2024, Family, Kids, Uncategorized

Making Funny Noises

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Last April when our 5 year old grandson was stranded at our house for three weeks due to the weather, I took it upon myself to teach him some very important life skills, namely, how to make funny noises.

I don’t know why I think these are important skills, but he has really enjoyed trying to perfect them. When we visited him and his parents after Christmas this year, he proudly showed me how he could snap his fingers. He also learned how to make the loud popping noise you can make with your little finger on the inside of your mouth and lips. He is starting to whistle. He has yet to figure out how to make the trilling/purring noise that sounds like a motor by vibrating your tongue against your front teeth. 

My father loved making funny noises, especially bird noises to confuse small children and pets, making them think there was a small bird in the vicinity. I don’t know if noise making is encouraged in other families, but it sure is important in my family.

What important things did you learn from grandparents or other older relatives? What funny noises are you proficient making?

31 thoughts on “Making Funny Noises”

  1. The Birds like my “wolf whistle.” I also do a “smooching” sound that mimics their occasional squabbles. It breaks up any escalation in violence.

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  2. i have lost a bunch of teeth over the years and the main thing i miss is whistling. i can do sunflower seeds don’t need em for steak and i can still whistle a clumsy airy whistle but i used to do the andy of mayberry song and the leave it to beaver song like a canary. i can do mickey mouse and goofy not good at donald duck. my dad taught me to put a spoon on one cheek(large soup spoon) and tap it with another spoon and by changing the size and shape of the mouth create a percussion section. same thing done with tapping cheek or flicking with a finger. it took years to learn the jews harp but that boing is a great payoff. my dad had a beautiful baritone voice and would do that deep boom ba boom pa in the shower and in the car

    my mom sang a beautiful soprano and got us started with a musical aspect to the quality of life. i used to bounce on the sofa in the basement listening to oklahoma west side story my fair lady and the flower drum song.

    i don’t know if you remember the bowery boys but watch used to do a thing with a fluttering cheek blow that was a sure favorite wherever i went (and no one else had it in their bag of tricks) kind of a motorboat flutter

    my drummer taught me water drops. the finger pop in the mouth and armpit farts were old hat (but still fun)

    always wanted the wolf whistle and taxi hail and to able to blow the blades of grass but never could

    my oldest grandson is a big finger snapper

    my fingers can play guitar and piano but my snapping had deteriorated dramatically

    the sounds i make now are mostly accidental and due to my wish to zig and the zag i get instead. back legs hands feet neck…each has their own distinctive umph and gabe kaplans recollections of making his dads noises has made me smile more than once

    ari and denver and luca will get a heavy dose of noise tricks today and im sure they’ll be thanking you renee

    happy trails

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      1. walking with a stick and delivering but no load bearing stuff

        my 1 year old is too heavy for any trek of distancec

        getting a little better every day

        ready for hurdles in april

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  3. Rise and Shine,Baboons,

    I learned a lot from various older relatives, but I don’t think it was sound-related. My Grandpa (maternal) lost part of his right forefinger in the corn sheller. He would trick us with that, and also take his dental plate out to scare us. He also had great yoyo tricks. 

    My dad would sit in front of the house in his wheelchair and do bird calls. He could get the cardinals to sing back to him which was pretty fun. He taught all ofus to whistle, too, but whistling the Andy Griffith theme song was our primary goal. I could do that, but it was not great. I never did master the loud whistle done with two fingers in my mouth. 

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    1. I learned it in a Red Owl while accompanying my mom with grocery shopping. I practiced and practiced for weeks. Two fingers in my mouth, tight embouchure, tongue curled back… suddenly it worked! Loud! Right behind my mom in the canned goods aisle. She sent me to the car.

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  4. I used to whistle pretty well, but now it’s just breathy. I always wanted to be able to do that shrill taxi whistle…

    Anyone remember in the spring taking the flat part of one of those spinners – maple seed maybe – putting it between your tongue and the roof of your mouth – you could get a shrill kind of zip sound?

    I don’t believe y’all have heard my rendition of a sick chicken – baawwwhkk – really slowly, with inflection..

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  5. I can do the basics we learned as kids: cheek popping, whistling with two pinkies betwee lips, whistling melodies, razzberries. But these days, the only funny noises I make tend to be of the gastrointestinal variety. 😉

    Chris in Owatonna

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  6. My goal in life is to learn to whistle as loud as my dad did, but without fingers. It’s the loud whistle people do with their fingers, but he did it without fingers. I can’t even do it with fingers; I gag myself. Dad could get the rooms attention, or signal me from the field a mile away. Kelly does the finger whistle.

    I can whistle most any tune. In or out. Didn’t learn other armpit noises or grass blade noises. I can do the grunty pig noise with my tongue in the back of my throat.

    And pretty much can’t snap my fingers anymore. That entire process is rather fascinating to me. I’ve even got a note to make it a blog post about how and why and why not the finger snaps anymore….

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  7. I can trill my “r”s when speaking Spanish, and get my lips around a vowel with an umlaut in German. I’ve even learned how to make the back of the throat sound that is used for an oyster in Taiwanese. However, the guttural “G” of Arabic has escaped me, so far.

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  8. I used to be able to whistle through two blades of grass. I taught myself how to talk like Donald Duck.

    My brother could do armpit sounds. Gross.

    My family was more than a little inhibited. So am I. I didn’t learn any other sounds and I’ve never been a good whistler.

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  9. My dad taught me how to produce sounds with a blade of grass between my thumbs, and how to whistle, though I was never very good at it. I never did master the whistle with fingers in your mouth. He also taught me how to make music by folding a piece of paper over a comb, putting it to you lips and blowing through it. I could snap my fingers, too, but arthritis has put an end to that.

    As kids in the boarding school, we made a fair amount of mouth music to augment our various percussive sounds generated by hitting various parts of our bodies or other objects with our hands. Bobby McFerrin is a master of that kind of thing.

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  10. i did my best donald duck ever two days ago

    my daughter tara is gifted with communicating with the dead. both her grandpas visit her occasionally. she called two days ago to see if grandpa mickey did donald duck. i said yes but not well. she explained she was in the bathroom after putting the kids down and while standing at the counter she had a loud donald duck in her ear from behind. she turned to see if her husband had gotten up and come in to mess with her but he was asleep she checked the closets in the hall because she was certain this was not an imagined sound

    she even called her brother to be certain he hadn’t come over to mess with her. i told her my dad did a rather lame donald and tried it for her and bammo my best donald ever. she said it must have been him because her other grandpa would never do donald duck. i didn’t tell her it could have been one of the people who used to live in her house.

    she doesn’t see dead people , just interacts with them.

    watch out what you wish for

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