The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #163922   Message #3916447
Posted By: Helen
10-Apr-18 - 04:18 PM
Thread Name: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
We have lots of good bird noises here. This one is a

pretty birdsong - LOL

The Foxhunters, yes! That penny whistle rendition of the baying hounds.

Someone I know lives in a small semi-rural place and she told me once that she and her husband woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a blood curdling scream. They debated whether their old house was haunted by a woman who had been cruelly murdered (murder most fowl?), but decided it was something outside, moving quite fast, maybe a bird flying over the house. I found an internet video of a screaming fox and played it for her. The scream was blood curdling even when she listened to it on her phone and she said, "That's it! That's exactly what we heard."

screaming fox - 30 seconds into video

Thanks for the Beatles link, gillymor. The blackbird song at the end works with the melody, almost but not quite a counterpoint melody.

And Joe, I feel at a disadvantage compared with northern hemisphere music lovers, because, not knowing a lot of northern birds - except the cuckoo of course - I would never have picked up that the Beethoven piece was referencing birdsong.

I also just thought of Peter and the Wolf, with each section of the music inspired by a specific animal.