It’s much more than lip service.
“We like to say you’re going to get blown away at the festival,” said Carole Anne Kaufman, producer of The Masters of Musical Whistling International Festival and Competition.
“It’s the most obscure instrument that everybody has played,” Monrovia native Kaufman added about the noise we can all theoretically make with our mouths.
Her third bi-annual event – it alternates years with the World Whistlers Convention in Japan – is bringing some 60 top melody whistlers from 11 countries to the Pasadena Convention Center Friday and Saturday for a packed agenda of song-whistling competitions, classes, a whistling karaoke lunch and an International Concert of the Masters.
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It’s all open to the public, with information, tickets and videos of past performances available at www.mastersofwhistling.com.
It will not be your typical hoo-boy or wolf whistling on display. Musical whistling is about performing the lyrical parts of songs, or segments of compositions, with one’s controlled breath rather than words.
“I would just like people to have an appreciation for it as music,” Mitch Hider, a performer from Eugene, Ore., who’s serving as emcee of the Pasadena event, said of his hopes for the festival. “I think this will raise the consciousness of musical whistling quite a bit. There will be classical, a lot of jazz and some pop music, too. I’m hoping it will open their ears to whistling wherever they hear it.”
Kaufman, a multiple world champion who whistles professionally at private parties, corporate events and the like as The Whistling Diva, noted that her artform has been around for as long, probably, as our species has.
“Once upon a time, whistling was part of culture,” she said, adding that the practice occurs on every continent and in all human societies. “Back in the day it really was, until the Industrial Revolution came along and bosses said ‘Hey, we don’t want any happiness in our factories, cool it!’ That’s really what the research says.”
Both Kaufman and Hider, a former UPI reporter, have dug deeply into the culture, history and sociology of whistling. They note that musical whistling enjoyed a revival around the time movies discovered sound and the Big Band Era dominated popular music in the second quarter of the 20th Century.
Baby Boomers probably remember whistling crooners such as Roger Whittaker, the iconic whistled theme songs from “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” “Lassie” and “The Andy Griffith Show,” as well as the Harlem Globetrotters-announcing take on “Sweet Georgia Brown” and the coda to Otis Redding’s 1968 hit “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.”
What today’s musical whistlers do goes beyond that memorable chart-topper.
“That is one of those interesting songs that really illustrates how we are different as professional and championship competition whistlers,” Kaufman explained. “Although I would be honored to whistle that riff in ‘Dock of the Bay,’ what I am really up to doing is whistling the lyrics. We are interested in whistling the melody, not being just an accent. We are legitimate musicians who are there to take the stage and to bring you music in a way you’ve never heard before.”
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This weekend’s competitors and concert performers were chosen from over 100 audition videos. Kaufman said her preparation for contests and big shows involves whistling chosen songs incessantly and at public performances, drilling every note forward and back. Muscle strength, longevity and embouchure – the same marshaling of lips, facial muscles, tongue and teeth wind instrument players must master – have to be brought up to peak standards.
You’ve got to love it. While a handful of whistlers like the Dutchman Geert Chatrou, who works on Cirque du Soleil shows and with symphonies throughout Europe, can make a living at it, Kaufman more typically does other work as well, such as producing the annual Monrovia Music Festival.
“I don’t know any whistlers that do” make their whole living from it, said Hider, who described his own act as a vaudeville-style variety show that’s about half whistling combined with ukulele, singing, scat, yodeling and harmonica.
Nevertheless, “I’ve been doing it publicly and professionally for over 40 years,” Hider added. “My first professional job was a funeral. I whistled ‘Amazing Grace’ and was handed $25.”
Kaufman thinks her festival in the entertainment capital of the world can help improve the employment outlook for dedicated, talented whistlers.
“My mission is all about bringing whistling into the mainstream and promoting artistry,” said the Whistling Diva, who closed out an interview with a spine-tingling rendition of George Gershwin’s “Summertime.” “I knew Los Angeles was the place that we needed to bring whistling so that we could expose it to the savviest audience in the world here.”
IF YOU GO:
WHAT: The Masters of Musical Whistling International Festival and Competition.
WHEN: Friday and Saturday, morning through night
WHERE: Pasadena Convention Center, 300 E. Green Street, Pasadena, CA 91101
HOW MUCH: $10 to $30 per different events, some free
INFORMATION & TICKETS: www.mastersofwhistling.com