff is the [tʃ] sound at the beginning of the word.
Here it is in action, since you want a video!
There’s even a dictionary definition:
I thought someone had posted this already, but apparently not. This is a good summation from the archives of all the things people argue over when they say “chiff” or “chiffy”:
Truer words are spoken only very rarely.
A Feadóg (the current production, anyway) seems to have a good amount of cliff to it.
All of my whistles are whistley, and I dare anyone to contradict me 
But are they cliffy
Bob
I was tending to side with him, because his definition seemed to match what I had read, but I had seen more people describing it as the sustain that I second guessed it, figured I would ask the experts here.
And that organ is super awesome, I need to send that to him! He makes glass pipes, this is his famous one: https://youtu.be/jAi6yDxXWl0
Nice indeed!
A rank of Hall crystal flutes! (almost…)
One should consider how you want the chiff to show up.
Do you want it there on all notes, or as an added bit of expressive spice put on only some notes, such as with a high-pressure air attack on some phrases and not others.
Is it variable and controllable?
Is it uniform across all notes on the whistle or does it show up more or less at the extremes such as the highest 7 notes or so, the lowest notes too?
Is the level of chiff or breathiness on a Killarney or Clarke or Tony Dixon or Alba or any other whistle known to be “pure note” or more chiffy, uniform across the octaves or variable?
Specific comments would help from those experienced with particular models.
For a less “emotive” performance on a chiffy pipe organ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWWj08IbPpw&t=226s
I had never heard of chiff in relation to anything other than a pipe organ until I first visited this site.
I have tried whistles that had a major problem with the voicing, where the notes spoke with difficultly, but I would never dream of buying or playing them.
I think we’re actually talking about timbre, the tone-quality of the sustained/continuous note. Since music has a word for that exact thing we might as well use it.
I very much prefer my high whistles to have a clear clean tone with a tad of complexity and darkness but as little “noise” as possible.
With Low Whistles I do really like the MK, which has a timbre I’ve not heard elsewhere: a dirty gravelly sound, yet there’s a solid core to the note. I have found that in a noisy group the core can get lost a bit making the noise become more prominent. To me the MK shines when played solo.
The other Low Whistle I’ve tried that’s sort of like that is the Reyburn. Once again the timbre is unique, not as “dirty” as the MK but also having a wonderful Native American Flute aspect. When I’ve played a Reyburn Low D in a noisy group its strong core holds its own. It’s uncanny how the Reyburn Low D I had sounded foggy when played solo but solid when played in a group.
The higher-pitched Reyburns and MKs, I know nothing about.
Heh. That was my second choice of videos!
I had never heard of chiff in relation to anything other than a pipe organ until I first visited this site.
Same. The electronic organ I used to play (a 1980s era Allen) has two chiff stops, so you could make it sound more or less chiffy.
But when you get down to it, a penny whistle is nothing more than an organ pipe with some holes in the side. Construction & tuning & voicing are all pretty much interchangeable terms between organs and whistles.
I have tried whistles that had a major problem with the voicing, where the notes spoke with difficultly, but I would never dream of buying or playing them.
Well, sure. Bad voicing is bad voicing!
I think we’re actually talking about timbre, the tone-quality of the sustained/continuous note. Since music has a word for that exact thing we might as well use it.
Chiff is part of timbre, but timbre is the whole tone quality. That’s like where we run into terms like “pure” and “flutey” and “reedy” and the like.
I very much prefer my high whistles to have a clear clean tone with a tad of complexity and darkness but as little “noise” as possible.
With Low Whistles I do really like the > MK> , which has a timbre I’ve not heard elsewhere: a dirty gravelly sound, yet there’s a solid core to the note. I have found that in a noisy group the core can get lost a bit making the noise become more prominent. To me the MK shines when played solo.
The other Low Whistle I’ve tried that’s sort of like that is the > Reyburn> . Once again the timbre is unique, not as “dirty” as the MK but also having a wonderful Native American Flute aspect. When I’ve played a Reyburn Low D in a noisy group its strong core holds its own. It’s uncanny how the Reyburn Low D I had sounded foggy when played solo but solid when played in a group.
The higher-pitched Reyburns and MKs, I know nothing about.
Those are matters of timbre, and unfortunately, the terms we use to describe it are, while lovely in their own way, so subjectively descriptive and idiosyncratic that it’s very difficult to even know what is meant. “Dirty” tone? “Solid core”? “Foggy”?
At least we have a definition and clear examples of “chiff”!