Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for August 06, 2023

I learned how to whistle in the weirdest way. By realizing I was already doing it to imitate the sound of squeaking metal.

Whistle while you trot.

Has anyone seen that one video of a horse playing a piano with its lip?

Sounds more like Phoebe has hoarse lips.

Well, Phoebe is officially smarter than me.

I can do the pursed whistle well enough, I can even throw in a few trills. But I never could learn to whistle through my teeth! My dad used to call us home with that whistle—we could hear it from across the street in the field behind the neighbor’s barn, at least a quarter mile or more. Now that was a whistle!

Phoebe shouldn’t be surprised. She may have let Marigold share her tenth birthday with her – which was also the strip’s tenth birthday – but Marigold was around in the Middle Ages when she modelled for tapestries of unicorns and she claims to remember the Ice Age. She is clearly much older than Phoebe – and any of us – and therefore learned many things before Phoebe was born. Indeed, before many of Phoebe’s ancestors were born.

Now-now, you’re both horse-like.

Phoebe, you have to realize Marigold is much older and has more practice!

More proof that UNICORNS ARE NOT HORSES!

To be fair, Marigold, being immortal, has had thousands of years of practice.

I have a small gap between my top two front teeth, small enough that you can’t really see it outwardly, but enough that any air I try to direct for whistling goes right through that instead and severely hinders my pitch and range—I can only hit really really high pitched notes, and never entirely on key. As such, I’ve never been able to find a way to properly whistle.

Meanwhile, my dad can whistle like Marigold can…the show off. :P

Ha, I’m over here doing the opening theme from Steamboat Willie

I once creeped out my brother by whistling along with the theme to The X-Files pitch-perfectly.

No doubt it’s just a coincidence that Irish trad rockers Horslips sometimes incorporated a tin whistle into their arrangements, as at 2:20 here:

https://youtu.be/TtQJZPHt7cM

Twenty years and I still do not have the ability to whistle.

I can actually whistle better when pulling air in instead of blowing out.

I tried transcribing the sheet music into an online sequencer, and I don’t recognize the tune.

On the violin, piano, or even the flute, sure, but whistling that melody is quite the magnificent talent to behold! The only way I can explain this is…well, UNICORN.

UNICORN!

MAGIC-assisted whistling does not count.

Anyone lucky enough here to play the 7th panel on piano?.

It’s do rae me fa so la ti do. isn’t it?.

Marigold probably has a flute hidden in her horn