Birdsounds; H&N, Sat 20/10/18, 10:00pm

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Tom McKinney introduces live performances by three artists working with birdsong: Sharon Gal, Lee Patterson and Kate Carr, part of the EnCOUnTErs series of events curated by SoundFjord's Helen Trosi and recorded at London's Cafe Oto.

Plus a selection of recent releases including music for saxophone quartet and electronics by Monty Adkins and Paulina Sundin.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000tct

[Lat-Literal]

Tom McKinney introduces live performances by three artists working with birdsong: Sharon Gal, Lee Patterson and Kate Carr, part of the EnCOUnTErs series of events curated by SoundFjord's Helen Trosi and recorded at London's Cafe Oto.

Plus a selection of recent releases including music for saxophone quartet and electronics by Monty Adkins and Paulina Sundin.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000tct

The parts of this programme I have listened to so far are quite interesting. While making extensive use of field recordings, Patterson and Carr have rather different approaches, both of which have merits. I wonder, though, why it is birds which composers tend to pick up rather than say cows or sheep, notwithstanding Byrne and Eno "in the bush", or lions or dogs?

Also: Linda Catlin Smith - "Music for John Cage" - I liked this and it adds to a novel long term thing about Canada : I am aware of more female Canadian composers than male ones.

[Serial_Apologist]

The parts of this programme I have listened to so far are quite interesting. While making extensive use of field recordings, Patterson and Carr have rather different approaches, both of which have merits. I wonder, though, why it is birds which composers tend to pick up rather than say cows or sheep, notwithstanding Byrne and Eno "in the bush", or lions or dogs?

Also: Linda Catlin Smith - "Music for John Cage" - I liked this and it adds to a novel long term thing about Canada : I am aware of more female Canadian composers than male ones.

Too difficult to reproduce methane emissions in sound.

But why oh why spell Encounters in such a way as to bracket experimental music with Pseud's Corner?

[Richard Barrett]

why it is birds which composers tend to pick up rather than say cows or sheep

Many birdsongs (ie. the ones that composers are generally interested in) show far more coherence in their pitch-structure and variation than the sounds made by cows and sheep. There are thousands of species of birds and hundreds of identifiably different birdsongs, which can often be heard (as in the "dawn chorus") in a multilayered counterpoint with one another, whereas all cows and all sheep make more or less the same sounds. Most people can identify several different birdsongs, which is no doubt the result of birds being present in urban and suburban locations as well as in the countryside, which can't be said about cows and sheep. Need I go on? Frogs are another matter of course.

[MrGongGong]

Frogs are another matter of course.

I'm sure you have this ?

https://soundcloud.com/andrew-hugill/catalogue-de-grenouilles

PS; I think it's Helen Frosi

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But why oh why spell Encounters in such a way as to bracket experimental music with Pseud's Corner?

Oh, I thought the pun-blend of "encounters" and "ecoute" was quite charming! (Besides, as soon as we get scared of others put us in Pseuds' Corner, we might as well throw in the towel!)

[Richard Barrett]

I'm sure you have this ?

In fact no, although I have a very nice recording I made myself by a lake in Germany one night, orchestrated by at least three different species.

[Lat-Literal]

Many birdsongs (ie. the ones that composers are generally interested in) show far more coherence in their pitch-structure and variation than the sounds made by cows and sheep. There are thousands of species of birds and hundreds of identifiably different birdsongs, which can often be heard (as in the "dawn chorus") in a multilayered counterpoint with one another, whereas all cows and all sheep make more or less the same sounds. Most people can identify several different birdsongs, which is no doubt the result of birds being present in urban and suburban locations as well as in the countryside, which can't be said about cows and sheep. Need I go on? Frogs are another matter of course.

That is very helpful.

Thank you.

I know that you and other composers and/or engineers often talk about pitch and sonics and such like. I'm also thinking of Bryn here. When I was listening to the Carr piece, I had my head against a pillow and was in darkness which might have contributed to what took place. I swear, though, that half way though she did something with a part of the music - it was a drone like thing - which made it sound like it was coming from the adjoining room. I was quite impressed by that, while preferring the Patterson piece for being more naturalistic overall.

[Quarky]

Many birdsongs (ie. the ones that composers are generally interested in) show far more coherence in their pitch-structure and variation than the sounds made by cows and sheep. There are thousands of species of birds and hundreds of identifiably different birdsongs, which can often be heard (as in the "dawn chorus") in a multilayered counterpoint with one another, whereas all cows and all sheep make more or less the same sounds. Most people can identify several different birdsongs, which is no doubt the result of birds being present in urban and suburban locations as well as in the countryside, which can't be said about cows and sheep. Need I go on? Frogs are another matter of course.

Frogs are very interesting from the scientific point of view - electricity of course, light perception (they can see a single photon!) and sound :

Sound source perception refers to the auditory system’s ability to parse incoming sensory information into coherent representations of distinct sound sources in the environment. Such abilities are no doubt key to successful communication in many taxa, but we know little about their function in animal communication systems. For anuran amphibians (frogs and toads), social and reproductive behaviors depend on a listener’s ability to hear and identify sound signals amid high levels of background noise in acoustically cluttered environments. Recent neuroethological studies are revealing how frogs parse these complex acoustic scenes to identify individual calls in noisy breeding choruses. Current evidence highlights some interesting similarities and differences in how the auditory systems of frogs and other vertebrates (most notably birds and mammals) perform auditory scene analysis.

