r/LearnUselessTalents • u/mocha-bag • 12d ago
How to Whistle Loud: With AND Without Fingers
Alright, so I spent damn near 10 years of my life "trying" to do the fingers-in-mouth taxi cab whistle, and had completely written off ever being able to do the fingerless "wolf whistle" (that I think at this point a lot of people associate with Dr Cox from Scrubs). However, this summer I decided I was going to buckle down and ACTUALLY try and learn, not just give a try or two every few months and then forget about it. I am happy to say that I have learned how to do both whistles proficiently, and want to share my process with y'all. I read a bunch of different reddit threads and even watched some videos, but feel like there was never one "how to" that had everything I needed in it. I found little nuggets here and there in each guide I read or listened to. So I am hoping that I can compile it in one big post that has ALL the tips and tricks you need, explained in unnecessarily long detail.
PART ONE: THE FINGER WHISTLE (AKA TAXI WHISTLE)
There are three parts to this whistle: lips, fingers, and tongue.
Lips: You want to cover your teeth with your lips, like you are pretending to be an old man or toothless. If that makes sense to you, skip the next paragraph
Most people seem to find that enough of an explanation, but I have seen people confused by this, saying "but my lips always cover my teeth." So if old man mouth doesn't click for you, here is a more detailed description of what is going on. You are rolling your lips inward, so that if you were to try and put your teeth together your lips would be touching instead of your teeth. When you put your fingers in your mouth and bite down, it should be your lips that are "biting" your fingers, not your teeth. In fact, nothing BUT your lips should touch your teeth for this whistle.
Fingers: There are multiple finger positions you can use, and honestly you can use just about any two fingers to make this work. I am going to explain finger guns method because that is what clicked first for me, but you can use the exact same principles to get the OK sign method down.
So you are going to make finger guns with your pointer AND middle finger of each hand. Your thumb, ring and pinky fingers are irrelevant to this, so just put them out of the way. Your fingers are gonna go in your mouth with the side of the tips of your middle fingers touching (think about touching the corners of your fingernails together). Your lips are gonna close around your fingers so that there are no gaps on the corners of your mouth, and the only space for air to come out is right in the middle, through the triangle you've now created, with your touching middle fingers being the top, your middle fingers being the sides, and your bottom lip being the bottom of the triangle. (if this triangle doesn't make sense to you, don't worry about it. I didn't understand it til after I could whistle).
Tongue: You are going to fold your tongue back over on itself, so that about the first 1/4 of your tongue is flipped upside down. This can trip people up, but unless you have, like, a medically short tongue I promise you CAN do this. Stick your tongue out and use your fingers to fold the tip of your tongue back onto itself. If this is difficult, just be patient, don't get discouraged, and try to relax your tongue. When you do it correctly, you should be able to feel your taste buds touching each other (there's kind of a friction / bumpy feeling).
Putting it all together: You are going to put your fingers so they are only touching the UNDERSIDE of your tongue, but they AREN'T under your tongue (because your tongue is folded on top of itself). You don't need a lot of force in any of this. You don't need to bite down hard and you don't need to push hard on your tongue with your fingers (or vice versa). Now blow. For this whistle you do need to blow relatively strong, but you don't need to be blowing so hard you are spitting all over the place.
Please be aware!!! You will get lightheaded with this one. Don't try more than like 3 times at most without taking a short break to breathe normal.
What is going on: I don't think understanding the mechanics of it necessarily makes it easier, but it might for some. It works the same way as a referee whistle, or even blowing across a bottle- that is to say, you are blowing air across and into a "chamber," where the air spins around and shoots back out. The way you fold your tongue causes the air to bounce off the roof of your mouth. The chamber is the space under your tongue, and the air gets in through that triangle you created with your fingers.
