Aveolar Trill (Tip of the Tongue to the Aveolar -- or the 7/3 trill) I generally start out with the

tip of my tongue touching the aveolar, produce a tone, then release my tongue, which, epending on how I form my mouth cavity, will result in the production of a tone anywhere from a 1/2 step to a fifth above the note I started on. By rapidly alternating the position of my tongue in this manner I can produce a reasonably fast trill. Chambers Instrument makers know that the length of the airstream (really the term "chamber" is somewhat misleading) determines pitch in the main. As you play an ascending scale on your flute, you lift your fingers, effectively shortening the length of the tube -- airstream (until you get to the next octave). I know you're already aware of this. This is true even of instruments like a ocarina and coke bottle, altho the airstream is configured differently. I agree with you that envisaging the "chambers" in whistling is difficult -- for one thing, we can't see what is going on, and, again, feeling is very subjective. Linguists who have used xray and other techniques of viewing the vocal apparatus know that what we feel is "up" or "back" often is not exactly that, just as the shape of the mouth and tongue is not exactly as we experience it. It is also very difficult to know what part of the tongue to pay attention to -- the whole tongue may be moving slightly -- Which part of the tongue is actually making a difference? Another difficulty is that the movements are so small. There is not much space in the mouth, so whistling ends up being high-pitched relative to most other instruments (short airstream). The higher the pitch, the smaller the movement necessary to go from one note to the next. It becomes difficult to say what the movement is, exactly, especially as different parts of the tongue may not all be moving in the same "direction". The next difficulty is hard to explain, but clear to most whistlers in experience. If you start on your lowest note and try to slur to your highest note, you may note that there are breaks, at which you go to the next "range". (This is not the case with all whistlers.) The way of changing pitch in one "range" may feel pretty different from that in another range, but I'm sure the same principles are involved. This is because ranges may differ in how the tongue is configured to produce a sound ("different chambers" -- again, somewhat misleading). Well, sorry to go on and on. Many volumes have been written on how musical sounds are produced and I don't suppose we are going to elucidate all the mysteries here and now! Different sorts of duotones It is easy to do a duotone you can hear yourself. It is not so easy to do a powerful and clear duotone for an audience to hear. I do a "roof whistling" duotone that is like playing on the edge of the "yodel". Others do a lip whistling duotone in the same way. Dave Cluff whistles out of each side of his mouth and it is very clear and tuneful. Do Duotone Whistling In the first, you curl the tip of the tongue and place it against the roof of the mouth while whistling normally. This produces a reedy second tone. The second method produces a better sound. Whistle holding the tongue in the middle of the mouth creating an air chamber above and below and whistle "along the edge" of where the tone would break. This produces a more convincing second tone As a routine palate (roof) style duotoner who can do an occasional uncontrolled pucker-style duotone, I am certain that both are done via chambers. (Even though it is hard to picture exactly where the chambers are!) Both types of whistling have a "yodel point" and the duotone comes from working on this. (At least one type of duotone, that is...)It is definitely not overtones as in harmonics. I am familiar with vocal harmonics and there is no way duotone whistling is explained by this kind of harmonics. There is, however, an analogy between the yodel breaks (in voice or whistling) and the overblowing harmonics of a flute, clarinet etc. Both can cut in with the same clear jump, so there is a similarity. However, with a flute, the jump is always an octave and with a clarinet it is always a 12th (octave and a fifth). Whistling is quite different, as the jump can be anything from over an octave to less than a semitone and can be controlled accurately by tongue position. I therefore believe "chambers" is a good way to describe it, and that somehow there are alternative chambers that can resonate at different frequencies (pitches). These chambers "compete" at the yodel point and normally flip from one to the other cleanly. With effort, these two chambers can be persuaded to resonate at the same time, although in my experience never so cleanly. Without turning this into a discourse (as you may gather I have further ideas but they are admittedly rather theoretical), Orawhistle founder Jay Schlitz once offered his opinion on duotone origin. He told how a bugle plays. There are no valves. He then indicated that a good bugler could learn to blow two notes at once using overtones. He said most instruments have overtones that can be located by the player. It was his distinct opinion that duotone whistling (of the pucker sort) stemmed from overtones. Do Duotone with Roof Whistling From personal observation, I have concluded the first chamber in roof whistling is *behind* the tongue. The main reason is that this wide-open whistle hardly varies in pitch as you vary the position of your lips by quite a lot. So I am reasonably

certain of this, but not so certain from here on! Now, to form the "second chamber" for roof whistling, you need to close your lips somewhat, while usually still keeping the jaw wide open. (With much practice, however, the jaw and lips can be anywhere at all! - That's what makes it so hard to pin down exactly what the essential ingredients are!). I believe this second chamber is *in front of* the tongue. The reason for believing this is that it only works when you partially close your lips. I must admit I have no idea how it is interacting with the air flow, as the only rapid stream of air is at the single point where the tip of the tongue is almost touching the palate. The tuning of the two cavities is done almost entirely with the tongue, although the jaw must be lowered for the really low notes and the lips must be partially closed for the yodel or duotone to work. From the tones, it seems that the open whistle continues as the lower of the two tones, but I don't think that's enough evidence to be certain. The second whistle becomes the upper, stronger and clearer of the two tones, and in fact the lower tone does actually change to being a lot less clear than the original single roof whistle, although it is still a similar tone. So I am not at all sure which is which at this stage! The "starting point" for a clear roof whistle is "wide open". The "chamber" in this case could be either behind or in front of the tongue. From personal observation, I have concluded it is *behind* the tongue. The main reason is that this wide-open whistle hardly varies in pitch as you vary the position of your lips by quite a lot.

Do Roof Whistling

The "s tarting point" for a clear roof whistle is "wide open". The "chamber" in this case could be either behind or in front of the tongue. From personal observation, I have concluded it is *behind* the tongue. The main reason is that this wide-open whistle hardly varies in pitch as you vary the position of your lips by quite a lot.

Do a cheek trill/warble

There have been many times when I would be whistling and something would come out very wrong. But when I explored what "went wrong" I would find that I could use it as a new technique. One example is using my cheek to form the trill (warble? whatever) instead of using my tongue. The first time it happened it occured as a mistake, and the song I whistled had a very bad note in it.

Do duotone

I learned to do this by trying to make the most horrible screech I could get by whistling. Then I started to learn to control the sounds a bit better. My pitch still is not as good on two tones as on one. To start try to make it sound as bad as you can. I found that overblowing (too hard) helps get started. Hold one side of your tongue at a different note location than the other side. I can answer for my kind of duotone, which is palatal ("roof") whistling. It is closely related to the yodel. It is like balancing on the knifeedge of the yodel. (It is *not* rapidly alternating across the yodel, as some have conjectured.) This kind of duotone is using two "modes" of resonance in your mouth, just as the yodel does, but manages to keep them both sounding at once. I think at least one kind of lip-whistling duotone is very similar and I can do the odd note, but only very crudely. There are at least 2 other ways of producing a lip-whistling duotone, but I can't say much about them. When I do vibrato, which is almost automatic anymore, I move the tip of my tongue up and down. If I try to vibrate on extremely low notes near the limit of my range, I find that your tongue has to be so far back, that vibrato is impossible. To vibrate those I can pulse my diaphragm either with my hand or with abdominal muscles which varies the air flow resulting in vibrato. This method is not as pleasing to hear or watch. When I whistle two tones at the same time, there is no particular, obvious, special difference from 'regular whistling' in where I put my tongue. I have had some success in helping others to produce two tones at the same time by telling them to do what you call a 'yodel whistle' very slowly until they can figure out how to do both notes not just one after the other, but at once. The slower you practice it, the more likely you may be to notice that occasionally the notes are overlapping, that is, sounding both at the same time. Of course, it depends on what kind of 'yodel whistle' you are doing. If you are moving the tip of your tongue much to get the 'yodel', my advice will probably not work. Just a guess. Finally, the real problem is probably not in producing the two tones at the same time, which a lot of whistlers can do, but, once you get that down, controlling the two notes separately. In other words, being able to move one tone up

Do palatal duotone

doing Vibrato

Doing duotone from yodel

while the other goes down, or something like that. It make take quite a bit of experimentation and practice to develop, so keep at it. The best advice with something like this is 'Keep playing around with it and don't give up.' Duotone This is how I whistle a duotone or 2 notes through one aperature. To help you hear it in another medium think about yodeling, how by exerting a little more pressure in the throat you can hit a higher note from the one you were just singing. Try to sit between the notes, that is, to balance your voice so that both notes sound at the same time, producing a "double stop" so to speak (stringed instrument terminology). Try to do the same thing with your whistle and then concentrate on holding between the notes so that you're not blowing so hard that only the upper note forces its way to the exclusion of the lower note and not so soft that you lose the upper note to the softer pressure of the lower note. If you don't already incorporate the "yodel" technique in your whistling try this: try whistling some note about mid range at a soft to medium pressure. Then give a quick and sudden burst to your pressure and hear what comes out. Hopefully you will get a higher pitched note at a higher volume. This is similar to what many wind instrument players do to reach an octave or a fifth above. I can do it by two different methods. In the first, you curl the tip of the tongue and place it against the roof of the mouth while whistling normally. This produces a reedy second tone. The second method produces a better sound. Whistle holding the tongue in the middle of the mouth creating an air chamber above and below and whistle "along the edge" of where the tone would break. This produces a more convincing second tone.

