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A techno veteran explains why people blow whistles at parties

The answer comes via Reddit...

You know the score. You're on the dancefloor, the night's atmosphere has been duly cranked up a notch and the DJ is in top form. As the bass is about to come back in, a chorus of whistles seem to momentarily drown out the music. What might have first sounded like the DJ throwing down some vintage DJ Duke or Frankie Knuckles (or eh, DJ Alligator), is in fact the crowd; many of whom are preoccupied with whistling, either with their fingers or with plastic whistles hanging out of their mouths. 

This kind of behaviour might have been at its most popular during the 90s, but that's not to say that whistling is no longer a daily occurence on the world's dancefloors. Indeed, go to any EDM event these days and you'll find that whistle manufacturers are clearly still enjoying a good time of it. But why the whistle? And where did this all start? 

Much like many an unusual question, it was Reddit that supplied the answers here. A regular poster on the site who goes by the name of 'lakeeffectoperative' (bare with us here) has provided a rather insightful and amusing take on the whole whistle frenzy. According to the poster, the story actually began on the other side of the stage as a way for acts such as CyberSonik, P909 and even Mike Banks' Underground Resistance to help whip the crowd up into a frenzy.

Keen techno fans adopted the whistle as an alternate type of applause, which in turn paved the way for where we are today.