Most of us whistle absentmindedly, as we’re doing the dishes, or happily hanging out the washing. Molly Lewis whistles for a living. Up on stage the Australian-born musician, who now resides in Los Angeles, dazzles with ethereal, bird-like whistles, flittering and trilling effortlessly in upper registers. She is equally at home whistling a Mozart aria as she is a country-western ballad she penned herself – and as you might have guessed, she is a top contender at musical whistling competitions.

“They definitely didn’t expect me to be doing this,” Molly says of her parents, who noticed her talent from an early age and bought her a CD of professional whistlers. “My dad makes documentaries about niche subcultures and my mum works with him, so they’ve always been into weird and wonderful things. They were very encouraging of it being an interesting thing to explore, but even now, I get emails from them being like, ‘Are you OK? Are you able to pay your rent?’ They’re a little bit flabbergasted that it’s still what I do.”

When she was 14, Molly’s parents showed her Pucker Up, a documentary about a whistling competition. The Dutch professional whistler featured in it, Geert Chatrou, instantly became her hero. “He was like the pinnacle of whistling greatness,” she says. She emailed Geert to ask for advice before entering her first competition (the 2012 International Whistlers Convention in North Carolina), and he wrote back telling her to always stay hydrated, and to never forget her ChapStick. She didn’t win that year, but her competitive spirit was set alight.

Molly eventually won first place in 2015, in the Live Band Accompaniment Division (female) in the Masters of Musical Whistling competition in LA. For her efforts, she was awarded a “gaudy trophy”, which now resides on her bookshelf. “It’s definitely just about the prestige and title,” she says laughing. “There’s no prize money involved. But what’s fun is meeting people from all over the world – France, Japan, India – who are in the same strange world that you’re in.” The whistling scene is small – Molly estimates around 30–40 contestants at most events – but competitions can get heated. This October, she’ll be off to the World Whistlers Convention in Tokyo, where she’s heard people “take it very seriously”. She’s already begun thinking of what to perform. “I’m like, ‘Shit, I have to start practising now. I have to win and uphold my reputation.’”

Much like in a singing competition, competitive whistlers are judged on elements like control, range and musicality. There are also a few quirky rules: don’t close your eyes while performing; keep gesticulation minimal – “using my hands helps me conduct the sound, but I got points off for that,” Molly says. To win a trophy, participants have to whistle one classical piece and one ‘popular’ song over a backing track (anything that isn’t classical, whether it be jazz, bossa nova or an original song). Molly will whistle certain pieces that help her hit the high notes in preparation for a competition, but her practice routine is far from regimented. “I wish I could tell you that I wake up at 4am every morning to do scales and practise eight hours a day,” she says. “I just whistle in my day-to-day life, when I’m in the park, on hikes and in nature.”

Molly loves whistling as an art form because it “straddles the line between human and otherworldly”, in the same way strange instruments like the theremin or ondes Martenot do. And unlike with singing, whistling doesn’t wear you out – at least not in Molly’s experience. “If I’m recording the same song and have to do it over and over, I do get a little tired,” she explains. “But it’s easier than singing, because it doesn’t involve vocal cords – it’s just breath. I can be sick and can still whistle.”

Even though she’s now a globally renowned whistler who regularly contributes her talent to film and TV scores – and who has a dreamy EP of original tracks under her belt – it’s taken Molly years to confidently call herself a musician. She’s only recently come to accept that this is legitimately her thing. But as her mentor Geert Chatrou told her: “You don’t choose the whistle; the whistle chooses you.”  

This article was first published in frankie 109.