Duotone

Duotone Vibrato

The knife-endge balance of diad or "duotone" is so easily upset it is easiest to avoid vibrato altogether. (Then of course you have to be dead accurate on pitch!) Like you, I favour only a light vibrato or none at all, for most music. A deep/wide vibrato can sound "nice" but to me it most often spoils the _music_. With my palatal ("roof") whistling duotone it is probably easier to get a vibrato than with normal lip whistling duotones, but I rarely use vibrato at all. Basically, it is a controlled snore!! The basic snore sound is an inhale which rattles the epiglottis inside a narrowed air passageway, in this case a deliberately narrowed one. You do an ordinary pucker as a start, then push the back of the tongue up against the roof of the mouth and probably touching the epiglottis, then inhale either strongly (to snore) or gently (to modulate a whistle). You want to always be weaker than your lowest "snore pressure". Start with a comic snore, then back off to a lower pressure, while at the same time in-whistling a tone. This is an effect I dubbed "epiglottal staccato". In this method, which will work ONLY for an INhaled whistle, you use the epiglottis to insert short interruptions in the inhaled airflow, thereby producing a simulation of staccato sounding notes. Of course, the "phrase" produced can exist for only as long as you can inhale, and will be fairly soft in loudness. The pitch range is quite narrow, so its usefulness is limited to very specific (rare) musical circumstances. However, it does produce very rapid and evenly-spaced notes! The pitches can be level, or run downward, run upward, or run in a smooth combination within lower-pitched groups. It sounds ok, and is handy in some rare circumstances, but can be tricky to produce reliably or loudly. I shift the tongue so it touches the inside of my bottom lip, trapping a bubble of air underneath and changing the size & shape of the airspace inside my mouth to instantly change notes. Same technique I use for warbling; I just don't oscillate back and forth if I'm not warbling. Fred Lowery's examples are superb (and recorded with more modern equipment). I used to do exactly this, including quite a wide range of intervals, before I concentrated on duotone, but now I find it quite difficult to do this kind of "warble" reliably. From the sound of Bob MacGimsey's whistling, I am sure it is as I have done, by positioning the mouth, tongue etc. for a particular pair of notes, and then causing the whistle to flip back and forth between the two notes by rapid glottal stops (as in a rapid "ha-ha-ha-ha..") to vary the air pressure. If we had a movie of Bob, I'm sure we'd see his cheeks puffing in and out rapidly as he whistled. At the risk of confusing this discussion, I must point out that the term "warble" must not be used for this rolled R chirp. The famous Fred Lowery *warble* is nothing like "this" sound at all. I'd call this sound a "chirp" on a single note. Fred's famous *warble* is described (very briefly) elsewhere in his tutorial, and is indeed alternating between two notes comparatively slowly, e.g. 5-10 times per second. This is done by positioning your tongue in such a way that slight air pressure variations cause the resonating cavity in your mouth to yodel, i.e. alternate suddenly between one frequency and another. (i.e. between 2 modes of vibration). I do this pressure variation by fast repetitive glottal stops (or partial stops, like ha-ha-ha-ha, or like a little boy's imitation machine-gun, as I think Fred Waidner said some time ago). Others may do it differently. Fred Lowery seems to be one of the few who could accurately pitch both the upper and lower notes of this warble and so use it effectively in whistling 2-part musical harmony. (Not quite duotone, but almost, and a prettier sound anyway.) One of the ways to produce a "Fred Lowery warble" is to have these two chambers accurately tuned and to cause them to flip/flop regularly by using air pressure variations, either by diaphragm or by partial glottal stops (h-h-h-h-h). (I use the latter).

Epiglottal Staccato

Epiglottal Staccato

Fast Articulation

Fred Lowery Warble

Fred Lowery Warble

Fred Lowery Warble

How to do duotone

My method is with "roof" (tongue and palate) whistling and I believe the two sounds are similar to a yodel or warble, but balanced "on the knife edge" of the yodel point so that it doesn't actually jump up and down between the two notes. The upper note is clear but the lower note is weaker and not so clear. The quality is not very good, but I can whistle a wide range of intervals and I use it a lot for my own musical purposes and amusement. Others do a duotone with conventional lip whistling, some do it "on the yodel point" like I do, but I believe some methods are different again. One who is very different is Dave Cluff who can whistle two completely different notes from the two sides of his mouth and the result is very tuneful and musical. Perform with a smooth gliding from the beginning of one note to the end of another with slurring sounding of all intermediate notes (sliding may be done up or down and slowly or quickly). In a true glissando, we must hear all the intermediate notes with absolutely no discontinuity between them; we then hear a continuous sliding sound. True glissando can be easily done by: slide trombone, slide flute, stringed instruments (especially those without frets), timpani, etc... and VOICE and WHISTLING. Flautists, clarinetists, saxophonists, etc. can also do true glissando, but it takes a good fingers and key manipulation technique. To perform a basic whistling glissando: start on an intermediary note and, without stopping the air flow, move slowly your whole tongue up-front or downrear in order to vary smoothly the inside volume of your mouth, and then the emitted sound. I learned how to do vibrato by moving my tongue up and down a little as I whistled a single note. It felt odd at first (and the result was a bit strange sounding), but over time I was able to do it more easily and my tongue just naturally "vibrated" up and down to do the vibrato. I've found it to be a useful technique, though it's important not to add too much of it to a song and to be able to whistle without it (once learned, it can sometimes "take over"). I have done that but it tends to go from fast to shimmery fast, not the slow vibrato that I've heard used so well in flute (I was never good at that). I have used a warble in one piece as slow vibrato, moving on purpose from one note to the other, getting faster, and then switching to a "deep" vibrato between the same two notes so it seems as if I'm moving from slow vibrato to fast (my flute teacher was impressed when she heard it and asked how I did it). Although the purpose of the warble followed by vibrato is to seem vibratoish, I find the process of doing a warble to be somewhat different from vibrato -- the tongue in my warbles moves more and, when I slow down a recording of a warble on my computer, I hear a tiny "pfff" of air in the middle between the two notes and I don't hear that when I listen to vibrato (maybe because it's too fast). I also find that my warbles are more deliberate and vibrato can seem automatic. That said, a warble can definitely provide something that sounds like the slow vibrato I recall from flute class. It seems that with vibrato I mostly go up or down about a semitone at most, but I'm not limited to that for a warble. As far as nodal articulation, I've found it can be produced by all sorts of techniques. In an essay on technique, Tanguay mentions how you can trigger a nodal articulation sound simply by doing a slide up or down. Where the sound breaks is a node. Although I could duplicate that, it's taken me a while to generate a "warble" in any reliable way. The first time I started to get it was when I tried moving my tongue sideways (Chris Ullman mentions that I think somewhere on his site). Then I found that I could get the same effect by lifting the middle part of my tongue up a bit as I whistle while keeping the tip level (sort of a backwards wave). And I've also managed to produce nodal articulation by tightening and loosening the lips as you've mentioned. The one thing I've found common in nodal articulation is the tiny "blppp" sound it makes when you record it and play it back really slowly. There's really some sort of tiny windy break between notes that are separated by nodal articulatory warbles. There seems to be degrees of nodal articulation. Some are more pronounced than others. I've managed to use a similar tongue motion to separate flows of notes in classical pieces in ways that are far less "liquid" than the warbles used by the beautiful cascades produced by Lowery or Bing (of course, my warbles aren't up to either of those two expert's level anyway :-) ) Anyway, I think I know what you are talking about when you say you can do the "oodle, oodle" tongue trill (you may also be able to use this technique to do a tremolo which is defined sometimes as the rapid alteration of 2 notes in a chord). I usually describe this trill as "diddle, diddle," but oodle makes sense. When you use this trill I am assuming that you are moving your tongue in the same manner as when you say "oodle." And I am assuming that the touching of your tongue to the roof of your mouth produces a tone that is lower than when your tongue is not engaged as such, either a 1/2 step or larger to whatever interval you are capable of producing. There is another technique for trilling that was taught to me by my high school chorus director. He told me to whistle a note and then touch the tip of my tongue to the back of my lower front teeth. This will produce a note that is higher than with the tongue not engaged as such. When I first started to try doing this it was very difficult for me, but as time passed I found that with practice I could do this trill as fast as the "oodle" trill. The pleasant outcome of being able to do both of these tip of the tongue trills is that I was now able to do a "turn," which is described in the Dolmetsch Online Music Dictionary as: http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory23.htm#turn By using these 2 trilling techniques you can now whistle music with a greater degree of instrumental articulation. I say instrumental as singers do not produce trills in either manner as described above (at least no singer I have ever heard, but there often seems to be someone that can do what others think impossible). A third way to trill is by applying the vocal yodeling technique to whistling. In doing this you have to be able to access a higher register than what you normally whistle in. Sometimes you can access 2 higher registers by overblowing while whistling. You are probably too young to remember the Oscar Meyer Wiener Whistle, an actual little whistle shaped like a hot dog which, by overblowing on it, you could produce the famous Oscar Meyer whistle and which seems to escape these little kids in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C88k_SOBudI By using this technique you can rapidly jump from one note to another a large interval away in a seamless manner. I am able to do flutters using the "oodle, oodle" tongue movement, although this seems to work only at the middle of my whistling range - that tongue movement seems to get in the way for higher notes and lower notes. Thus flutter can work both on out-breathing and in-breathing.

