#66

This is a piece I recorded several years ago, using field recordings of birds and sine and wavetable voices from my modular to create ‘artificial’ birds. I based it all on Paul Klee’s painting, and what that might sound like.

7 Likes
#67

I’ve always loved that picture, too, and have wondered what it would sound like if the crank were turned!

Nice piece, thanks for sharing it.

1 Like
#68

One of my favourites

#69

Thanks for listening, I’m glad you liked it :slight_smile:

#70

I stumbled upon this video about and of that Coates piece, Dawn Chorus, elsewhere on the internet and immediately thought of this topic.

I really like it! I imagine the installed version would be really enjoyable to wander through and soak up.

4 Likes
#71

I really like this piece for bass clarinet and recordings of jackdaw.

2 Likes
#72

OMG, what a beautifully constructed piece. I would love to have been able to see installed at Fabrica.

1 Like
#73

A timely resuscitation!

This was mentioned last night in the book I’m reading:

image

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#74

I discovered that on a cd of Danish experimental music a few years back. Absolutely lovely piece.

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#75

I’ve been in an ensemble performing some of these. One of the birds was common near where I grew up. The feeling of hearing it performed, the musicians distributed throughout the audience, was so exactly like the experience of hearing them in the wild that I got goosebumps.

Also, musician David Rothenberg works with bird songs slowed down to a rate which is more comprehensible to people, an interesting approach.

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#76

My wife is working on a series of thirty warbler paintings to celebrate her upcoming 30th birthday, and I’ve been talking with her about possibly making a series of recordings to accompany the paintings, wherein I attempt to recreate the warblers’ songs with my modular rig, or perhaps take their songs into some new unnatural territory. I’ll be sure to post that share those recordings here if and when they happen.

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#77

I was reading about Stephen Beck, an early video synth pioneer, and found out he worked on the Cornell Birdsong Book, which I owned…but donated during a big book-clear out (and now it’s $70 on Amazon? sheesh.)

Weird connections.

#78

I tried to simulate bird sounds and forest soundscape with Music Easel.

1 Like
#79

I’m obsessed with that video. Wish it were soooo much longer.

‘According to Molles, birds communicate for two reasons: Either they are trying to tell off their neighbor, or they are trying to attract females. “Nothing very poetic, unfortunately,” she quips.’

…

But what else has poetry ever been used for? :face_with_monocle:

3 Likes
#80

I highly recommend this: surprisingly they have a few copies left too (their releases usually sell out very fast)

http://alkualkualkualkualkualkualkualkualkualku.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ALKU99

3 Likes
#81

Definitely a cool book :slight_smile:

#82

this one is more of a “collaboration with birdsong,” but it involves electronic sound & a mockingbird:

Mimus Polyglottos by David Dunn (1976)

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#83

birds are in almost every song I make

I like to record the birds in my back yard in the morning, I used to do it every morning.

i played back one of my tapes in a forest and recorded the birds singing along recently

#84

[paywalled, but it is my favorite publication; the beginning is readable]

The article provides a fascinating on the ground look at Javanese competitive bird singing. I’ve thought about this article a lot. In brief, when cockfighting was outlawed, men in the culture took to songbirds as a subsitute for their competitive machismo. The article looks at how this plays into their local economies and how poaching and climate collapse have forced changes in the ideal bird songs through portraits of people who participate. It reads like a kind of microcosm of the world in transition and how people will and won’t adapt. Cannot recommend it (or the publication) enough.

Interesting tid-bit: “Mastering” in this context, is to attempt to imprint the song of a different, more desirable (sometimes exctinct) species on a young bird.

3 Likes
#85

I have a good friend doing wonderful things with recordings of birds, voices and acoustic instruments.