Teenager breaks record for the highest note anyone is known to have ever whistled

Walker Harnden from Pittsboro, North Carolina, has whistled his way into the record books. Harnden, a 19-year-old sophomore oboe major at The UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, recently whistled the highest note anyone is known to have ever whistled and now his achievement has been certified and posted by The Guinness Book of World Records.



“The highest note whistled is a B7 (3951 Hz), which was achieved by Walker Harnden (USA) at the Hoad Recital Hall, University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston Salem, North Carolina, USA, on 7 November 2013.” The “B7” note is the B just below the high C on a piano.

The previous record for highest note whistled was held by Jennifer Davies of Canada, who whistled the second E above middle C on Nov. 6, 2006. She still holds the record, from that same event, for lowest note whistled: the F below middle C. Harnden says he’s leaving that one alone. “She has me beat there by a whole step,” he said, “and I don’t want to take away all of her glory.”


YouTube link.

Harnden says he whistles “all the time,” up to four or five hours a day. He admits that he irritated his parents and friends for years, until finally “I got good enough that it became a pleasant sound.” He says he didn’t set out to break the record. It just kind of happened. Whistling has become something of a passion for him – a way of making music just about anywhere, at just about any time, without having to lug his oboe around.