How to do glissando

Learning vibrato

Moving from slow to fast vibrato / warble vs vibrato

Nodal Articulation (warbling)

Oodling

Oodling

Palatal Duotones

My duotone whistling is palatal, or "roof" whistling, but Roger'is description of delicately balancing on the "break" or "yodel" fits what I do. Rounding the lips can make it jump to the higher of the two yodel modes, and with a lot of practice I can now easily balance "on the yodel" to produce the duotone. Fortunately the upper of the two tones is stronger (and clearer) than the lower one. Because of the "delicate balance" of this kind of duotone, it is easy to flip to a single tone while maintaining the air stream. In my case the easy tone to continue is the lower one, although its clarity and power increases to that of the upper note of the duotone. But then, as it takes a moment for the change to happen (as in any yodel), I can also maintain the upper note (or in fact change to any other note). When I do this there is an audible but very short break between the tones, even when they are the same note. Very hard to try to describe! "In palatal modes (using by Tamas Hacki), the formation of the rear aperture resembles the "rounded lip mode." However, the tongue tip touches the alveolar ridge, forming a small anterior opening between the tip of the flattened tongue and the apex (upper front part) of the alveolar ridge. This anterior aperture cannot be moved; it lies more dorsal than in the aperture of the "rounded lip mode." Hence a smaller maximum resonance volume is produced when compared to the "rounded lip mode"; therefore, range is limited in the lower pitch register. The pitch elevation - that is, the reduction of the resonance volume-- occurs by pressing the upper tongue surface gradually upwards toward the palate. Conclusion: The acoustically effective space is on the rear limited by the tongue, and at the front by the lips or by the alveolar ridge – tongue tip complex." What I do is ... done by blowing through a hole made by the tongue and palate, augmented by articulation with the lips (via a mechanism that I myself don't fully understand). (For a short video of my style of whistling, please see http://complex.gmu.edu/~ernie/Misc/ and click on "Ernie_Barreto_Pergolesi...".) A lot of people make a very breathy, hissy whistle in this way, and some think of it as whistling through their teeth. A true palatal whistle has hardly any more air noise than a lip whistle and the mouth is, or can be, wide open. This is my preferred type of whistling (including duotone) and is widely used by a number of famous Hungarian whistlers. (BTW, you can also do this type of whistle with the lips almost fully closed and I used to do this surreptitiously in school classrooms too. This must be a peculiarity of some cheeky child whistlers!) I find that even though I have a range that is approximately three and a half octaves, I definitely have preferences in the portions of the range that I use. Part of the reason for this is that there seems to be a "switch" that I have to make to move into the bottom octave and smoothing the few notes between the bottom part of my range and the rest is do-able but challenging. Smoothing the transition between my lowest range and my mid-low range is something I have lately started to work on daily but still takes energy and thought to negotiate. (I had been concentrating on enriching my mid-low range first but now am again paying attention to the low-low range and moving back and forth between low-low and mid-low). Hence a "regular range", at least for performing. For the past couple of years, I've been basing my practice on the basic exercises that I used when learning flute to improve tone and range and learn new articulations. I especially like the Trevor Wye methods -- I recall that his motto for practice was "time, patience, and intelligent work," words that I have often thought of as I work. As for the "time" part, I try to put in some real practice (not just whistling songs, but working on scales, tone, and articulation and speed exercise) each day. For the "patience" part, I try to keep in mind that it can often take a long time to master a technique -- I can really improve over time if I don't give up. I've found that I can do things this year that I couldn't last year and have real hopes for next year -- anything worth doing is often not really easy to do. And for the "intelligent work" -- I try to really pay attention to what I'm doing and how I'm doing it rather than just putting in the practice time and "getting through" the work. I remember when my husband was learning to play piano -- he would play through a piece again and again errors and all without stopping. He found it very hard to learn to play well since what he was doing was learning to make the errors rather than learning to play well. I find it really helps me if I try to figure out what I'm doing. For example, when I practice I try to notice what I'm doing when I make a high or a low note that sounds good. It's so relaxing when I'm performing to actually "know" what I'm doing to make the sounds I make -- If the sound gets wobbly in any way, I can just think -- "OK, this is a low note, it's sounding thin, so I just need to extend out my lip this way a bit more -- that's it!". It helps a great deal. I think one of the reasons I was so nervous when I first started to perform for audiences was that it was a bit like doing trapeze without a net -- I could do most of the pieces, but I had little experience. I didn't know first-hand what exactly could go wrong (I learned :-) ) and what to do about it and I wasn't exactly sure how I was doing my high or low notes. The rolled "r" adds a chirp sound to the whistle. This is very much like the metal whistle containing a pea that spins around. The fluttering tongue (or the pea in the metal whistle) interrupts the sound many times per second (e.g. 10-20), turning it into a series of short pulses. They don't in any way split the note into two frequencies. Here is a little hint for roof whistlers who wish to whistle really quietly without anyone knowing who it is. True ventriloquist whistling. Here's how it goes: Start by closing your lips, maybe in a smile, then, still keeping your lips toghtly together, blow just enough so that some air escapes through a paper-thin (invisible) gap between your lips. Then do your normal roof whistle. Anyone would swear your lips are tightly closed, because they can't see the thin gap. The sound is very soft, because your mouth is nearly closed. This can be very useful on occasions when normal, loud whistling may annoy someone. (And I should know, because my whistling unfortunately annoys my wife!) I also call it my "echo" whistle because you can have fun with the kids by getting them to listen for the (fake) echo. For anyone who is a roof whistler, this should be easy to do. [For] roof, or palatal, whistling, I think there are variations on it, but my method has very low breath noise. You start by getting the tip

Palatal Whistling

Palatal Whistling

Palatal or Roof Whistling

Parts of Range

Practice techniques

Rolled R Whistle

Roof Whistle Very Quietly

Roof

Whistling

of your tongue to direct a stream of air just behind your top gums. To do this, obviously there must be no leaks around the sides of your tongue, so your tongue is flat and pushed against your top gums (or teeth) all the way round. For the rest, I can only say experiment around with the position of your lips until you get a sound. You can do this with your mouth wide open, but the shape still has to be right. The duotone (and yodel/warble) is formed by rounding the lips, although they stay more open than with pucker whistling. As for controlling the pitch of two notes, all I can say is it takes a lot of practice, and the musical ability to auralize (i.e. "visualize" aurally) the two notes in the first place. Many whistlers can do a controlled warble ("Fred Lowery warble") which can be extremely beautiful if both parts are accurately in tune. Roof whistle or tongue-palate whistle? This is different from toothwhistling as we do not use the teeth or lips. The sound comes off of the palate over the tongue, changing notes by lowering the middle of the tongue.