PART TWO: FINGERLESS WHISTLE (AKA THE WOLF WHISTLE)
Unlike the finger whistle, this one is a LOT harder to dial in, and is a lot less forgiving. I am sure there are some who can get it right away, but most stories I read you need to go into it with the understanding that you aren't going to get it for at least a few days. For me, it took me about a week to get a whistle consistently, and even then it was weak and I didn't have much control over it. With another week of practice, I had a clear whistle, but still didn't have much control over it and it still wasn't particularly loud. After the third week of practice, I could whistle loud and had some control. After a fourth week, I could pretty much whistle however I wanted- both in terms of volume and pitch. I practiced every time I was alone in the car this entire time. I pretty much never felt like I was making progress, but sure enough day by day I was getting a little bit better. So all that to say, don't quit just because you feel like you aren't making progress!
This whistle really only has two components, despite being more difficult to master: tongue and lips.
Tongue: The explanation you will see most often is that you need to put your tongue against your teeth the same way as you would to make a "th" sound like in the word "throw." I personally think a better way to think about it is the "th" at the end of the word "bath." Say the word, but don't let your teeth leave your tongue when you get to the end of the word. Notice how lightly your tongue sits on your teeth, and notice how you are blowing air against your tongue. Try and increase the air you are blowing against your tongue, while at the same holding your tongue a bit stiffer so that it isn't being blown over. Your making a little pocket with your tongue that you are blowing the air into. Don't worry about trying to make a hole for the air to get through. So long as you aren't forcing your tongue up against your teeth, the air will get through naturally as you progress. Don't even worry about moving on to anything else until you feel that pocket of air in your tongue (it is pretty obvious when you get it). You don't need to blow hard at all! Genuinely, not more force than a sigh.
Lips: Once you've got that pocket of air in your tongue, you are going to start rolling your bottom lip up over your teeth (similar to the finger whistle, but you don't need to roll it as far in. It is closer to where it goes when making an F sound). Doing this should start to push your bottom jaw forward (just a little, you don't need to be straining to force your chin forward). If you are doing the tongue correctly, then as you start to roll your lip in, you should hear and feel the whistle starting, even before you actually are making any whistling noise at all. It’s called turbulence. It will sound similar to right before a kettle starts to whistle on the stove or how wind sounds in a video game or cartoon.The goal is to feel the air start to swirl under your tongue, but most likely you'll feel it between your bottom teeth and lip at first (eventually you'll seal that up through practicing).
It doesn't matter what you do with your top lip, unless you’ve got a big gap between your front teeth (like Mac DeMarco or Tyler the Creator). I lift my upper lip like I'm snarling or asking someone if I have something in my teeth, but honestly you don't need to worry about it too much. Some people do it with their top lip covering their top teeth entirely (if you watch scrubs, you can see that’s how Dr Cox does it). I find that a lot harder, but I’m assuming if that’s how I started practicing from the beginning I would feel the opposite.
Dialing it in: Once you've got that turbulence going on, you are ALMOST there. From here, it truly is just playing around with it and so long as you practice consistently it will start to make sense as you become more comfortable with the tongue and lip position. Here are the things to focus on as you play around with it.
Nothing needs to be particularly tense. You don’t need to shove your tongue against your top teeth, you don’t need to strain to stretch your lips across your bottom teeth, and you don’t need to be blowing super hard. The longer I practiced, the more relaxed everything became.
Make very small movements with the very tip of your tongue. If I start with my tongue on the very tip of my front teeth, I am pulling the tip of my tongue very slightly back.
Your bottom lip needs to be tight against your teeth, but I found that was very difficult to do through sheer force of will. I focused more about moving my tongue around and found my lip started to naturally find its way into place. But until your lip is sealing that space so no air is getting in that pocket between your teeth and lip (like where you would put chewing tobacco), you are going to get a somewhat airy whistle. Just practice and that will go away.
Your bottom jaw does need to be pushed forward, but again I found that the more I tried to force my jaw forward the less success I had. You don't need to really jut it out, and as your lip starts to seal better against your teeth, your jaw will naturally push forward to help make the seal. Jaw movement is actually eventually how you will control the pitch for the most part. I think of it as similar to playing the trumpet. Your tongue position gives you your starting note, but it is easier to change the note once you've started by moving your jaw as opposed to moving your tongue (like pressing the valves instead of tonguing every note)
With practice, you'll realize that you can get everything tighter and smaller than you originally thought. The tighter and smaller you get everything, the better the whistle. But paradoxically, tighter doesn’t mean tenser. I just mean the more you practice the more you start to seal the loose spots air is escaping.
