Matt Sullivan was a high school senior when he and a friend won their school’s orchestra talent show. Their act? An a cappella rendition of “Love Story” by Taylor Swift- whistled.
“We were just bouncing around ideas of what we could do that was corny or funny,” said Sullivan, now a Weinberg freshman. “We started whistling and were like, ‘Hey, that sounded good.'”
Later in the year, Sullivan, in a group of eight whistlers and a beatboxer, competed in another contest with a mash-up of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.”
Sullivan is the founder of This Blows!, Northwestern’s first whistling a cappella group. He got the group off the ground this quarter with the help of Bienen sophomore Max Paymar and McCormick freshman Carson Potter.
“We wanted to have a non-singing, mainly whistling a cappella group,” Sullivan said. “As it developed, ideally we want to have a lot of humming and beat-boxing all behind the whistling.”
After contacting the department for student organizations and advertising with flyers and Facebook, Sullivan held auditions for This Blows! in Annenberg Hall on Feb. 5 and 6. Although he said he initially aimed to accept eight to 10 members, Sullivan decided to expand the group to 18 after 24 people auditioned. Students who had made the group received e-mails Tuesday.
Communication freshman Itai Joseph heard about the auditions from an e-mail, leading him to try out and make the group.
“During Wildcat Welcome, I was doing a lot of whistling, so a friend made a comment, ‘Oh, you should totally start a whistling group,'” Joseph said. “I said, ‘Well, I don’t have any musical background. I wouldn’t really know what I’d be doing.’ So it’s really cool that this is happening.”
In the auditions, each student whistled a song of his or her choice. Sullivan said he took a cue from other student groups on campus and asked each participant a series of “personality questions.”
“The first interview question was what was my spirit animal, and I had never been asked that before so it took some really deep thought,” Joseph said. “Eventually I came up with the really cliché answer of a lion. I thought that was the curve ball, but they kept coming.”
Sullivan said that he also asked students who they would send as a three-person task force into the jungle.
“One girl said a talking hawk, myself and a dragon,” Sullivan said. “Another person who tried out said Rambo three times.”
While Sullivan’s high school performances focused on pop music, he said This Blows! will probably steer clear of the genre.
“There’s a lot of good beats we can do from hip hop songs, there’s some great melodies from ‘80s medleys and movie themes,” Sullivan said. “The whole idea is just layering the different sounds – layering the whistling with the humming and beat-boxing.”
This Blows! will begin practicing for up to one and a half hours per week since most students are busy with schoolwork and other activities, but the practice schedule should pick up as the group moves closer to Sullivan’s goal of a performance in the spring, he said.
Sullivan said he plans to keep expanding the group and hold more tryouts next quarter.
“I’m by no means trying to keep this super exclusive from anyone who’s really good at whistling and who thinks they can try out,” he said. “I hope we can work out way into the Northwestern a cappella scene and establish our little seat.”