Roof Whistling Duotone

Roof or TonguePalate Whistling Simulate sound of wind in the trees

I'm very glad you brought up wind whistling through the trees. How many of us can simulate that sound with our mouths? I can. And the real trick is opening my mouth enough to stop the crisp whistle of what we all consider whistling. Your mouth is creating a small swirl inside that forms the basis for the whistle. You can change the pitch of that swirl by changing the size of the chamber in the mouth. It's only when the aperture of your lips is small enough that the swirl can resonate on itself that the loud, clear whistle is formed. I don't believe it has anything to do with the temperature difference in this case. Consider one of those whistle toys that looks like a vaccuum cleaner hose. The annoying whistle sound from that is not caused by temperature differences, but rather by all the small ridges swirling wind around to many resonating frequencies. SINGLE-TONGUING articulation technique: starting with the tongue tip against the alveolar corner, air pressure is built in the rear and the tongue tip coming down release the airstream, what create the sound attack. To discover it, while whistling, say Tah-Tah-Tah-Tah. Rarely used only in whistling (more for brass & flute), commonly used in the double & triple tonguing articulations techniques ONE-FINGER tapping = 4 taps x 126 beats/min, divided by 60 sec/min = 8,4 taps/sec GLOTTAL = 4 notes x 120 beats/min, divided by 60 sec/min = 8,0 notes/sec (95% of one-finger tapping) SINGLE-TONGUING (doing series of same notes, because I am not able to quickly do the 2 different notes as with glottal) = 4 notes x 116 beats/min, divided by 60 sec/min = 7,7 notes/sec (92% of one-finger tapping) TWO-FINGERS tapping = 4 taps x 208 beats/min, divided by 60 sec/min = 13,9 taps/sec (1,7 times of one-finger; 96% of two-fingers tapping) SLURRING = 4 notes x 200 beats/min, divided by 60 sec/min = 13,3 notes/sec (1,7 times of glottal; 96% of twofingers tapping) DOUBLE-TONGUING (doing series of same notes, because I am not able to quickly do the 2 different notes as with slurring) = 4 notes x 200 beats/min, divided by 60 sec/min = 13,3 notes/sec (1,7 times of single-tonguing; 96% of two-fingers tapping) TRIPPLE-TONGUING (doing 3-notes arpeggios series C-E-G-C-G-E-C) = 3 notes x 208 beats/min, divided by 60 sec/min = 10,4 notes/sec (135% of single-tonguing and 78% of double-tonguing) I got an easier way to do staccato, although pacifists among us may object to this method. Remember back when you were a kid and you imitated a machine gun with your voice? Do this while forming a whistle. Continue to shoot while gradually stopping using your voice and letting only your whistle sound. One caution!! Don't point your whistle at anyone while you are doing this. :-) I whistle in and out all the time. It lets me whistle more intricate passages and to do some staccato passages that would be very difficult, especially whistling triplets. By going in and out rapidly, it forces the staccato to be more pronounced and broken. If you're whistling at a moderate speed it is easier to just break the notes whichever way you're whistling, but when the speed increases changing the direction of the wind really helps. As with much of what is written here it's tough to explain. So I will post an example on my site, www.hornwhistler.com http://www.hornwhistler.com/ within 24 hours. Hope that helps. When doing the kind of breathing acrobatics I perform, it is necessary to take in more air than I let out. I've been playing a bit with the "T" articulation. Every time I'd tried to do it when whistling, I simply tried to "T" as I whistled. When I tried that, I got a "TW" effect, more suitable for bird call imitation than anything I could use for regular whistling. Then it occurred to me that with recorder, I'd learned to make that articulation by REMOVING the tongue from back of the top teeth rather than putting it toward the teeth as I would when making a real T sound. I tried moving my tongue away from my upper teeth to make the T sound and found that I got a much clearer T articulation that way -- more of a "teeeee" whistle than a "tweeeeee". Interesting. Not sure I'll use that articulation much though. When I want what I would have created with single-tonguing in flute, I think it may sound better to just do single breaths for whistling.... I would like to extol the value of staccato practising. Whilst it may not be good for the soul, there are several benefits: - diaphragm and breathing control - hitting a note right on - coordination between mouth (tongue etc) and air supply, glottis etc. I'll skip the theoretical stuff (as some may think we've had enough of that on other topics lately) and go straight into some practical suggestions. 1. On an instrument (piano etc. - anything will do but preferably not a wind instrument so that you can whistle and play together) (a) Play a note, then whistle it, short staccato, once only, stop, and play it again. Repeat on the same or other notes. Repeat but this time whistle the same note 3 or 4 times. (b) Play 2 or 3 notes on after the other, e.g. E, D, C (Three Blind Mice), whistle it staccato, and play it

Single Tonguing

Speed of different Articulation Techniques

Staccato

Staccato by using alternate Exhale/Inh ale

Staccato (T Articulation )

Staccato practising

again. (c) Repeat (b) with increasingly difficult sequences of notes, e.g. C, E, G (major) D, F, A (minor) C, F C, G C, A C, C#, D etc. (d) While doing (b) and (c), listen critically to yourself. Feel free to whistle legato at first if you find the staccato is too hard, then progress to the staccato. Listen carefully to the difference between tones and semitones, and between majors and minors. e.g. the defference between D, F# (major) and D, F (minor). 2. Without an instrument, decide on a note you want to whistle and "auralize" it, i.e. imagine that note "in your mind's ear". (Auralize as in "visualize".) Now whistle it and confirm that you hit it right on target without any sliding up or down on to it. If this is hard, try humming the note first, but eventually aim to inwardly "hear" the note you are about to whistle before you whistle it. 3. As for 2, but very deliberately position your mouth ready to whistle the note you have chosen, think about it, then suddenly whistle it very briefly, i.e. staccato. Confirm that you were right. Then listen very carefully and try for any further inprovement. Repeat with more than one note, as in 1(b) and 1(c). 4. Now for something more advanced but more fun. Try whistling the popular "Pop Corn" song as short and sharply as you can. Maybe you don't need to make your staccato quite as short as the original, but it's a great exercise. I like to do it while bike riding, where people don't notice my facial antics (or if they do notice I don't care, because I'm just a stranger in the street). Watch especially for the first line A, G, A, E, C, E, A (where the last A is the lower one, but I'm sure you all know the tune) which is very similar to the later one E, D, E, C, G, C, E. In fact, if you had started on E instead of A, the first line would have been E, D, E, B, G, B, E i.e. only two notes different, and only a semitone different. This is an excellent and enjoyabble way to practise the above exercises. When you finish, check if you are still in the same key that you started. 5. One final comment. Often when you practice you must do it quietly, e.g. because you don't want to annoy others in your house. However, you must also sometimes practise your whistling at full strength (e.g. while cycling or walking alone). This is necessary because the additional air pressure and air flow when whistling strongly makes a slight difference to the pitch. I believe this is one reason many performing whistlers are slightly sharp "on the night". (Singers also sing sharp or flat, but for different reasons). With strong whistling practice, this problem goes away. The above staccato exercises will help to show up whether you whistling is affected in this way. Time and Place to use Staccato / Warble Tongue Position and Vibrato Tongue position and Duotone In promoting the value of staccato practice, I should have also pointed out that there is a time and place for the use of staccato in actual performances, and that is only sometimes. However, I think it is a great tool to use very *often* when you practise, and it will help your musical whistling quality in general. Likewise there is a right time and place to use the "yodel" to run from one note to the next, and that is certainly not all the time.

I'm noticing that if I whistle a single note without vibrato and then move my tongue up lightly toward the roof of my mouth as I continue whistling, I end up doing a vibrato automatically. Especially if my tongue approaches that balance point that could trigger a "warble." And, when I want to lessen or stop my vibrato, I just have to move my tongue well away from the roof of my mouth. Most members of Orawhistle probably use several "ranges" of single-tone whistling. They then "yodel" back and forth between the ranges which produces articulation without stopping and starting the airstream. For me, there is really not any clear difference in tongue position for producing diads or two-part harmony, since the tones being used are the very single tones that we always use alone. I suspect that there is a lot going on in the mouth that we are not completely aware of --unfortunately, we can't see in there! With a stringed instrument, say, you can watch your hands, but with whistling.... From talking to some whistlers, I think there may be more than one way to "yodel", but they are very difficult to describe and distinguish from each other. I'm not absolutely sure about this, but it could account for why it is hard for one whistler to describe to another how to whistle two parts. This trill is done by first producing a tone with the tip of the tongue (#7) free inside the mouth. The tongue is then gently pushed against the back of the lower teeth (#2L - L meaning lower as opposed to U which would be, you guessed it! upper) while still blowing, of course. This results in the production of a tone anywhere from a 1/2 step to a fifth above the original tone.

