Nick Wrote:

So would it be safe to say that if someone plays a whistle and sounds better than someone playing a recorder they are a better musician?

At one level yes, but the better musician is also likely to sound better on the recorder once they have mastered the basics of the instrument. Although they are different instruments, the differences are not so great and it is relatively easy to transfer your skills from one to the other. I started on recorder, then more recently took up whistle though I only played it spasmodically for quite a long time, but it did not take me long to pick up the basics. It also works for wooden flute which I have only taken up recently, but once I began to get on top of the embouchure problems, I have been able to make quite rapid progress.

Geoff