Whistle Blower

I always have a tune in my head.

As far as my family are concerned that is not the problem.

Their sometimes very audible and visual annoyance manifests itself when that tune escapes into the open in the form of a loud hum or a high pitched whistling.

I have been doing it for so long that I do not realise that I am doing it. Others have noticed.

My mother in law enquired whether it was a symptom of stress.

Our longstanding former neighbours (we were the ones who moved) told my wife that they really missed the sound of my humming repertoire which they had gotten used to over 17 or so years. I am not sure whether they were a captive audience through the old solid brick party walls or when I was out and about in the garden or on the driveway.

When I lived with my parents in my late teens and early twenties they knew when I was back in the street after a late night out from the increasing approach of a whistled tune.

I cannot actually say why I do it.

I do have a musical background having the dubious distinction of being the longest serving 3rd row cornet ( a small member of the trumpet family)  in the town brass band. That may not sound too bad, at least I was in the band, but given that 3rd cornet was the kindergarten starter level it was a bit embarrassing that I was still there at the age of 15. Those players in the best seats in front of me had an average age of about 12.

Don't get me wrong I did value my time in Brass Banding having followed in the illustrious footsteps of my Grandad Dick and did participate in some memorable concerts and competitions all over the country or at least north of Birmingham. I dine out a bit on having performed on the stage at De Montfort Hall in Leicester in the wake, albeit a decade or so, of Led Zeppelin and a few years before I went to see Wham do a gig there. Some may be impressed by that sort of distant rubbing shoulders with the greats, well, at least Led Zep.

My humming and whistling can sometimes be triggered off by catching a few notes or bars of a tune on a radio or from a record player or boom box in proximity. I may just mimic the overheard phrase without really recognising the tune in its entirety but will relentlessly repeat it , to the horror of my wife and children. This usually, after a long period, leads to the identification of the tune, song or ditty or failing that someone will just shout out what they think it is in the hope that I will shut up.

It can be frustrating to have a tune buzzing around in my head but alone or with the reluctant assistance of others the source will eventually be discovered.

I was therefore thrilled to see, recently, a media article on a scientific basis to my own endeavours in hum and whistle.

In the 1940's two Stateside authors, Barlow and Morganstern published a book to help with the agonising process of identifying a song. In order to identify an unknown tune their method was to transpose the mystery tune into the key of 'C'. This allowed the actual notes to be written down and then the sequence of letters could be looked up against those listed in the book.

This was a revolutionary approach but did require the searcher to have a good deal of musical knowledge which raises the question of why the tune was a mystery in the first place.

There was scope to improve the science but it took until the 1970's for a Mr Denys Parsons to come up with a workable version and one, crucially, that did not require any musical knowledge at all.

Taking an exasperating tune there was no need to write any notation down. All it took was to recognise whether, over the first few notes starting with the second note, the pattern was higher, lower or the same. Using the letters 'U' for up, 'D' for down and 'R' for repeat Parsons found that after only 16 notes it was possible to distinguish more than 10,000 classical themes and that most popular songs could be named in only 9 notes or less.

A perfect illustration is the ever popular "Happy Birthday", which comes out as '*RUDUD DRUDU DDR" where * denotes the first note. The gaps between the letter sequences do not have any musical significance but just make for easier reading.

All of Parson's theory and practice was published in 1975 in his work entitled "The Directory of Tunes and Musical Themes". His hawking round to publishers had been unsuccessful with many sceptics in the professional ranks until taken up by Spencer Brown and Co.

The main section of the book has sections listing the sequences of classical and popular tunes and with a further section on National Anthems up until the date of publication.

The extensive piece of work is now out of print but copies have changed hands for upwards of £100.

Parsons dedication to the project did indicate some common opening phrases across music history.

 "*UU" is the most popular opening used in nearly a quarter of songs which is remarkable over around 400 years of music composition and with "*DR" being scarcely used at all at 2%.

Parsons did show persistence and ingenuity in his discoveries and revelations although in today's digital age that pesky and annoying hum or whistle can simply be fed into an algorithm based App or bit of software for instant relief.

How boring is that......family, keep back, what!......"*UUUUUUUDDDDUUUUURRRRRR"