Tongue to LowerTeeth Trill (7/2L Trill) TongueCentre Slurring (Warble)

TONGUE-CENTER SLURRING articulation technique or simply SLURRING (when no other things are specified) : This is our STANDARD slurring articulation in whistling. Commonly called warbling, yodeling or nodal (misnomer), this is the most standard and popular note attack technique in whistling to perform a series of quick to extremely quick linked notes (legato & legando articulations). Tongue-center section (tongue dorsum or top middle) changes quickly its lateral shape, without touching the palate, what makes a quasi-instantaneous variation/stabilisation of the airstream volume & pressure. This causes a transient noise, a kind of "popping" sound giving a clear and soft to medium note attack. Standard slurring articulation gives incomparable note speed/control capability while not limiting the gap distance between adjacent notes nor their pitch accuracy (experienced whistlers). During the tongue-center motion, the tongue tip is put (and moved) naturally behind the bottom teeth (or below on lower notes), as when the notes are performed separately in glottal articulation. For those interested, I discussed this kind of articulation in detail in my monograph "ON SOME BASIS FOR THE ACOUSTICS OF LABIAL WHISTLE", especially in chapters 4.2 (About tongue surface shape variation & articulation) and 7.0 (A standard method to determine your whistling sub-ranges general compass). Actually, whistlers who can warble (otherwise than the Lowery's style) do the tongue-center slurring articulation naturally. It seems that some whistlers cannot do the tongue-center slurring articulation; also, at first glance, it seems that females are less likely to use this articulation than males (surveys to be done for these two aspects). I suspect these whistlers cannot do this slurring because either they don't relax their tongues enough to permit the dorsum shape variation or because the presence of some physiological aspects which preclude their use of the specific intrinsic muscles to do the tongue dorsum shape variation. To be investigated... It is more difficult to show tongue-center slurring articulation to somebody who does not warble yet, but it is feasible. Let's go... Slurring UP: starting from a very LOW note, perform a slow glissando (a long slide : the body of your tongue going in a general up/front motion as its tip is put behind the lower teeth) up to a very HIGH note; let your tongue be very relaxed and, as it moves up, let it freely adjust its center shape; at some tone level, you will notice audible & short discontinuities (2 to 4) in the otherwise continuous tones, simultaneous with a feeling of a change in the shape of your tongue: at each of these discontinuities, you are making one UP-tongue-center slurring attack! Slurring DOWN:

now, slide again but starting from a very HIGH note down to a very LOW note. Again, you will notice discontinuities (2 to 4). At each of these discontinuities, you are making now one DOWN-Tongue-Center slurring attack. Slurring UP/DOWN: perform the slurring alternately UP & DOWN, reducing the up-down slide range, focussing more and more closely around a comfortable sound discontinuity; do this more and more quickly, and you will then perform basic TRILLS! Now, you can use the slurring technique articulation to makes note series... try & practice! Tongue-Tip Slurring (Warble) TONGUE-TIP SLURRING articulation technique: this is the Fred Lowery's articulation style. The tongue tip goes up against the alveolus corner and then comes down. To discover it, say Oh-L-Oh-L-Oh-L-Oh-L for low notes (difficult to begin with) and Ah-L-Ah-LAh-L-Ah-L for medium notes (no religious suggestions in here!...); do this more and more quickly; you will feel soon the capability to do a beautiful and deep "looling" sound.... the legendary Fred Lowery's whistling signature! You will have now to pratice some years (at least) to approach his perfection. The pitch accuracy of this technique is tricky on the "L" attack and its in-between 2-notes capability and its tessitura (overall range of use) is a lot more limited than the tongue-center slurring. I [learned to be] able to do a "trill" whistling ... by my "experimentally" finding out that I could alter the note I was whisting by touching the tip of my tongue to the upper fleshy part of my teeth and alternatly lift my tongue off and back on in rapid motion. What David Walter taught me was a trill using the tongue in a somewhat different manner. David showed me how to do a trill by touching the tip of the tongue against the lower front teeth of one's own set of teeth. I can do a rolling R for just one note and only very soft. When I do trilled R's in a the gutteral way, I can do low notes and high notes and I can change pitch, mainly by changing the mouth cavity with my lower jaw. For lower notes, my tongue is behind my lower teeth and for higher notes the tip of my tongue touches my underlip. I know it's very hard to explain how it works, and I think everyone has another technique. Duotone with trilled r's is hard to do but it's possible. I can do also a trilled R when humming. On the other hand, it's not possible for me to power whistle and make trilled r's, because I use another technique for power whistling than I do for trills. I don't use my cheeks when I trill. For me, lip position isn't important, I can do it with stressed lips and unstressed lips. In the hope that I can help, and what I think of as a trill is what you're after, I thought I'd take a stab at a quick description of how I believe it works. The trill is the result of the air flow being rapidly interrupted during the whistle, similar to the way a pea in a referee's whistle works. The way I do it is I relax the back of my tongue back by my uvula, then constrict the opening between my tongue and uvula while blowing out until the back of my tongue starts to vibrate against the uvula. The key is relaxing the back of your tongue enough to allow it to vibrate freely. The tip of your tongue should be behind your bottom front teeth (In whistle position) and be relatively motionless. You should be able to do this without whistling, then gradually pucker your lips until a whistle comes out. It seems to be a little easier to do for lower mid-range notes, though I can do it over a fairly good range. As you get some practice you can adjust the frequency of the vibration by varying the tension at the back of your tongue and the throat muscles immediately below the tongue (probably still part of the tongue). The sound I make is definitely like Fred Lowery's trill as demonstrated in the link, the warble is something different. So I can now confidently say that what I'm doing is a trill (though his is crisper.) I'll have to practice some the way he's describing to see if I can get more control, but my technique works pretty well. I've been working on a trilled version of Miserlou, trying to get something that sounds like Dick Dale's version in Pulp Fiction, with limited success. Added crispness would help, as would the ability to trill on the inhale. But my inhale whistle is inconsistent and the inhale trill dang near impossible, though I've had brief moments of success which lead me to keep practicing. A person who speaks, particularly from birth, a language with a "trilled r" (tip of the tongue to alveolar ridge, behind the teeth) or a uvular r (toward the back of the mouth) will find related whistling effects far easier than most monolingual English speakers. For example a Spanish speaker will find whistling an alveolar trill easier than say a German speaker who uses either a uvular r or a velar r. The speaker of Spanish could be expected to believe that the alveolar trill is innately easier. The "tongue flip" itself has no pitch. It's like changing notes on a flute by pressing a key, or pressing a valve on a trumpet. The air flow doesn't stop, but the pitch breaks over from one note to the other. It's not like if you were to move the slide on a trombone really fast between two positions. That's just a fast glissando between two notes. What I'm saying is that when I do a trill, the transition between the notes is not between two different positions of the tongue using the same puckered technique, because that would result in a glissando unless you stopped the air flow in between the notes. So not really knowing the right nomenclature, I guess I'm saying I have two different puckered techniques, one where the tongue touches the bottom teeth, and one where the tongue doesn't. Flipping the tongue between the two techniques causes an audible break (even without changing the pitch), and if I change pitches at the same time while flipping quickly, it sounds like a trill as if you quickly pressed and released a key on a flute. I really wish I could explain it better. There must surely be someone else in the group who trills the same way. Re: doing a trill by touching the tip of the tongue against the lower front teeth of one's own set of teeth: This alternate trill is about 4 times faster than the usual method. Usually, you trill by consciously positioning the tongue specifically "up" or "down" for each short note, using a strictly Legato technique. This new trill, however, requires a more "tunnelled" lip shape, and it succeeds by blowing harder and using the added air Pressure to move the tongue (think of a flag flapping in the breeze) in a manner crudely similar to that of the little cork ball inside a policeman's whistle. You just blow hard and hang on while the air pressure (from your diaphragm) does the work. It seems to work best at particular pitches.

