A whistle is a musical instrument which produces sound from a stream of gas, most commonly 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.
Whistles have been around since early humans first carved out a gourd or branch and found they could make sound with it. In prehistoric Egypt, small shells were used as whistles.[1] Many present day wind instruments are inheritors of these early whistles. With the rise of more mechanical power, other forms of whistles have been developed.[2]
One characteristic of a whistle is that it creates a pure, or nearly pure, tone. The conversion of flow energy to sound comes from an interaction between a solid material and a fluid stream. The forces in some whistles are sufficient to set the solid material in motion. Classic examples are Aeolian tones that result in galloping power lines, or the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (the so-called "Galloping Gertie" of popular media). Other examples are circular disks set into vibration.[3]
- ^ Arroyos, Rafael Pérez (2003). Egypt: Music in the Age of the Pyramids (1st ed.). Madrid: Centro de Estudios Egipcios. p. 28. ISBN 978-8493279615.
- ^ "An ancient whistle was crafted from a human thigh bone". Nature. 585 (7824): 163. 1 September 2020. doi:10.1038/d41586-020-02509-9. S2CID 221465463.
- ^ Chanaud, Robert C. (1970). "Observations of Oscillatory Radial Flow between a Fixed Disk and a Free Disk". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 47 (5B): 1471–2. Bibcode:1970ASAJ...47.1471C. doi:10.1121/1.1912065.