The thread title is left intentionally vague so as not to bias the sample. If and when a mod comes along to change it, could you please note the results to date? Thanks much.
Anyway, I’ve been able to whistle since I was 7 or 8, and now it’s hard for me to grok how people are unable to do it.
Whenever I feel afraid
I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no one will suspect
I’m afraid.
I’ve considered starting a thread asking how. I’ve never been able to whistle a sound and no one’s been able to teach me. My husband, on the other hand, has been stopped by strangers asking him if he’s a professional whistler.
I’m the only one in my family that can whistle. I don’t know why.
Yes I can, and I’m amused that the tune I picked to reassure myself that I can still do it (and without considering the tune beforehand) was Jethro Tull’s “The Whistler.” 
I’ve never been able to whistle. Granted, I haven’t spend a huge amount of time trying to learn, but I did try for a few minutes in my teenage years. I was very worried as a young boy to read in Ian Fleming’s novel The Man with the Golden Gun that, when James Bond reads the secret service profile on Mr. Scaramanga (the eponymous villain), Bond learns that Scaramanga is probably a homosexual, since he is incapable of whistling! :eek:
You said nothing about it being on-key, so I said yes.
Yep. Well it’s not that great but I can wistle Happy Birthday. I can wistle pretty loud when calling the dogs. But I can’t for the life of me do that very loud wistle that you use your fingers for.
I can do the cupped hand wistle and control the tone pretty well.
Barely, so I went with option 3. Usually I’ll try a note which is too high (or low), and all that will come out is the sound of whooshing air. And I’ve tried to fingers-in-the-mouth method until I was blue in the face, to no avail.
I can whistle both inhaling and exhaling, so I don’t have to stop.
Definitely yes…I’m not quite an expert, but close.
I’m being difficult. Is the question “Can you whistle,” or is it “can you whistle a tune?” Because those are two different things for me. Yes I can whistle. No I cannot whistle something others can discern as recognizable tune. Sounds fine in my head…
I have never been able to whistle; when my allergies get really bad, I can sort of control my wheezing. . .does that count?
I voted ‘no’.
Ironically, I can carry a tune, and my hubby cannot, but when he whistles, I can tell what he’s whistling. :smack:
I can whistle pretty well, and there’s the occasion when it is actually in the right key, but I’m certainly no Roger Whittaker.
I’m pretty good at it, actually.
I can whistle tunes easily enough. What I *can’t *do is that thing where you put a couple of fingers in your mouth and let loose with a shrill piercing whistle.
That’s the professional way to do it. It’s like circle breathing.
Anyways, I recently picked up vibrato, so I sound good. And yet, I was really late learning, at least, according to everyone around me. I learned it near the same time I learned to blow a gum bubble–at 11 years old. But once I could make sound, my inherent musicality took over. If there’s a way to make different pitches with something, I always seem to be able to figure out how to play it by ear (one note at a time, at least). It’s just getting over the initial hurdle of making it make a sound, and of tone quality.
As for how to whistle, make an R [ɹ] with your tongue, creating a round groove, round your lips into a tight , and blow very lightly.
Can’t say why not, but no. Air goes out, but doesn’t sound even vaguely like a whistle, no matter how I hold my lips or moisten them (if that’s what it takes) or dry them (ditto). But I can sing a little. And I have other talents. So I’m satisfied, regardless.
I remember that! And M, who is reading the dossier, immediately whistles.
I suspect practically everyone who read the book did the same.
Regards,
Shodan
PS - tweeeeeeet.
My dad is a big whistler and I taught myself to do it when I was 4. I can also whistle inhaling and exhaling.