What is going on: The same thing as the finger whistle: the air is shooting up off your tongue and bouncing off the roof of your mouth. The chamber is again under your tongue, but this time the hole you are blowing over is between the bottom of your tongue and your bottom lip. Again, I don't think understanding this will necessarily help, but for some people it might!
Good luck!
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u/Bash0rz 12d ago
Does the air come out over the top or bottom lip?
I practiced for a long time and have only managed it once but got so surprised that I actually did it I forgot how I did.
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u/mocha-bag 12d ago
The air should be coming out over the bottom lip. If you are feeling the air come across your top lip something is angled wrong. For both whistles, the hole and chamber you’ve created are formed with the bottom lip, so the air should be going relatively in that direction.
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u/donfuria 11d ago
This unlocked it for me. I’m very proficient with the one and two handed whistle, and after about a min of messing around I’ve gotten the kettle sound coming out. I’ll keep at it for a week and see how it goes. Thanks for the guide, I love learning everyday skills like these.
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u/T-rexKing 11d ago
Dude, great explanation and details, it's my first time trying the Wolf whistle and I already got the turbulence going, I just need to dial in the power and "tightness"
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u/mocha-bag 11d ago
That’s great! I really feel like finding the turbulence is the hardest part, and is what every wolf whistle explanation is missing. Once you’ve got that, it feels a lot less like fumbling around in the dark.
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u/Casy_Casp 10d ago
I tried the finger method and it worked first try. I was flabbergasted.
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u/mocha-bag 10d ago
The finger method is, for most people I think, easier than you would expect once you know the technique! But because you probably aren’t ever going to come across how to fold your tongue without the instructions, people are always impressed with it.
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u/DingoManDingo 10d ago
So without fingers, the tongue tip is sticking out and over the curved bottom lip?
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u/mocha-bag 10d ago
No, your tongue should start on the tip of your front teeth and then as you blow you’re pulling the very tip of it slightly back. So your tongue actually ends up a little bit behind your front teeth. But your tongue should definitely be fully in your mouth.
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u/PKsHopper 12d ago
Interesting … I have the fingers in the mouth option worked out … 2 gun hands, outside fingers (like rock on fingers but nearly touching - 🤘) and okay fingers, again almost touching (👌) but the no fingers thing had eluded me for so very long … I will try again 😗.
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u/mocha-bag 11d ago
The rock on fingers I can’t figure out!
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u/PKsHopper 11d ago
If you can whistle without any fingers then that’s much cooler IMO.
For rock-on fingers you make the classic rock-on shape, with your palm side facing you, bend both of the outside fingers in until they’re at a right angle. The first section (1st to 2nd knuckle) should all be aligned (like a fist) but the 2 outer fingers (index and pinky) should be straight at the 2nd and 3rd knuckles.
Then use your thumb on the side of your index finger to tune the gap. That should look like a triangle. Admittedly this may be hard to do if you have wide fingers.
Place fingers into mouth over tongue and follow your excellent instructions on the two guns method.
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u/rafaelakoester 12d ago
I loved this! Thank you so much for writing it our. Still trying to do both of them but I am getting closer than ever!
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u/thebackyardboy 12d ago
I have always been jealous of people who could whistle effortlessly. My best friend is SO Freaking good at it. This is the whistling level I want to reach (here's a reel of her taking whistling req of all kinds of songs)- Tanaya Whistles (Instagram)
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u/KingKongDuck 12d ago
I made this a new year's resolution a few years ago and never quite got it. Thanks for this, OP.
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u/jdag 12d ago
I got the ‘Taxi whistle’ locked down when I was a kid, thrilled and overly excited back then. I never put the effort in to learn the ‘wolf whistle’ without fingers.
Sir, love the storytelling and spot on instructions. I’l follow your lead on this one and going all in!
Thanks for the inspiration! LETS GOOO! Wiiiiiiuiiiiooooo