Trill

Trill

Trilled R Whistling

Trilling

Trilling

Trilling

Trills

Use of epiglottis for warbling

I use my epiglottis a lot. It's the best way to get nice tight notes. Like for the notes of "When You're Smiling," I'm using my epiglottis for almost all the main notes. And I can get an epiglottal "flutter" that has speeded up with more practice. You can whistle Reveille without using the epiglottis, but it's more difficult and you have to use more of the muscles of your cheek and jaw, and the notes elide into each other. If you use your epiglottis to pop the notes it sounds more like a trumpet. I also recommend working on breathing techniques (i.e., chest expansion and diaphragm support) to make warbles and long articulated passages work. You can't warble unless you can create pressure to sort of break the air midstream, and you can't create pressure unless you've expanded your chest cavity and learned to push the air from deep down, and can quickly take air in without "slurping." (Singers are sometimes judged on how silently they can replenish air, and Barbra Streisand is known as a "gasper," which she insists is interpretation, not asphyxia.) Singers are taught to breathe so that their entire ribcage and abdomen expand downward and out, instead of lifting the shoulders and clavicle (which is why opera singers have barrel chests). Putting the air down there enables you to use the muscles in your lower torso to shape, move, and most of all compress the air so you can use it more efficiently. (I'm sorry I keep forgetting his name, but the man who did the AC commercial looks like he is barrel-chested.) I think the idea is to use the epiglottis as a pressure valve. The whistle is very weak when I don't use my epiglottis at all, and I run out of air very quickly trying to create volume. Your diaphragm has to have something to push against, and that's the closed epiglottis. Fingers and whistling ... that's something I've developed to assist my trills and especially my fast runs. If you study my YouTube video (or saw me at the IWC in 2003), you'd know that I use my fingers to tap my cheeks to articulate some fast notes ... not all, but for some it's critical. I can get a faster "attack" and "decay" than is possible with only my tongue. Even if someone does the same notes (32nd or 64th notes for example) there is a noticeable difference in these "rise" and "falls" of the individual notes ... more staccato. They are more distinct -- at least for me. I've practiced chromatic scales with this technique and now it's on auto-pilot. I can go from a gliss to individual notes easily now. In jazz single note soloing, one of the most important techniques is the "turn-around" which is often at the end of a phase ... for example a series of ascending notes should have a nice way to get you back down the scale ... not just reversing the notes (too boring). A turn-around is like a series of trills but the notes are not all half-step repeats. My finger/cheek pucallo style is the way that I execute this. It came to me when I was working on trying to be a fast as a sax-player on solos ... now I am. I've been on stage with many fine horn players and they're always amazed at how I can keep up with them ... or sometimes even challenge them to keep up ... fun and gains respect quickly. This is a really late comment on the 'uvular trill' thread. Fred Lowery's example in fact uses a 'uvular trill'. This is a linguistic term and you can find it discussed and a sound example of it at 'wikipedia uvular trill' (just paste into Google and hit 'I'm feeling lucky'). Lowery did not use an Italian (or Spanish, etc.) 'rolled r' for this purpose. This sound represents a uvular r as used in Portuguese and some dialects of French, like in the Vosges Mountains. Edith Piaf uses it in her singing and produces it very clearly. In the past, though, Orawhistle members have used musical terms more than linguistic terms, and a trill in music is something different, as has been pointed out -- a rapid alternation from one note to another note either a half step or a whole step away. Lowery's example does not involve the musical trill, of course. It uses the uvula to repeatedly and regularly interrupt the airstream coming from the lungs. He can do a musical trill, and he does that -- as well as the musical tremolo -- very well, but he is not doing it in the sound example posted here. Although he refers to the 'roof of the mouth', apparently he intends that as a kind of blanket term including the uvula, although in fact the uvula is little farther back than that. I hope this is helpful to some of you who are interested in trying to use the 'uvular trill' in whistling to produce a kind of 'flutter tongue' sound. Whistlers generally will have difficulty using the rolled r for that purpose because the tips and blades of our tongues are busy with other things. But usually the uvula is relatively available for use in flutter-tonguing by most whistlers. Note that because the uvular trill is not used in English, English speakers don't usually find it easy to produce, but it can be learned with perseverance. It helps if you are about 12 years old or less (ha ha), of course, since at that age as a practical matter humans brains are still more or less open to sounds outside their native languages. Anyway, it may help note the distinction between a musical trill and a linguistic 'trill'. Re "ladling," the actual "ladle" tongue movement only works in a short range of notes for me, mostly low ones. High warbles, when I can do them, are formed by pulling the tip of the tongue back, which is hard to do. Best warbles at high notes come from little breaks at the very front of the mouth, but all my warbles are hard to control, and therefore hard to do lyrically. Nevertheless I'm sticking a warble anywhere I can. The original version of "My Blue Heaven," from 1927, has a "ladling" warbler. He flutters his way up and down the line, but I can't get his high notes either. I work a lot on diaphragm flutter: the William Tell Overture, for example. You're probably right ... I don't have an X-ray machine to check. But the warble technique is very different, even though the effect is the same. On low notes my tongue does "all" the moving. On high notes, my cheek and air pressure does "all" the moving. It is hard to do the low notes with just the cheek and air pressure, and it is hard to do the high notes with just the tongue. Also, on inhale it is MUCH easier to have the tongue moving, and I only use the cheek for quick triples as any more than that just won't work well. And with inhale or exhale, moving the center "cup" of the tongue adds wonderful effect/feeling to the sound. I get a warble-like sound in my high notes by slipping the tip of my tongue over my lower front teeth -- does this qualify as a "warble," or do you have to have the nice clipped sound that a true warble has? I can also combine diaphragm flutter and tone-wiggle to simulate a warble, but for competition this may not pass (again, I have no clue as to what they grade in whistling and how they grade it, like triple-toe loops or what have you).

Using Fingers to help with trills and fast runs

Uvular trill

Warble articulation

Warble articulation

Warble articulation

Warble articulation

I get a warble-like sound in my high notes by slipping the tip of my tongue over my lower front teeth

Vann

-- does this qualify as a "warble," or do you have to have the nice clipped sound that a true warble has? I can also combine diaphragm flutter and tone-wiggle to simulate a warble, but for competition this may not pass (again, I have no clue as to what they grade in whistling and how they grade it, like triple-toe loops or what have you). Warble articulation Warbling has improved since I let go of the "make the 'ladle' movement" and went to "bubble the air through your cheeks." I thought it was all tongue movement, and I find it's also about popping the seal between the sides of your tongue and your cheeks. Sometimes the tongue doesn't move at all. Sometimes a warble happens between exhale and inhale. You kind of have to feel when it happens more than try to make it happen. My diaphragm movements factor into warbling, too. I also "fake warble" just by wiggling the sound with my tongue, which works fine but isn't a true warble -- more of a fast vibrato. I know what you mean about the "ladle" warble -- I haven't found that too useful either. I really think you're right about the cheeks and I also find that the lips play a role too -- if they aren't relaxed, the warble seems not so good and I find that a warble can occur from lip movement too especially on the higher notes when the tongue is closer to the front of the mouth. I find the "ladle" warble immensely useful. When I whistle songs like "Air on a G String", I start the long notes without moving the ladle", and slowly increase the motion until a fast vibrato happens at the end. It sounds a lot better than just whistling a straight note, or a constant vibrato. In Vivaldi's Spring Concerto, a center flurry of activity has a violin warbling between two notes very fast and very high. I use the "ladle" very heavily there since I find it hard to use the cheek bubble method, and it sounds better to me. Try using the "ladle" warble to add feeling to your slow pieces. I think you will like the results. Try "loodle" and "leedle". It is hard to whistle with your mouthful.

