Chiff and Fipple Forums

I bought a Susaton low D Kildare for very non-musical reasons. My job requires me to be on the road about 100 percent of the time, so I wanted something that would (a) break down into small enough pieces to fit in a computer bag carry-on; (b) hold up under the beating it would take getting bounced a...

Reference the total whistle weight, I'll have to get back to you in a couple of days because I can't remember well enough to even hesitate a guess, and I'm not at home where I can repeat the experiment. (I have my whistles with me, but not the postal scale.)The two grams part stuck in my mind, but n...

As a beginner who has yet to develop anything that's even close to breath control, I can only reiterate what MurphyStout said about nickel being "more forgiving" than the brass. I bought both a nickel and a brass Generation D, and it's much easier to overblow the brass. In fact, it doesn't...

I have not been on the ride in question or even to Disneyland, but I did have to teach this tune to a dozen Cub Scouts so they could sing in pack meeting a scout song that was set it. (It was not my choice -- mrs. gonzo was den leader. I was pushing for "What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?&qu...

Ah . . . Londonderry Air -- It's been a favorite melody of mine since I learned it as a French horn solo for state competition in junior high school some decades ago. I'd been playing French horn for about three months, so you can imagine what it must have sounded like. And for some reason, even tho...

"Snarf" is a perfectly good word that's been around for years, but as long as it's only used by young people, musicians, kitchen pirates, or cutpurses, it won't get picked up by the big boys and will instead be relegated to the slang dictionaries. (But these are more fun, anyway.) Here's o...

My first whistle was a C Clarke Sweetone that I bought on impulse a couple of years ago at a toy store just because I liked the story about R. Clarke. I got it home, took one look at the chromatic fingering chart, said to myself "This is too complex for gonzo," (although I do use my real n...

OK -- I made it through all 38 pages because I figured it had to be some kind of rite of passage for initiates, and it only took me slightly longer that it took to read "Atlas Shrugged" (proper use of quotations to designate a title in the absence of italics or underlining). But I was disa...

I'm afraid Tony is right on about the copyright and the Mouse still has it gripped tightly in his avaricious little fingers, so you won't find it for free. But if you start the verse on the lower octive fourth finger, you'll be in D and will end up with the chorus starting on D and no half-holing. O...

As someone who has been on both sides of the barricades, so to speak, I can only reinforce what gogo said about maintaining friendly relations with the cops and offer up a couple or four additional points in case you haven't considered them. 1. Many state and local jurisdictions have statutes or ord...

As someone who has broken the fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand a couple of times, and who also bought a Susato D with the straight head and is finding that those are just about the worst two fingers to have limited mobility in when playing a low D, I, too, would be interested in knowing mo...

I'm very new to this, and it was a series of random and unconnected events -- the caprice of fate, if you will -- that led me to whistles. 1. Two years ago -- I was in a toy store to get my kids some of those sticks that you clack together to Beethoven, and I saw a display of Clarke whistles. I didn...