The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #40025   Message #575538
Posted By: Charley Noble
19-Oct-01 - 09:36 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Farewell to Tarwathie--in public domain??
Subject: RE: Tarwathie
My favorite memory of this song is with Molly Carlson, a marine archeologist, leading the song backed up with the Roll & Go chorus and accompanied by a "whalecaller." Now what exactly was the whalecaller? According to Molly it was a prototype designed by some Green Peace folks in an attempt to communicate with whales (this is a true story). It had a metal bowl which was filled with water and some metal struts of various lengths sprouting out from its top. One made the whale sounds by bowing the struts. Brett became quite good at this, at least in terms of accompanying the song, entralling the rest of us and whomever we were entertaining. Unfortunately, we never got a chance to try it out in the Gulf of Maine with whales. I understand that Green Peace was not very successful with their communication experiements either. After Molly left Roll & Go, pursuing a more professional career, I'm not sure what happened to the whalecaller, probably gathering dust on some closet shelf.