LaRo

Vann LaRo

Warble articulation

Linda Ham

Warble articulation

Paul

Warble articulation

Robe Stem Paul

Warble articulation

I seem to have misunderstood what was meant by "ladle" here. I assumed you meant the tongue was cupped, like a ladle, when you actually meant that the tongue is positioned and moved like pronouncing "ladle". Now that I think I understand the terms right, I never use "ladle" ... ever. I use the cheek bubble exclusively, and add other techniques like the one mentioned below for effect. The cheek bubble can either be done by moving the tongue or moving the cheek. I move my cheek on higher notes since there isn't a lot of room to move, and my tongue on lower notes where there is more room. I must correct myself because when I wrote that the loodle sound occurs solely with the tongue I was perceiving it to do so based upon what I just noticed while doing it. I later recollected the fact that there is more behind it than just the tongue. I apologize if this has affected anyone trying to learn this technique. If any whistlers would like I would be happy to help them by phone. I do the same thing with "cheek bubble". I think there may actually be more then one way to view some of these techniques. For instance, on cheek bubble (or cheek warble as I have previously called it), there still is some tongue motion if you'll examine closely (yes, there is, look closer). You could describe it by that and would not be incorrect. Better might be to describe both the cheek and tongue motions but it would sure be a challenge. It's easier for me to warble high notes than really low ones. Somehow the space I need to create for low notes is too large for my tongue to work in (so far). The other thing I think I've learned is that you have to be able to articulate the notes you want with your epiglottis (the first three notes of the William Tell Overture, for example; you can't "huff" them, you have to "unh" them). Then with an epiglottal 'push,' you push more air into a smaller space and bubble it around your tongue. I think the warble happens because of the greater volume of air moving through a smaller space. If I try to make a warble without using my epiglottis to chug the air through, it doesn't seem to happen. Once you get the "bubble," the other warbles come easier. But the main thing seems to be pushing more air through, blocking it partially, and then letting it bubble through. Higher-note warbles seem to happen by pushing the tip of my tongue forward rather than flipping it up and down. Ascending and descending scales are hard, getting those nicely cornered runs like Geert has. I think we don't all agree on what a "warble" is. I associate it with the the style of note changes that are analogous to yodelling. The technique is done by "playing on the edge of two notes."

Warble loodle

Robe Stem

Warble technique

Robe Stem

Warbling

Vann LaRo

Warbling

Fran Bonif

Warbling / Duotone

Now the trickier part... the *warble* (and indeed the duotone, or one form of it). A chamber such as the mouth with the tongue lying fairly flat has a single natural resonance, depending on its dimensions and to a lesser extent on its shape, so there is no opportunity to yodel or warble. However, while whistling, raise the tip of your tongue gradually until your whistling becomes unstable. With practice you can learn to control this and it will become stable again and with a *lot* of practice you may one day develop a "FL" warble that you can control accurately. I believe what is happening here is that the *shape* of the resonating cavity is now complex, i.e. branched in a sense, because of the alternative pathways around the tongue, which is now dividing the cavity not into 2 separate cavities, but splitting it just the same. In mathematical/engineering terms, I would describe these two different resonating frequencies as "nodal" resonances. There are plenty of simple analogies - weights hanging on strings or springs, water waves bouncing around a chamber etc., but the inside of the mouth is a bit harder to observe! (BTW, I was interested in the fibre-optic study of a singer's vocal cords mentioned in an earlier Orawhistle posting). As for the "ball of air" in the back of the throat while warbling, I think I understand that too. There is such a feeling back there, but it is just an effect of the air pressure variations that you are generating to create your warble. The origin of these air pressure variations is even further back, at the glottis in my case. I describe them as "partial glottal stops", like a series of "H"s in quick succession (about 6 per second, at a rough count). By the time these pressure variations reach the resonating chamber in the mouth, they cause the "flip/flop" between the two nodes, or resonating frequencies. You may also notice your cheeks expanding and contracting slightly with each of these little puffs of extra air pressure, but that is just incidental, it is not part of the warbling mechanism. I use the word "yodel" now to describe any sudden jump between two different notes, as in a voice yodel or the very similar jump in roof whistling or pucker whistling. When repeating up and down quickly, I use the term "warble", although I gather there are other meanings of "warble" to some people as well. BTW, I do believe the whistling yodel is very different from the jump of a bugle from one harmonic to another, as the whistling chambers in the mouth are so small that they are resonating at their fundamental pitch, not at a harmonic. The sound is, however, very similar. I think the sound of the "discontinuity" is also similar, i.e., that momentary sound you hear for a split second as the whistle changes suddenly from one note to the other. A bugler (or flute or clarinet etc. player) hides this sound by use of tonguing, but in a whistle I believe the sound is always regarded as pleasant. OK, having got this far, now for something a little different, since you raised the subject. (Are you still with me? - Please yell if this is too much!). I think some good whistlers use a technique that I call a "Reverse Yodel". What I mean is this. A normal yodel is, e.g. C, E, D, F, etc. i.e., always up, down, up, down, but never up, up or down, down. A question facing a whistler may be how can I yodel two "ups" or two "downs", e.g., as in a scale or an arpeggio. He/she may want to do it to get a clear, rapid running tune with "yodel" type of clear but legato jumps from one note to the next. It can be done, with mix of cheating, skill and practice. The technique is quite simple but takes a lot of practice. In the split second that the "jump" takes to happen, you can very quickly re-position your mouth to whatever note you want. It will take practice (a) to do it quickly enough and (b) to do it accurately so that in the split second you land on the right note without any sliding. I find there is a little more of the momentary "discontinuity" sound with a reverse yodel than with a normal yodel but it is still pleasant and gives the ability to whistle almost any legato passage with clear jumps from one note to the next. I have heard many samples of this type of whistling so I'm not talking about anything new, just trying to describe it. I do this with roof whistling but exactly the same principle applies to pucker whistling. I hope that others who have not yet tried to do this may try it out and add it to their store of techniques. It is hard to make almost any word when you whistle. The "loodle" sound is not actually made but attempted. Now when doing a certain cardinal (red bird) sound known as a "theater" or "theadore" a whistler cannot say the word but in attempting to do so can make just the right whistling sounds to correctly imitate that particular call. Note: I find that the "leedle" (leedle, loodle, ladle, liedle, any seem to work) occurs solely with the tongue, never the lips. There isn't room in my mouth to move my tongue to warble the low notes. I can do it though by using my hand and flexing my diaphragm. It is not as smooth. When I warble low notes I have to pull my tongue back to create a larger air chamber just as when I whistle regular notes. Because the position of the tongue is different than with high notes it may require some work to learn but I expect you can do it. My tongue goes lower, with the tip pressing against the back of my lower teeth, but I do not pull the tongue back. Never even thought about it until now.

