A whistle or call is a simple aerophone,
an instrument which produces sound from a stream of forced air. It may
be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means.
Whistles vary in size from a small slide whistle or nose flute type to a
large multi-piped church organ.
History
The whistle has its roots dating back to
ancient China, where night watchmen would blow into the tops of acorns
to alert the towns to invading Mongolians.
In ancient Egypt two blades of the
papyrus plant along the Nile river were held together in between the
palms. By blowing into the palms the papyrus leaves would make a loud
vibrant sound.
Types of whistle
Many types exist, small mouth blown
whistles for various functions from toys to hunting using bird and fowl
calls type whistles, to professional whistles as police, boatswain’s
pipe, military, sports whistles (also called pea whistles), to much
larger steam or air preasure operated ones as train whistles, which are
steam whistles specifically designed for use on locomotives and ships.
Although almost all whistles have some
musical character, common whistles are not usually considered musical
instruments, since they cannot play a melody, unless used as a – very
shrill and loud – noise and rhythm instrument.
However, musical whistles exist,
including various 2-octave musical instruments known as tin whistles
(sometimes called pennywhistles or low whistles), as well as the
calliope (an array of separately actuable steam whistles), organ pipes
and the recorder.
Pea whistles are used in jazz and Latin
music for rhythm, much as a percussion instrument is; children often use
them as a toy music instrument.
There is also a more diverse type of
whistle used for giving commands to sheepdogs at work, which can emit
almost any tone the shepherd wishes, in order to signal different
commands. This whistle is known as a shepherd’s whistle.
