THE WHISTLING BOY

Manawatu Herald, Volume LII, Issue 4685, 21 November 1931, Page 1

THE WHISTLING BOY

"The human whistle, as well as (he. unstudied, spontaneous, untrained song of the person who has a tune in his head, is the only natural music iii the world. It is the foundation of all other music.” says a, writer in the Boston Transcript. “Did you ever think of the miracle, or at least the mysterious anil wonderful g-ift of the ability of those who possess the sense of lime to produce accurately, by control of the muscles of the lips and month, each note of a tune? What does the whistling hoy know about musical scales, intervals, or any part of the technique of producing a note? Think first of the care, the toil, the patience, the skill involved in keeping- the piano, the violin, or any other sensitive musical instrument in exact tune, so that every note it produces shall he true. Think how the ilute, or the clarinet, or the horn must be most, skilfully and carefully made in order that its notes shall not vary an imaginable distance from the proper thing. And then think of the ten-year-old boy driving his cows home from the pasture, and producing with his untrained, unconscious lips and tongue and palate a tune in which every note is just and true! This hoy has not the slightest idea how he gets these notes, and yet if his lips were contracted a millimetre more or less closely, his notes would he off the key and liis tune a failure. How does he do it?”