Glen Thom

Warbling / Yodelling

Glen Thom

Warbling Words

Robe Stem

Warbling low notes

Rich

Warbling low notes

Robe Stem

Warbling low notes

Whistling two or three notes at once

During my early teens, when I was warbling two notes, it dawned on me that the two notes were from different air streams. That got me thinking that perhaps I could bring those two streams together and whistle two notes at once. Since then I have been able to whistle two notes simultaneously, varying the interval between the notes. I have never performed with such whistling, but imagine that it is not too common. In the past I did actually manage three notes, but have not been able to do so for quite some time now, so I am stuck with just the two. I stop notes with my throat rather than tongue, as, if using the tongue, I would not be able to manipulate it sufficiently to manage to reproduce two note chords. I can whistle very long phrases without stopping for breath, as I can whistle either when breathing in or out. If I understand correctly, the question is about whistling two tones at the same time and stopping tone A while continuing tone B, then starting A again, never stopping the air stream or tone B at any time (I hope that's not too murky!). Maybe it will help if I put it this way. If you can whistle a single tone, and you are also capable of whistling two tones at the same time, what's to stop you -in principle -- from changing from one tone to two tones and back without stopping the breath stream? In other words, it's a matter of adding a tone and then not adding a tone. I don't think it is very complicated conceptually, but it does take some practice to actually do it. I guess the trick is doing it while not stopping the airstream. I think if you can whistle two notes at the same time, you can leave off, say, the bottom note and continue the top note. Next step: whistle two notes, leave off the bottom and then return to two notes, all the while continuing to exhale. The main thing seems to be to form a triangle with the fingers in the mouth and whistle down through it. One issue that all tuners I've used have is their "tracking" time. It takes the little processor in them to lock into the note. You can see this sometimes even before it starts showing you the graph or LEDs which are low/high compared to a std. pitch note. Guitar synths have been plagued by this sine their inception, but I it's vastly improved recently. I can't imagine looking at one of these things for trying to hit the note dead on within a tune. I do think it could be useful to get the first note of a tune in your head before starting. Since I get my guitar in-tune, I then try a few whistling notes (usually over a chord) to do that indirectly. The other thing is that when you whistle slides into notes or trill or vibrato you'll be ahead of these thing's ability to give you much useful information. I suggest you use it to test your ability to stay in key for example. Start with copying a note from the tuner and do different scales starting at that note. When you think you've hit say the octave above accurately ....hold that note and check. You can do this for any note in the scale, just take a deep breath and hold it long enough for the tuner to show you the results. I personally think a real instrument would be a better choice - even an inexpensive keyboard. I do unison/harmony duets with my guitar and I have to practice this to be able to do it well. I also notice that the various tuners I have seem to have real difficulty with my low whistled notes and my high notes -- not terribly useful. I've found it easier to use my mandolin to keep track of what note I'm on. A piano would be handy too. Don't whistle directly into the mic. This causes the mic's diaphragm to reach it's limit of movement (clunk sound), in addition to the wind noise. Try aiming at an angle so the wind passes the mic. Back in the nineties when I was asked to audition for the director of the Binghamton (NY) Pops Orchestra, I did the first movement of the Mozart 4th Horn Concerto with piano accompaniment from Music Minus One. This (and some Tchaikovsky, I believe) was what got me the trophy in classical music at the Carson City "Whistleoff" in the early 80's. Although my extreme nervousness (with only one person listening) should have told me that I had no business presenting myself to be soloist with a symphony orchestra, the conductor liked my whistling and invited me to perform with them at a series of Christmas concerts they were to do in a couple of months. He gave me the flute part for the Ralph Von Williams setting of "A Fantasy on Green Sleeves" and some other piece that today escapes my ageing memory. We rehearsed one time the night before the first of three concerts. They had set up a Radio Shack PZM microphone on the music stand in front of me (still the very best mic for this sort of application---- unfortunately R.S. no longer carries it) and patched it into and excellent auditorium sound system. The first night went wonderfully, as did the second. The third night I thought I knew the part well enough to ignore the score in front of me. I got lost! I came in early after an orchestral interlude, realized it and decided to wing it as improvisation. WRONG! A withering glance from the conductor and snickering from the ranks of violinists closest to me put me in my place. In whistling classical music one does NOT improvise. I never heard from the orchestra again. Oh, well!

Brian A

Whistling two tones at the same time and stopping tone A while continuing tone B, then starting A again

Roger S

Whistling with Two-Fingers

Linda H

Whistling with a Tuner or Guitar

Frank B

Whistling with a Tuner or other Instrument

Linda H

Whistling with a mic

Frank B

Whistling with an Orchestra

Peter B

Whistling with an Orchestra

bout rehearsing classical concerts, the following; I've done about 12 concerts now with professional symphonic Orchestras. What is different compared to amateurs is the following. When you work with them, they expect you to be as professional as they are. This means you can whistle a piece one or two times before getting on stage, but that's it. Professionalism also means: you are the soloist so you make the rules about how you want to be accompanied (together with the conductor of course). You have to say this when rehearsing. All the musicians in these orchestras have been Geert C on stage often, so when you are nervous, they understand, but they also think you should overcome it. The main thing is, be well prepared, be assertive and whistle without mistakes. (and enjoy every minute of it, swallow the atmosphere, the audience etc.) These things are really great to experience because I never had thought that I would ever play with a real orchestra. With the flute or recorder, it would never have happened, because I am just not good enough. http://www.geocities.com/whistle_teach/ Whistling in public is not a bad thing. Of course, like other musicians, we should practice sensible restraint. It's not fair for me to whistle at my desk at work or anywhere where there are apt to be people trying to concentrate. I wouldn't play my flute there or practice opera .... and I won't whistle. But in common areas not dedicated to work -- in the stairwells, hallways, cafeterias, and outside -that's fair game. My whistling there gives me an opportunity to enjoy my whistling and to introduce people to the musical art of whistling. However, if someone asked me not to whistle around them in any of these casual environments, I wouldn't consider continuing (at least around that person) just as I wouldn't try to force my flute playing or singing on them. Basically, I think that a serious mouth dryness for a whistler is like putting a cotton layer on the inside surface of an ocarina or a flute (or on a handwhistler's palms)... and trying to play as clearly as usually with such a "muffler" ! A big headache!... Especially when that happens in front of an audience! (See point (2(b) below) Well, Clarence, yes, I have a physical hypothesis to explain why dry mouth makes it so hard to whistle or, more precisely, makes it so hard to whistle clear notes (what follows is definitively not for those of you who are allergical to such technical speech !). Briefly, I think that dry mouth makes the mouth chamber's inside surface become more "porous," and it loses its reflectivity. Then the air waves' pulsations, which are supposed to give the whistled tone in the chamber resonant frequency, are very damped by absorbtion on this porous surface. It results in a faint or nonexistant tone, and a lot of wind production.... let's say a "unvoluntary windstle"... One more point on wireless mics -there are good and bad ones as well. Sennheiser uses the same capsule in one of its wireless mics as the KSM 105. But there is a bigger issue here. The FCC is reassigning the frequencies that analog TV stations use (going away in 2009), and this is the same range as what audio wireless equipment has been using. Most of these current designs will probably not be allowed to operate beyond 2009 (India may be different) - so I wouldn't rush to purchase one today. Audio Technica has a new wideband design that will work after this change happens, but I expect other mfgs to do something similar soon too. The way I first discovered that whistling two parts was possible at all was that I noticed that when I was going from one note to another using what people on Orawhistle have variously called a "break", a "yodel", and some other things I can't recall at the moment -- anyway, when going from one note to another across the break, I noticed that I accidentally produced them both at the same time very briefly. I was intrigued, of course, and started practicing it. The way I did this was to concentrate very hard on trying to keep my mouth and tongue as close as possible to going to the other note without quite flipping to it. Pretty soon I gained a little more control and produced two notes at the same time. The truth is, when I thought I was getting pretty good at it, I tried to demonstrate for my older brother, but with an audience I couldn't do it! He laughed and said I was imagining things, and that made me so mad I practiced for weeks until I could do it without much problem. Amazing what motivates humans. I guess what I am suggesting is that if you know what I mean by "the break" or "yodeling" while whistling (can someone help me here?), and you can do it, then you can probably whistle two tones at the same time. There are a number of members of Orawhistle who can do this, and some other member will surely be better at explaining this than I am. It may seem to some that to stop one of the tones you have to stop the air, but, as you know, all you have to do it off-balance it a bit and it flips back to a single tone. This can be either the upper or the lower of the two notes, Or, equally, it can be another note altogether, byt quickly changing to a new note during the slight break. The "slight break" is just the familiar break you hear in any yodel.

Whistling with two hands Whistlnig in Public

Steve T

Linda H

Why dry mouth makes it hard to whistle

Tangua Desgag

Wireless Mics

Frank B

Yodel whistling and duotone

Roger S

Yodel whistling and duotone

Glen Th

ePuccolo

It's quite unique in the range of sounds and methods of control I can achieve now. The sounds that have been locked in my head for many years, are finally starting to become reality.... OK, I can hear the comments about me being crazy. Some of the purists out there may label this heresy, but don't fear, I haven't abandoned pure acoustic whistling. There's a place for both in my music, but I'm so excited about the new possibilities with this instrument, that I wanted to share my first composition with you. "ePuccolo #1", is now posted at my web-site: http://www.thejazzwhistler.com For the technically inclined out there, this piece was done live! That's right, it's a single track recorded in real-time. I used an EchoPlex looper (also in real-time) to record the repeating background elements, but that's all. Everything else is done on top of that at the time of the creation of the piece. While I have done many multi-track recordings, I feel that there is a special sense of spontaneity in doing this sort of creative music all at once. When used effectively, the electronics allow me to make music not possible without it. It's all about controlling the electronics ... not them controlling or limiting you. Yes, it's like juggling many balls at once, but when I get into a zone, I don't actually have to think about the difficulties ... just creating new music. I have also posted a picture of my effects rack and pedals on my website. I'm calling this my "Control Pod." If you look closely, you'll see I have controls both for my hands and my feet. In this way I get maximum control of many devices. I am also chaining several devices in series to get new effect combinations not possible with just a single device. For example, I can run a phaser (swooshing sounds) through a harmonizer (multiple notes from one whistle tone), to a ring-modulator (too wacky to describe). I do not use any MIDI in the signal chain as I don't want to lose the whistle tone in the process...that would be too easy. The folks at Moog, Electro-Harmonix and others tell me that I'm their first puccolo customer ... move over electric guitarists and keyboard synthesizer players, here comes the ePuccolo!