This year, with a title to defend, she's anxious, pacing about and whistling scales under her breath. Her parents have come, and her aunt. Hider hotly denies that people don't whistle much anymore. What you don't hear is whistling in popular music, because there is less attention to melody. It's just personal, and private.
People do it for themselves, to validate or acknowledge their existence.
Vincent Palumbo, the last of the stonecutters to carve gargoyles on the Washington National Cathedral, whistled. So did the Harlem Renaissance author Dorothy West, who thought writing and whistling were her chief talents. So did Stewart W. Reynolds, a Washington Gas executive. Even after Alzheimer's disease claimed his words, he could whistle church music for hours. Whistling had meaning in their lives.