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{shortcode-21cc3534b02e5a90dd1b6e61be0fe28423896a7e}t 9:31 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 15, a silent summons wound its way to 69 Harvard undergraduates. “See you at / 9 o’clock post meridian / windsday the sixteenth,” the email read.
The meeting details followed a cryptic poem describing a “canine slice of the cosmos / rattling roundabout roof of our mouths,” and the email was signed off “in deep aeolic infinitude.”
This brand of gleeful absurdity typifies the Whistler’s Society, one of Harvard’s registered student organizations. Every Wednesday at 9 p.m., veterans and novices alike gather in Lowell House’s nine-man suite — home to the society’s founders — to hone their whistling skills.
Members drop into cushioned armchairs and sofas under the glow of a northern-lights projector before whistling along to recordings of “anything from Pitbull to Puccini,” according to founding member Tyler A. Heaton ’25. There’s no sheet music, nor specified harmonizations; rather, attendees simply whistle each piece to the best of their ability.
“It’s completely unmediated,” founding member Aidin R. Kamali ’25 says. “It is us and the music.”
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Heaton, Kamali, Austin H. Guest ’25, Henry A. Ayanna ’26-27 ,and Milo R. G. Schwalbe ’25-26 created the society their freshman year. Their first meeting, held in Heaton, Kamali, and Ayanna’s room in Weld Hall after a brutal Boston blizzard, felt like “cosmic forces aligning,” according to Heaton.
“For too long, whistling has been sort of a maligned art form, underappreciated in comparison to other forms of music-making,” he says. “And so we figured it was high time to put our foot in the door.”
Since then, the group has grown to accommodate more whistlers. At the Oct. 16 meeting, around 20 people showed up, trickling in to Turkish singer-songwriter Selda Bağcan’s album “Türkülerimiz Vol. 5” as Heaton and Kamali finished vacuuming the room. Some of them had been members since the club’s inception, while others arrived for the very first time (occasionally at the behest of an enthusiastic blockmate). According to Guest, this level of turnout is fairly new.
“This seems like the first year we’re really having these large-scale meetings,” he says. “The past years, it’s been maybe seven or eight people that come every time.”
About 10 minutes in, Heaton called the meeting to order with a whistle, leading the group in a series of warm-up scales and rhythmic exercises set to the beat of a metronome.
“This is the point at which we move on to repertoire,” Heaton says, putting on the group’s signature tune — Dmitri Shostakovich’s Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2. Next up was Édith Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose.” Technique tips were few and far between, but Heaton and Kamali advised members to cup their ears to better hear their own whistles, move their tongues to broaden their range, and avoid laughing by looking at the ground.
The club welcomes members of all skill levels. While some members are musical — Kamali plays the Irish tin whistle, and Heaton writes, records and produces music — experience with sight-singing or ear-training isn’t a prerequisite. The club also includes a “non-whistler’s branch,” headed by William R. Kissinger ’25, which aims to provide support for people who haven’t whistled before.
“I have no way of showing people how to whistle, and I’ve been trying to whistle for years, and I’ve never figured it out,” Kissinger says.
Members work at their craft until they’re able to whistle along with the rest. Mohan A. Hathi ’26, who joined the club a few weeks ago, has made progress even within the span of a few sessions.
“I came in being able to whistle maybe one pitch,” he says. “Now I can do maybe three pitches.”
Eliza V. Kimball ’25, who began in the non-whistler’s branch, cited a similar experience.
“I practiced a fair amount walking down the street, and within two weeks, I was whistling pretty much with ease,” she says.
As they practice, whistlers often discover particular strengths — Kamali is a strong low whistler, while Schwalbe can hit the high notes. The society’s repertoire thus includes a melange of tastes and styles: A few pieces, like Boney M’s “Rasputin,” are longstanding staples, while others are spur-of-the-moment suggestions. This week, members rose to their feet for ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”, dancing as they whistled. They then kicked their way through “Rasputin” and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
According to Heaton, the group’s “big break” came in their sophomore year, when they performed as an “inter-act act” in Harvard’s annual Battle for Yardfest. There, they whistled “Mask Off” by Future, and Adam V. Aleksic ’23 — a linguistics content creator known as @etymologynerd on Instagram and former member of the society — performed a solo aria.
“He absolutely destroyed it,” Heaton says.
The Whistler’s Society has since performed annually at Harvard’s Battle for Yardfest in Sanders Theater. Last year, they also whistled at Yardfest, the Kirkland House talent show, Lowell’s coffee house, a Harvard Expressions Dance Company performance, and an event for the Slavic Society.
Performances can sometimes be informal or even impromptu: During one whistling session, members had arrived at the Lowell dining hall with a speaker to whistle to the “Aquarium” movement of Camille Saint-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals, and mathematics professor Noam D. Elkies spontaneously accompanied them on the piano. The group also embarks on annual caroling expeditions through Harvard dining halls.
Schwalbe noted that their performances, both improvised and planned, have generally been well received. While audience members may laugh at first, “eventually it turns into applause,” he says.
As the founders approach their final year of college, they’ve had to cultivate underclassman membership. Kamali noted that this year’s group has more sophomores, as well as some freshmen. While the seniors aren’t looking for a board of leaders — Heaton describes the group as a “fully decentralized society,” and notes that “there will be no Founders’ Council” after the current class graduates — they hope the organization will continue to thrive. (Kissinger noted that the non-whistler’s segment of the society maintains a strict hierarchy: “When life gives you lemons, you make a hierarchical club,” he says.)
“We have faith that it will be in good hands, and they’ll treat it the way that should be treated,” Kamali says. “And if it expands a bit, or if it keeps the same intimate vibe to it, we love that too.”
The Oct. 16 meeting came to a close with Peter, Paul and Mary’s “500 Miles,” a number they added this year. As they whistled, the members formed a circle and swayed with their arms around each other.
“It’s a tradition from Irish traditional music that we really wanted to adopt: having a departing tune for when the night comes to a close and everybody leaves,” Kamali says.
With that, the meeting was over, but a handful of people stayed behind, not quite ready to depart.
“One of the key lines [from ‘500 Miles’] that I think really touches all of us is, ‘They say you will know that I have gone, you will hear the whistle blow 500 miles,’ and I think that really just sums it up,” Kamali says. “All of us are here for max of four years (or five). Everybody comes and goes — all the whistlers come and go — but there is this one whistling spirit that has united us all, even if for that one moment at one time.”