[Serial_Apologist]

Frogs are very interesting from the scientific point of view - electricity of course, light perception (they can see a single photon!) and sound :

Sound source perception refers to the auditory system’s ability to parse incoming sensory information into coherent representations of distinct sound sources in the environment. Such abilities are no doubt key to successful communication in many taxa, but we know little about their function in animal communication systems. For anuran amphibians (frogs and toads), social and reproductive behaviors depend on a listener’s ability to hear and identify sound signals amid high levels of background noise in acoustically cluttered environments. Recent neuroethological studies are revealing how frogs parse these complex acoustic scenes to identify individual calls in noisy breeding choruses. Current evidence highlights some interesting similarities and differences in how the auditory systems of frogs and other vertebrates (most notably birds and mammals) perform auditory scene analysis.

That's really interesting, Vesp - I guess if frogs and toads can single out mating calls in the way your describe, they would have no difficulty in "parsing" inner structure in, let's say, a Brian Ferneyhough piece!

[Richard Barrett]

I know that you and other composers and/or engineers often talk about pitch and sonics and such like

It's really just a way of saying that birdsong is more interesting, and engaging for a longer period, as a listening experience to most people than are the sounds made by sheep and cows. I would have thought that was fairly obvious.

Vespare: yes, that's a very interesting area. There's also the fact that different species (of birds, frogs and other animals), particularly in densely populated environments like jungles, differentiate their sounds in a rather analogous way to orchestration, so that each occupies a different space in terms of frequency characteristics and/or rhythm and/or position in the diurnal cycle.

[Richard Tarleton]

Most people can identify several different birdsongs

Hopefully! As a fairly serious birder I can immediately identify over 120 species of British bird on song or call (in the sense of knowing instantly what it is before I see it) - about half of those being your actual songbirds. A lot more down to family level (some of the geese which I don't see that often, for example), and I always know if I'm hearing something new or different. Context helps, of course - waders flying high over woodland can cause one to do a double-take. That's very modest by the standards of some of my more knowledgeable brethren. Quite a few more species on the continent, though it always takes a day or two to adjust my ear to the new soundscape. Once you get to a certain level sound becomes at least as important as sight - in a woodland, much more so. I memorise a lot of songs or calls by identifying patterns, or by turning them into handy mnemonics. Dawn chorus - "multi-layered counterpoint" - exactly. One can at a certain level build up an accurate three-dimensional sonic picture (in a woodland, for example), knowing what and where everything is in relation to oneself as one moves through the wood, without setting eyes on a single bird in the dense foliage, indeed the BTO's breeding bird censuses are based around observers having this ability.

[Richard Barrett]

Hopefully! As a fairly serious birder I can immediately identify over 120 species of British bird on song or call (in the sense of knowing instantly what it is before I see it) - about half of those being your actual songbirds.

I couldn't make such a claim myself, although I have a few friends who can - none of them professional musicians, maybe I should add, but then professional musicians tend not to be the sort of people who are prepared to get up at 5am and drive a couple of hours to see a bird someone texted them about!

[Richard Tarleton]

I couldn't make such a claim myself, although I have a few friends who can - none of them professional musicians, maybe I should add, but then professional musicians tend not to be the sort of people who are prepared to get up at 5am and drive a couple of hours to see a bird someone texted them about!

I don't do that either - 5 am yes, but I'm very much a "patch birder". I've led a great many dawn chorus guided walks, as well as doing breeding bird surveys (and I do it just for pleasure). It's a bit like the Young Person's Guide - to the uninitiated a well-stocked deciduous woodland in May can be an undifferentiated wall of sound, the trick is to get people to focus on one sound, shutting out the others for a moment, point out a characteristic to help them remember it, and build up the sections of the woodland orchestra that way. Bearing in mind that people hear things differently - my mnemonics don't work for everybody, people hear different registers differently, etc.

[oddoneout]

Frogs are very interesting from the scientific point of view - electricity of course, light perception (they can see a single photon!) and sound :

Sound source perception refers to the auditory system’s ability to parse incoming sensory information into coherent representations of distinct sound sources in the environment. Such abilities are no doubt key to successful communication in many taxa, but we know little about their function in animal communication systems. For anuran amphibians (frogs and toads), social and reproductive behaviors depend on a listener’s ability to hear and identify sound signals amid high levels of background noise in acoustically cluttered environments. Recent neuroethological studies are revealing how frogs parse these complex acoustic scenes to identify individual calls in noisy breeding choruses. Current evidence highlights some interesting similarities and differences in how the auditory systems of frogs and other vertebrates (most notably birds and mammals) perform auditory scene analysis.

I seem to remember reading that frogs have different 'accents', even within the same species, depending on where the population is.