[By Merlin Lessler]<\/p>\n
I was riding on my old friend, a 1984 Sears, Free Spirit bicycle, the other day, and tried to whistle. I thought it would help with the \u201cOpen Mouth Syndrome\u201d that I\u2019d recently noticed and have been trying to correct. It\u2019s not good to go around with your mouth wide open; it ruins your image, especially when you are trying to look cool. I thought whistling would help, by exercising my mouth and jaw muscles. But I couldn\u2019t whistle. I\u2019d lost my embouchure. (*)<\/p>\n
I tried to blow into a trumpet a few years ago. I thought it would be easy since I\u2019d played the trumpet in the sixth grade and later moved on to junior high, where the band instructor switched me to a French horn; too many trumpet players signed up to try out for the band, and I was the worst of the bunch. The French horn section was short a player, and no one tried out, so I filled the void. I wasn\u2019t even sure which valves to push to get the correct note. It\u2019s similar to a trumpet, but some notes are different. I tried out by faking my way through a practice piece and somehow made the band. I was assigned to the fourth seat, at the bottom end of the pecking order, where I wouldn\u2019t be called on for solos or duets.<\/p>\n
I spent three years dragging around that heavy French horn through school halls and home on the bus. I hated it. It shouted, \u201cNerd!\u201d My image was as bad as that of the guys who carried a briefcase. There were no bookbags in those days, and only a few students in the entire school used a briefcase. The rest of us (boys) carried our books and notebooks under a single arm. Girls used two hands and cradled their books in front of themselves.<\/p>\n
So, now with my weak embouchure, I ride my bike and whistle; it comes out more like a whisper than a whistle. I pretend it\u2019s a supersonic sound, above the human hearing range that only dogs can hear. But no dog has reacted to it as of yet.<\/p>\n
I recently discovered I can fake a whistle through my teeth if I clamp them down and grin while blowing. But that\u2019s not the whistle I want. I want a real lip whistle. If you see some goofball riding around town appearing to whistle and you don\u2019t hear anything, that\u2019s me. But at least my open-jaw syndrome won\u2019t be on display.<\/p>\n
(*) embouchure \u2013 is the use of lips, facial muscles, tongue, and gums when playing a wind or brass instrument (or whistling).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[By Merlin Lessler] I was riding on my old friend, a 1984 Sears, Free Spirit bicycle, the other day, and tried to whistle. I thought…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":82349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\n