Learning to Whistle in Four Easy Steps

The kind (and amusingly snarky) folks at Tiny Mixed Tapes have provided a step by step guide on how to whistle for all of you out there who haven't quite figured it out on your own (freaks). This, they assure me, will not only ensure that you won't miss the Iron&Wine/Calexico show, but will also prevent your best friend from screwing your significant other and ward off tennis ball-sized kidney stones. All in all, a handy skill to have. So, from TMT to you, via me, How to Whistle:

1. Tuck away your lips
First, your upper and lower lips must reach over to cover your teeth and be tucked into your mouth. Only the outer edges of your lips are visible, if at all.

2. Choose your finger combination
The role of fingers is to keep the lips in place over the teeth. Experiment with different thumb and index/middle-finger combinations to discover which works best for you, depending on the size of your fingers and mouth. Regardless of your choice of fingers, their placement is the same: each are placed roughly halfway between the corners and center of lips, inserted to the first knuckle. (Again, this will vary depending on the size of your fingers and mouth.)

Now that your fingers are in place, be very clear on these two matters of form:

a) Your fingernails should be angled inwards, towards the center of the tongue, and not pointed straight in and towards the back of your mouth; and b) your fingers should pull the lower lip fairly taut.

3. Draw back the tongue
Now comes the crucial part of the whistle. The tongue must be drawn back so that its front tip almost touches the bottom of the mouth a short distance behind the lower gums (about 1/2 inch/1 cm). This action also broadens and flattens the front edge of the tongue, allowing it to cover a wider portion of the lower back teeth.

The sound is produced by air flowing over a bevel, or a sharply angled edge. In this case, the sound is created by the upper teeth and tongue directing air onto the lower lip and teeth.

4. Blow
Inhale deeply, and exhale over the top side of the tongue and lower lip, and out of your mouth. Some extra downward and outward pressure by the fingers onto the lips and teeth may be helpful. Experiment with the position of the fingers, the draw of the tongue, the angle of the jaw, and the strength of your exhalation. Adjusting with these will bring success.

Start off with a fairly gentle blow. You'll produce a whistle of lower volume at first, but you'll also have more breath to practice with if you don't spend it all in the first three seconds. As you blow, adjust your fingers, tongue and jaws to find the bevel's sweet spot. This is the area of maximum efficiency, where the air is blown directly over the sharpest part of the bevel. Once you locate the sweet spot, your whistle will have a strong, clear tone, as opposed to a breathy, low-volume sound.

Listen for these sounds: as you practice, your mouth will learn to focus the air onto the bevel's sweet spot with increasing accuracy. You'll probably hear the following: a breathy, low-volume tone that suddenly, as you adjust your fingers, mouth, or jaw, will switch to a clear, full, high-volume tone. Success! You're on the right track--your task now is to reproduce the mouth and hand position that led to the better whistle.

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