Mahcks
51 posts
Aug 19, 2015
1:11 PM
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Since I've picked up harmonica my ability to whistle has grown incredibly. It's still something I'm practicing hours a day (to the distress of my roommate). It's weird, though. I haven't come across hardly any resources for whistling. Are there others here that also develop whistling. If so, what have you found? How's your range? Legato and warbles/trills? Two notes at once? What else is possible?
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Rontana
164 posts
Aug 19, 2015
3:05 PM
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Whistling is a gas. Growing up in the sticks I did it just to amuse myself - talking back and forth at mockingbirds and such. I've always called my dogs with a loud whistle/throat trill. It's a little bit like one of the calls of a screech owl (screechers make two other calls . . . both of which sound like a horse's whinny . . . obscure factoid of the day there).
Funny, I've done that particular whistle so often (inhaling and exhaling) that I have to try and not do throat trills when playing harp, especially on draws or bends on the lower end
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Over a decade's experience designing, building & playing Cigar Box Guitars
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SuperBee
2773 posts
Aug 20, 2015
12:20 AM
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nope, i'm not great at it, probably do it a lot less than i used to...but there was a time when i got better at it and i attribute that to playing harmonica...when i wanted to learn a song i found if i could whistle it i could learn to play it. i also learned several times that i had been whistling it wrong...this led to improvement in both endeavours. but i don't do it much now...probably because i just about always have a harmonica in my mouth if there's opportunity to be making mouth music
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Mahcks
52 posts
Aug 20, 2015
8:23 AM
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@rontana are you talking about throat whistling? I'd love to figure that out. I saw a video of a girl that could whistle with her mouth closed and I started wondering if she could do that while playing harmonica.
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mlefree
371 posts
Aug 20, 2015
8:56 AM
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I'm a life-long melodic whistler. I love to whistle. Sometimes it's involuntary. If I hear a melody I have to stop myself from whistling along when I'm in an inappropriate place.
Whistling has actually helped my harmonica playing. Over the years I've cultivated the ability to whistle most any tune that I hear. For the most part, I hear it once and I can whistle it. As my harmonica skills grew, this practice has helped me to achieve pretty much the same ability with a diatonic harmonica (within the confines of the instrument for a non-overblower).
Also, my ability to whistle helped me to learn puckered bending. I was already used to modulating the pitch of my whistling so doing the same thing inside my mouth made learning to bend easier.
Same thing with Chris Michalek style mouth vibrato.
As to learning to whistle, I just searched Youtube and found a wealth of resources.
Happy Whistling!
Michelle
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SilverWingLeather.com
email: mlefree@silverwingleather.com
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nacoran
8621 posts
Aug 20, 2015
12:22 PM
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I used to consider myself a pretty good whistler. I've actually found my whistling has gone down hill playing harp. Part of it is I don't have great tone on my inhaled whistles, and my harmonica playing has retrained me to use a lot more draws, part of it is I always have a harp around so I almost never think to just whistle.
We have a recording with a whistling part and it took me a ton of tries to get a take that I felt sounded good. I even tried to outsource the part. I got it down eventually but for such a simple thing it was crazy hard.
One pretty simple trick I learned by watching a friend perform- angle your head so you are blowing past the mic to one side or the other, never straight on. Straight on and you'll just get wind noise.
There are some amazing whistlers out there. I remember seeing one guy who could whistle two parts at once. I forget his name, but he's been mentioned on the forum before.
Superbee, interesting... I've found pretty much the same thing. If I know a melody well enough that I can whistle it I can pick it out really quickly on harp, and even although I don't whistle nearly as much as I sing if I can't find the note I'm looking for on harp I try to work it out whistling rather than singing most of the time.
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