Nagzira Wildlife Reserve protects a forested and hilly area in central India where Tigers still roam, and the woodlands are filled with birdsong.

First light across Nagzira Lake.

In the centre of Nagzira forest is a lake, and on the far side, a pair of Grey-headed Fish Eagles roost.

On this recording, made around 5.30am, you’ll hear their morning wake up and pair bonding calling. Dew falls from the leaves of nearby trees, a last chorus of Spotted Owlets is heard before the day begins, fruit bats flutter close to microphone, and the cries of a Lapwing echo from the far end of the lake.

I’ve included a spoken introduction to this recording.

(Thanks to our friend Girish Vaze for his wonderful image of the Fish Eagle.)

Tweet

Transcribing birdsong to musical notation is problematic, if not well-nigh impossible. Birdsong is just too sonically complex.

However the songs of some species do lend themselves to musical interpretation, and the sublime melodic phrases of Australia’s Pied Butcherbird have long fascinated musicians.

Our Spirit of the Outback album begins with a recording of a Pied Butcherbird singing languorously at 3am, its voice echoing off the walls of Ormiston Gorge in central Australia. The bird sings beautifully, and it has always been among our favourite nature recordings.

(See our blog about this recording here).

Recently we heard that an Anglo-Trinidadian composer, Mark de Brito, had been inspired by our recording, and adapted the Butcherbird’s song into a short piece for flute with piano accompaniment. He has entitled the piece ‘Saraband for a Butcherbird’ – a saraband being a slow dance in three, with an emphasis on the second beat.

Mark writes:

“I wrote the Saraband piece in February 2008. The flute part is intended to be a close transcription of the recording of a pied butcherbird from ‘Spirit of the Outback’. The piano part, which somewhat resembles the style of Erik Satie, has a very different rhythmic structure. The piano part also has repeats (AABB), and this has the effect of dividing up the birdsong in a very arbitrary fashion. The harmony worked because I could adjust the length of silences in the flute part to fit.

“While the technical choices I made in writing the piece were very simple, the resulting piece is actually quite intricate in phrase structure. The piece raises some interesting philosophical issues about music and nature.”

I think Mark’s piece works well, being both enjoyable to listen to as music, and authentic to the original birdsong. I’ve heard many attempts to bridge the gap between the human language of music and the organic sounds of birdsong. The French composer Messiaen’s transcriptions come to mind as successful efforts, with new-age pastiches being far less so.

Mark’s piece avoids simply reducing the Butcherbird’s vocalisation to being ‘a tune’. And his piano accompaniment lends an otherworldly and serene air that, for me, reflects the mystery of the natural environment.

What do you think?

Note: Mark has made his piece freely downloadable. Click on the download link on the audio player at the beginning of this blog.

Here is our original Pied Butcherbird recording, which can be heard in full on our ‘Spirit of the Outback‘ album (available from our website as CD or download))

Pied Butcherbird at Ormiston Gorge, 3am by Listening Earth

Tweet

The heart of a bustling city such as Istanbul may seem an unlikely place for nature sound recording. But this morning I thought I’d give it a go.

The day dawned bright and sunny, and I grabbed my recording gear and walked through the yet-to-open markets, up to the magnificent Blue Mosque, which is only a few minutes stroll from our hotel.

Istanbul has many magnificent Ottoman mosques dotted around its skyline, and the Blue Mosque, or Sultan Ahmet Camii, is regarded as one of the finest. Inside its walls is a pleasant garden, and here I let my recorder capture the morning birdsong.

It was a peaceful place at a quiet time of day, with a variety of birds making the garden home.

On this recording can be heard ubiquitous House Sparrows, plus other species characteristic of this eastern extreme of Europe: a Robin, Hooded Crows, Caspian Gulls, Laughing Doves and a Chiffchaff (thanks Veljo for identifying). You can even hear occasional horns from shipping on the Bosporus!

Tweet

Here are our Top Ten popular misconceptions about nature recordings!

