Whistling - Musical/melodic Whistling

Musical/melodic Whistling

Whistling can be musical: many performers on the music hall and Vaudeville circuits were professional whistlers, the most famous of which were Ronnie Ronalde and Fred Lowery. Both had several notable songs featuring whistling.

Pucker whistling is the most common form of whistling used in most Western music. Typically, the tongue tip is lowered, often placed behind the lower teeth, and pitch altered by varying the position of the tongue. In particular, the point at which the tongue body approximates the palate varies from near the uvula (for low notes) to near the alveolar ridge (for high notes). Although varying the degree of pucker will change the pitch of a pucker whistle, expert pucker whistlers will generally only make small variations to the degree of pucker, due to its tendency to affect purity of tone. Pucker whistling can be done by either only blowing out or blowing in and out alternately. In the 'only blow out' method, a consistent tone is achieved, but a negligible pause has to be taken to breathe in. In the alternating method there is no problem of breathlessness or interruption as breath is taken when one whistles breathing in. But a disadvantage of this method is that many times, the consistency of tone is not maintained, and it fluctuates.

Many expert musical palatal whistlers will substantially alter the position of the lips to ensure a good quality tone. Venetian gondoliers are famous for moving the lips while they whistle in a way that can look like singing. A good example of a palatal whistler is Luke Janssen winner of the 2009 world whistling competition.

The term puccalo refers to highly skilled jazz whistling.

The most significant whistling competition is run by the International Whistlers Convention in North Carolina, USA. Held every year (recently every other has been in other countries), it brings together whistlers from all over the world who battle for the crown of 'International Grand Champion'.