Artwhistling

Yeah, you read that right.

I'm interested in learning how to whistle at a professional level, but there are NO resources on this art other than artwhistling.org. I applied there to register for their forums to get some guidance, and was ignored. Is anyone here skilled in that art or know some good resources?

Also, I'm looking for a good duet to whistle with my friend. So that we don't die horribly, the piece must:

• not be too fast
• have distinct, easy to follow parts
• not have too much unison (whistling in unison is HARD)
• not have too large of a range

Any input at all ("You're insane! Give it up before you are forced to by large men with straitjackets!") would be greatly appreciated. I have been looking on and off for about a year now. I need help!

I've been in the same rut for a while with handwhistling... this is the only guy I've found that can actually do it better than I can, it seems to be an underappreciated art and there must be a vast underground of people that can do it well, I just can't find them.

http://www.riston.net/home/handcoo.htm

You can't really BE a pro whistler... you just go out there and do it and exhibition yourself.

I'm still searching for that secret society as well...

"Give the password."

"What password?"

"Whistle Ravel's Tzigane and we'll let you through"

*stares*

The best I can do is a decent rendition of Flight of the Bumblebee. I'd record it, but you're not supposed to blow into microphones...

I'm trying to get a better vibrato, stronger tone, and higher range (a girl at my school can do three octaves.)

I hate to nerdily admit that I am interested in this too. I've been practicing using the music-minus-one of the bach double violin concerto. I can somewhat weakly whistle a g, but the bach double regularly goes up to A, so I have to work on my range.

By the way, Ravel's Tzigane is amazing.

I'll play around with it :)

What about hum-whistling? Can anyone do that accurately?

I can't really whistle well, or else I'd try. I'm pretty good at multiphonics on tuba and trombone, though, so if I COULD whistle I might be able to manage half-decent counterpoint. For pucker-whistling, I can only get F4 (strong but quiet) to F5 or so by exhale-whistling, but I can get the next octave up to maybe G6 by inhale-whistling... I'm just guesstimating since I can't whistle today at all hardly, I have days like that where I can't get anything, and other days I feel like I can whistle very well. I hate the inconsistency. I only learned how to whistle about two years ago, I couldn't at all before than, no matter how much I tried. My mother still can't at all.

For handwhistling which I prefer much more (it's like a hand ocarina) ... I can get Bb3 to B4 in one position, and F4 to Ab5 in another. I can also go a max M2 lower by using a slower air stream, but it's quiet. The first position is quiet and sometimes won't speak above G4, the second position is consistently responsive and can be very piercingly loud in the upper range of it. I can also double and triple tongue whilst handwhistling... which I don't think can be done with regular mouth whistling. hehehe

For recording the whistling, try whistling aside the microphone, not directly into it, but beside it so that the air stream doesn't go directly into it, but it picks up the sound.

I've tried that, but it still sounds like microphone feedback. I'll have to experiment on that. As to hum-whistling, I don't really have the patience to learn. Right now it sounds like some alien mind-scrambling beam off of the X-Files or something like that.

Mic record voice okay? The whistling might be too piercing for the mic, have you tried setting the mic recording volume very low? In Sound Recorder I think it's a pop-up window, Audio Properties - Record - Microphone - Volumes .... or something to that effect. Also, if you ARE using MS Sound Recorder by chance, make sure you save a CD Quality file first, BEFORE you start recordings, else you'll get fuzzy white noise.

Oh man!!! Okay, so I'm not the only one! I can get a very weak D4 to (I believe) a G5. And damn do I want to write a whistling piece. But there's not much literature out there on writing for whistler...

I think somebody should write something for handwhistle. :innocent:

I can get Bb3 to B4 in one position, and ...

If anybody's interested, let me know. :toothygrin:

There's plenty of good music out there to whistle. My favorites are Flight of the Bumblebee and Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Violins. The theme from Fiddler on the Roof works pretty well too. Really, anything with a strong, not-too-quick melody is pretty good. The biggest limitation is range, I think, though some whistlers actually have larger range than flutes.

I'm also fascinated by the human whistle. If anyone finds a good duet as described above, I would love to know.

Also, it's possible to record whistling by placing the microphone at a right angle to the airstream and a couple inches to the side. A large diaphragm condenser mic is best for this, but any microphone that can record vocals should do well.

I know that there are a few duets online, but I find those impractical for actual whistling. They're just the same person overdubbed, and they don't really convey the difficulty of keeping on pitch when there's another whistler. They also don't show how awful whistled unison usually sounds. But seriously, try the Bach Double Violin concerto. It seems to be a popular choice (and not just on this forum)

every single time my eye falls on this thread's title, I keep reading "arm wrestling"... :X