Campus Character: Yuki Takeda

“Whistling” 。

“You don’t need an instrument.
No money, no teacher, no room, no audience.
Anywhere, whoever, it’s the music for any ordinary person.
The melody just flows out from your body…

That is whistling.”
— Yuki Takeda

With the arrival of every first-year class, a great diversity of fresh voices, talents and backgrounds are added to the Middlebury community; the campus is bursting with new world travelers, newspaper editors, volunteers, poets, photographers, scientific researchers … and this year championship whistler.  Yuki Takeda ’14, of Tokyo, Japan, won second place overall in the Japanese National Whistling Competition this year, and placed first for teens in the worldwide competition.

This whistling bears little resemblance to the pretty little tunes that some can recreate when they find themselves in a happy mood. Imagine instead a melody clearer than any human voice, and capable of flitting rapidly between notes and reaching unbelievably high pitches.

Takeda whistles classical, jazz and his favorite, café music, and he also plays the alto saxophone, guitar, flute, piano and drums.

While competitive whistling is most popular in Japan, Takeda still had never met another whistler before he discovered the talent. Surprisingly, this discovery sprung from normal pre-teen boredom; rather than entertaining himself with Nintendo or MySpace, Takeda decided one day to google “whistling.”

Through an incredible amount of dedication and practice, he taught himself a number of new whistling techniques which he found on the internet, such as teeth whistling, tongue whistling, hand whistling — which makes a sound somewhat like a bird call — and wolf whistling. He even invented his own style of whistling, in which he rolls up his tongue and whistles through it.

A year later, he saw a man featured on television for his amazing ability to reach the breadth of three octaves with his whistling. Takeda realized that he himself already possessed this remarkable range.

Takeda’s vast musical repertoire draws upon his unique life experiences. In addition to Tokyo, he lived in both Canada and Holland with his family, learning to speak English, Dutch and some French, on top of Japanese.

He discovered his love of languages and began to teach himself Spanish from a radio station, and then decided to move to a small town in Mexico for a year, despite the fact that studying abroad is not especially popular among Japanese high school students. In Mexico, Takeda became friends with a musical family, who, it turns out, was also the most famous band on the Pacific coast of the country. He was faced with the opportunity to travel and whistle with the band across Mexico.

Each new culture and language Takeda experienced added to his sense of music. And when four languages weren’t enough, he became intrigued by a type of Brazilian music called Bossanova, so he taught himself Portuguese as well!

Upon returning from Mexico, Takeda thought, “I was seen as a weird person,” because of his whistling abilities. Through his music, however, he began to find great friendship and even fame. During the summer before he arrived at Middlebury, he attended a university in Tokyo where he found himself to be “popular.” He was, after all, the second best whistler in the country.

Whistling has given Takeda a voice. As many of us turn to our favorite bands to heal us when we feel hurt, Takeda turns to his whistling. Drawing upon his knowledge of five languages, four countries and five instruments, he expresses himself through his beautiful music wherever he goes. Now, at Middlebury, he now shares his talent with a whole new community.

The title of “the championship whistler” doesn’t bother Takeda here in college. He sees the fact that he is already so well known in the Class of 2014 as an advantage at getting started here.

“I think it’s very nice that everyone talks to you,” he said.

The only drawback he sees to his innumerable new acquaintances is that, “I sometimes feel guilty that I can’t remember all their names.”

Following in the footsteps of the indie/rock band Dispatch, which began in Battell basement, Takeda and other talented first-year musicians, mainly from Battell, have already formed a band that played at the Grille last Saturday night.

“It’s really fun playing music,” said Takeda of performing in front of his peers.

The band played again at the Grille on Tuesday night and will perform at 51 Main from 8-10 p.m. tonight. Check it out — you might see history in the making.

---