Whistle while you work

My dad used to whistle, usually when he was by himself and idly enjoying something. He wasn't much of a singer, but loved music, and whistling was just something he did. You'd catch him behind the counter in the shop, trilling happily while fiddling around with this or that, displaying biscuits or stacking bottles.

You could tell what sort of a mood he was in by the tunes he was whistling. Happy ? La Donna e Mobile. Reflective, and maybe a little sad ? Che faro senza Euridice. Pumped and expectant ? Mario Lanza's Drinking Song.

I picked it up just by being around. Though I lost his voice years ago, I can still hear him whistle in my head. And I still feel the mood. The final note of La Donna still makes me laugh. And cry a little, too, half a century on.

And now, of course, I am a whistler, too, and catch myself whistling in the shed, or when mucking around in the garden.

Suddenly today it struck me that whistling is so easy to do, that prehistoric peoples must have discovered it. But what would they have whistled ? It's hard to imagine whistling without known tunes to shape it. Easy to do fancy descants when you have tunes in mind. But what about when they were no tunes ? 

I wonder if whistling was originally just a signalling device, and without any melodic content ?

I think there is some evidence of primitive flutes being made of animal bones, so maybe there was rudimentary music - or much better than that - which would have been known and idly whistled.

Comforting, in a way, to think of an unbroken chain of whistlers cheering themselves up down long-corridored millennia. The people may have looked different, but the sounds must have been almost indistinguishable from those of today. It's terrific to think of them standing in front of some sunset (the same sun, of course, as is shining across the fields this morning), and whistling some fabulous joyful cadenza.