Steam Whistle music.....

[Brian K. Nelson]

Now isn't this interesting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-kItxM7tSU&feature=related#watch-main-area

[Mike Bennett]

That is very interesting. I couldn't help but think that I had heard this before. Dug back in the forum and found this.

http://www.wmstrcommunityforum.com/showthread.php?t=601

Also, I dug up the website with some of the backstory of this Whistle.

http://www.lyhr.org/Details.aspx?id=142

Had to laugh, they hold the Guiness book record for the loudest non-amplified music from a non-musical instrument.

[M Kerkvliet]

Cool!

We need someone to get some practice on this "art" and put on a concert at Rollag! Imagine our National Anthem belted out on the Montana Boiler whistle! Maybe the Pabst whistle could add some harmony!

:hide:

[Brian K. Nelson]

I wonder how many whistles are involved?? It would make an interesting display.

[Jerry Christiansen]

Other steam whislte songs can be found. Check on youtube. I believe only one tunable (aka slide) whistle is being used.

Later,
Jerry Christiansen

I know I found some videos of a steam whistle playing Christmas Carols a year or so ago. After I made the post above I looked and didn't find any. Did anyone else have better luck than I did?

Jerry

Then I got a little bit smarter and searched YouTube for York County Steam a found a few.

[Steamboat]

Since I joined the Forum, I keep running across the 2007 references to steam music. I have two "Mockingbird" whistles, one with the external supports and a diaphragm on a rod. A typical factory installation for fire alarms. The other has the diaphragm on a chain and looks like a standard whistle. Some years back I took the first whistle back to WMSTR and mounted it on Richard Rorvig's 80 Case. Prior to that I had mounted it on my big vertical boiler at the Puget Sound Antique Tractor Show, Lynden, WA. The problem with that arrangement was that everything was to close and the whistle was to loud. I could play the first couple of lines of "Happy Birthday" and maybe "Oh Canada" but that was it. I thought that the wide open spaces of Rollag would give me a chance to exercise my musical talent. After one of the parades I headed the big Case over to the open area where the round house now stands and had at it. It seemed like it was only a short time before one of our directors showed up on a four wheeler and asked "how much longer you going to be Frank?" It seemed that my "music" was crossing the Lake, bouncing over the trees and back onto the early part of the parade route causing people to get cricks in their necks looking up into the sky to see where the noise was coming from. All the "music" did not follow that route. Some of it went up the Lake and on up the hill blasting down "Main Street" with about the same reaction but without the sore necks. Reading the comments from back in 2007, I got to thinking that people should be careful about what they ask for as they just might get it. That was the last time I played the big whistle. Since then I have been content with a small steam calliope.