Nature recordings…

1. …are just birdy noises

Well yes, plus insects, frogs, animals, the elements…

Our ancestors knew their place in the world by listening to nature. Scientists speculate that in the distant past, humans first learned to sing by listening to birdsong, and then refined that into spoken languages.

So what have we lost when nature seems just a meaningless background noise? Perhaps we can learn again to appreciate the music of nature – after all, to fully enjoy jazz, classical or any art music, we have to spend time and learn about it.

The more I listen to the natural world, the more complex and marvelous I find it. Not only does each species have its unique songs, some of them extraordinary, but the whole symphony of nature is finely crafted. All the sounds fit together like an orchestra, creating a music that changes continually throughout the day, responding to the weather, and from season to season. Every habitat sounds unique, every place in the world singing its own songs.

The musicality of nature, once heard, will delight you for life.

2. …are new-age

I can understand people thinking this. For the last 30 years, music companies have been pumping out ‘nature CDs’ because they sell (let’s face it, anything will if it’s priced low enough). We’ve heard some truly appalling stuff. Those stories about making a ‘rainforest waterfall’ by recording a bathroom tap? Or taking one bird sample and just looping it in the studio? True. Those kinds of crappy CDs are out there.

Which is a shame, because it not only degrades the work of skilled recordists, but it trivialises nature. Nature is dynamic and alive, and if a recording captures that, you will fall in love with what you hear, rather than move on when you’ve had your fix.

3. …are boring

Pardon? Is our marvelous, living planet boring someone? If nature isn’t interesting, what on earth is?

Nature is universal. Nature is essential to life. There are many ways of connecting with nature, and listening is one of the most enjoyable. The more you listen, the more you will hear. Every one of our recordings is full of diversity and activity. Just grab a pair of headphones and listen for how many species you can hear calling at any one time.

Boredom has been described as a lack of engagement. We reckon that if someone finds nature boring, they’re just not really listening!

4. …are good because one day these species and habitats will be extinct

You’d be surprised how often we are told that our recordings are great because “one day we won’t be able to hear these sounds any more”.

We find this attitude shocking, really disturbing. It expresses an undertone of resignation to the inevitability of extinction. It is a kind of warped affirmation. The more we shock and numb ourselves with the concept of extinction, the more familiar and accepting of it we become.

It also implies that humanity will continue normally as nature collapses around us. That might happen in a Hollywood movie, but in reality, it is actually humanity that is in peril now. Nature is adapting, we’re not.

Our recordings may be useful scientific documents in the future, but that is not why we publish them. We do it because we want to share and inspire. Voyeuring on extinction isn’t a part of our vision.

5. …aren’t sexy

Are you kidding? Why do birds sing? They want to attract a mate! “Come on, let’s fluff some feathers!” Frogs too, and insects, animals… Our nature recordings are full of sex!

But we know – our recordings aren’t the latest hip, cool thing. We’re talking fashion here aren’t we? Which raises the question; is nature really unfashionable? Sadly, that may be true in the mainstream of our culture, and the new-age’s ‘romanticising’ of nature doesn’t help.

We guess our customers must have grown beyond the tyranny of fashion, because for them our recordings really are ‘cool’… Perhaps even a little sexy!

6. …are easy, anyone can make a nature recording

Yep, and anyone can play the guitar too, or piano, or tuba… Like playing a musical instrument, sound recording in the wild is a wonderful pastime. We heartily encourage you to grab a microphone and get out there! You’ll discover a lot more about the natural world than you thought.

You’ll probably also discover that making good recordings takes more than just good equipment; it requires skill, persistence, field experience and a fair dose of luck.

In some instances, it also requires a bit of courage. There have been many times in Asia I have walked alone through dense forest in the pre-dawn darkness, to get on location before the dawn chorus. Bumping into an elephant in such circumstances is not a good idea. On one occasion I found out how quickly I could dump 10kg of expensive sound recording gear and run, when a king cobra slid across the path ahead of me.

7. …are a bit creepy

Its funny, but people who find our recordings a little scary are not usually concerned about elephants or king cobras. They’re thinking bugs. Flies zipping past the microphones seem to inspire images of dark jungles full of creepy-crawlies.

