The things that make a whistler, A Whistler

Most of us can produce the whistling sound. Some of us can also perform tunes. But there is a lot more involved in the making of a really good whistler.


I believe that any person who can simply produce the whistling sound can blossom into an expert whistler. I have understood that it has everything to do with a whistler's ingenuity in coordinating between his/her brain and the whistle producing part(lips, tongue etc). For some, this tongue-brain coordination is high naturally, for others it is not so. What I mean by coordination is, for instance, a person with very good handwriting would have a high finger-brain coordination or a natural baseball hitter would have a high hand-brain coordination. But this also comes with practice. One of my friends started whistling only at the age of 15, but by the time she was 23, she started performing like a pro. 


So, producing the basic whistling sound is the first stage. Once this is done, the next step is to perform a basic tune. Here comes the necessity for a person to have an ear for music. Well, its just like singing. When we sing, we play a tune inside our minds and then we sing right? So the same principle applies here as well. Some people can sing without changing the Sruthi or pitch etc. That requires talent and practice. Jeffery Archer, in one of his interviews said that success can be achieved only with hard work(or practice) immaterial of the amount of talent that one has. Without much talent and a lot of practice, one can still see success. But even with a lot of talent, success eludes one who disregards practice. So whistling, just like any other art, requires practice. So, with practice, and an ear for music, one can whistle tunes without violating the pitch. 


Now that this is done, its about improving it and making it sound more sonorous and clean as a whistle should be. Ordinary, stereo typed  film songs are relatively easy to whistle. But Semi-Classical and melodious film songs on the other hand, require a lot more control and prowess to perform. In this stage, a whistler should be able to develop the ability to have more breath control and power in his whistling. He should be able to reiterate the exact nuances as per the original song(which is not a simple task). I have seen people with this gifted ability to sing a song in its exact form after having listened to it just a couple of times. My friend Ramanan Viswanath and one of my undergrad juniors Srikkanth have this incredible talent. Either a person is gifted with this or it comes with more knowledge of carnatic music or advanced western music. Such people can identify the exact scale of any song at anytime. 


After this, a whistler can start focusing on perfecting specific styles in whistling which would add more charm in the performance. Styles such as vibrato and warble when perfected and done at the right places, would showcase the class in a whistler. 


I wanted to talk about carantic whistling, but I'll write about it in another blog. Its just that there are so many aspects involved in whistling in the art form and I wish that it is treated at least at par with other musical arts if not above.


Charun