I feel this is largely a fear of the unknown, or at least unfamiliar. The more time I spend in jungles, the more amazing I find them, and the more comfortable I am to be there.

One of the most relaxing experiences of my life was to be in a tropical rainforest in the depth of night. All I could hear was insects chirruping all around me. It was hypnotic, mesmerising, and after a few hours in pitch blackness, I was floating. You can listen to what I heard on our ‘A Walk in the Rainforest’ album, and as you do, think bliss not bugs.

8. …are nice and relaxing

Well, yes, listening to nature sounds is very soothing on the nerves. But to think of nature as only ‘relaxing’ is to limit our emotional responses. Some birdsong is exhilarating, electric, it sends thrills up the spine. The calls of big Woodpeckers in Asia could not be called relaxing listening. The sound of Hornbills flying overhead is awesome. Tawny-crowned Honeyeater song can be sublimely beautiful, and as I’ve mentioned, a chorus of nocturnal insects deeply meditative.

Life is more than just relaxing, and you will find all your emotions reflected in your response to nature.

9. …all sound the same

Really? Purchase more than one of our albums. Compare them, spot the differences. Better still, go out into a wild place, sit and listen as different birds and animals come and go, and sounds change throughout the day. Listen to the vocalisations of one species, and learn its repertoire of calls and songs.

The more you listen, the more you’ll hear…

10. …are a replacement for the real thing

We reckon our nature recordings are very enjoyable. If you are meditating at home and want to create a more natural environment, or travel to work immersed in the sounds of a rainforest, then they are great. With headphones on and your eyes closed, you can easily imagine being out there.

But our recordings can never replace your experience of being in nature. We hope though, that the next time you are out there enjoying the morning birdsong, your album listening will prepare you to hear so much more.

Tweet

Every two years, the Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group gathers for a workshop, and in October of 2007 we met for a week of talks and social events, on a bush property near Mount Walsh National Park in SE Queensland. Many in the group are amateur nature recordists, and together we are an odd mob, but there is always a lot of knowledge, experience and good humour shared.

On this occasion we had the honour of hosting two guest speakers from the USA: Don Kroodsma is one of the world’s leading researchers into birdsong and avian vocal behaviour, and Greg Budney is the head curator at the Macaulay Library of Wildlife Sound at Cornell University.

For me, meeting with Don Kroodsma was inspiring. As professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, and having spent the last 40 years researching birdsong in the field, he has some very interesting things to say about how and why birds sing.

Don has recently published a book entitled ‘The Singing Life of Birds’, and I took the opportunity of reading it around camp at Lawn Hill (a good use of shady trees on hot afternoons).

At the gathering, I took Don aside for an hour and sat him down under another of those shady trees for a discussion about the science and aesthetics of listening to birdsong. As we talked, the birds sung around us. You can listen to what Don has to say about our feathered vocalists by downloading our discussion here (mp3 file, size 63Mb, right click & save to desktop).

Don’s ‘The Singing Life of Birds’ is a fascinating and delightful read. It is poetic, thoughtful and full of insights. We bought a copy from the splendid Andrew Isles Natural History Bookshop in Melbourne (AU$50), but it is also available via Amazon.com.

The book includes an audio CD to accompany the text, and I guarantee that after reading what Don has to say, you will never listen to a bird singing in quite the same way again.

A related book that I also read on the road, and can thoroughly recommend, is Don Stap’s ‘Birdsong’. It is writen from the perspective of a non-expert, as he accompanies some of the world’s leading researchers (including Don Kroodsma) in their field work. It is as much a book about the people who study birdsong as it is about the birds themsleves.

Giving a good overview of current knowledge of birdsong, it is an easy read, and makes a good prelude to delving into Don’s work. (It is also available via Andrew Isles, or online sellers such as Amazon, where I see you can buy both books as a special deal)

Tweet

]]> http://www.listeningearth.com.au/blog/a-fresh-perspective-on-listening-to-birdsong/feed 0