Why don't more composers use birdsong?

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: GUEST,paperback
Date: 12 Apr 18 - 03:07 PM

I was a beach boy, and I believe I learned my songs from the birds of the Brazilian forest. -Tom Jobim

We learn about the types of trees that filled the backyard of Jobim’s childhood home; the furniture in the above-garage office where Jobim began the flirtations with the piano from which would flow many of his earliest compositions; the birds that sang outside the homes he shared with both of his wives.

Book Review: ‘Antonio Carlos Jobim: An Illuminated Man’

Brazil Antonio Carlos Jobim - YouTube


I think all art tends to come from the books of Nature & God, (save the few perverse kinds).

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: Helen
Date: 12 Apr 18 - 03:10 PM

Jos said, "Watching twittering swallows gathering on a telegraph wire one autumn, it occurred to us that if it had been the wires making that noise rather than the swallows, people would have rung the council to complain."

I saw this article yesterday:

Singing road strikes wrong chord with Dutch villagers

A clever idea gone wrong. It works when one car is going over the road but not when there are many simultaneously. I don't blame the villagers for putting a stop to it.

"be more inspired" - funny!

Jack, a common phone tone at my work is a whistling few notes for notifying the person has a message. I was out in the carpark one afternoon, which has lots of trees and therefore lots of birds and I heard a bird making that whistle tune.

I now have a lot of bird inspired music to catch up on. Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone.

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Apr 18 - 05:06 PM

I seem to remember in the Ken Russell film about Delius, Eric Fenby was sat on top of a cliff analysing and notating the notes of the sea gull's cries.

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Apr 18 - 11:44 AM

Olivier Eugène Charles Prosper Messiaen 1908-92

Catalogue d'Oiseaux (1956-58) comprises thirteen movements, each depicting a specific bird.
No. 1, Le chocard des alpes
No. 2, Le loriot
No. 3, Le merle bleu
No. 4, Le traquet stapazin
No. 5, La chouette hulotte
No. 6, L’alouette lulu
No. 7, La rousserolle effarvatte
No. 8, L’alouette calandrelle
No. 9, La bouscarle
No. 10, Le merle de roche
No. 11, La buse variable
No. 12, Le traquet rieur
No. 13, Le courlis cendré

Petites esquisses d'oiseaux, for piano, I/54 (1985)
I. Le rouge-gorge
II. Le merle-noir
III. Le rouge-gorge
IV. La grive-musicienne
V. Le rouge-gorge
VI. L'aloutte des champs

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Apr 18 - 01:00 PM

That understates Messiaen's achievement by a long way. Most of thise pieces include several other birdcalls beside the one in the title - he was depicting the whole sonic landscape each bird lived in. The "Reed Warbler" piece is half an hour long and includes maybe 20 other species including frogs.

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: Rex
Date: 17 Apr 18 - 01:19 PM

I was out on the cliffs above Grand Junction in Western Colorado on a Spring day. After a time, others that were there left and as it got quieter one could hear all the birds. There Mourning Doves calling and they got louder to where you mostly just heard the coo-coo-coo at the end of their call. So that was going like a bass phrase and there were Cassin's Finches filling in with a pretty melody. Then one Canyon Wren cut loose with its call over the top of it all and the whole composition was washed over me. Wonderful. After a time I could hear some others coming up, the sounds faded and it was gone. Happy was I to have been there.

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: Helen
Date: 17 Apr 18 - 02:03 PM

Ah Rex. That experience is exactly what I was trying to express, but your short paragraph evokes an amazing, inspirational experience.

Thank you.
Helen

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 17 Apr 18 - 06:18 PM

re Messiaen
bbc April 2018
Tom McKinney is very keen on birdsong in music.
This is a 15 minute programme on Messiaens birdsong.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b0b9h9 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
bbc iPlayer Radio app
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3yvdp3zQJWLtl204z9nxgRt/download-the-iplayer-radio-app 

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Apr 18 - 05:18 AM

Rex - that reads exactly like one of Messiaen's program notes!

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: Rex
Date: 19 Apr 18 - 10:56 PM

Somewhere at the start of this thread, Helen offered that early man's attempts at the first musics may have been inspired by bird songs. I believe that may be so but at this time, I think our minds are just as hard wired as theirs for music. I tried the link above regarding Messiaen. Whatever material is there, I can't find it.

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 20 Apr 18 - 05:14 PM

Two possible reasons come to mind. The first is that songbirds have an extremely strong union that restricts participation by their membership, The second is that all their music is protected by copyright.

A third might be that they might crap all over the recording studio.

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: Helen
Date: 20 Apr 18 - 05:36 PM

As a strong unionist myself, I would respect their union rules, as well as copyright laws. As for crapping all over the studio, that might be the norm for some rock bands too. You never know.

I woke this morning to a bird chorus right outside my window, as a couple of magpies were carolling, along with intermittent dove calls, some tweeting, and a songbird which I couldn't identify trilling along at various intervals. It was a beautiful way to wake up.

I can still hear the magpies further away and the raucous call of a wattlebird, which is not a beautiful sound, but it provides the oboe or maybe crumhorn counterpoint to the rest of the performance.

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: GUEST,paperback
Date: 03 May 18 - 12:20 AM

The Cat Piano | Morose Delectation and Music

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: leeneia
Date: 04 May 18 - 11:29 AM

I think yodeling, which often leaps from low notes to high, is partly inspired by birdsong.

Yes, sometimes we encounter birdsong in human music, but birdsong presents some problems.

1) the intervals fall "in the cracks of the piano" and can't be duplicated or notated in the usual way

2) Birds have two voice boxes while we have only one, and birds can produce some seriously complicated sounds.

3) The timing doesn't mesh with our system of a beats and measures.

4) Still, there are sounds that could imitated, such as the chickadee's "sad call" or the call of a whippoorwill. The reason composers don't use them is that other composers would ridicule them. It's fatal not to be earnest.

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 08 Jun 18 - 01:42 PM

Jack Campin
thanks for that BBC link.
I've only just played it.

Interesting,. if rather weird.
If anyone missed it :

The Bird Fancyer's Delight -- @bbcradio4

"In the 18th century, musical manuals circulated showing songbird keepers how to teach their birds to sing human tunes. These treatises were known as the Bird Fancyer's Delight, sheets of music specially written to play to a pet bullfinch, linnet or canary in order that it would learn the tune and sing it back.
The idea was to engineer primordial feathered recorders in the home, 100 years before the arrival of the phonograph and the advent of recorded sound.

Musician and inventor Sarah Angliss explores to what extent this interplay was successful and looks for its modern day equivalent. ..."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0128pyp 

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: robomatic
Date: 10 Jun 18 - 12:08 AM

There was a well known public radio host of "Morning Pro Musica", Robert J Lurtsema who began his show with morning birdsong.

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: Acorn4
Date: 10 Jun 18 - 08:30 AM

Dvorak's 8th symphony often said to have ornithological influence notably in the flute part:-


Dvorak Symphony no 8 - 3rd Movement

Also this:-

Dacquin: The Cuckoo

Subject: RE: Why don't more composers use birdsong?
From: GUEST,JHW
Date: 11 Jun 18 - 04:08 PM

In a churchyard at night at the 2015 (best guess) Durham Lumiere (Durham City, Co. Durham) many trees had 'birdboxes' outlined in neon tube up the tree though no actual box, its dark remember. Birdsong came from a speaker hidden by each birdbox, each one different so at night the multitude of birds could be heard as you walked about.
But they weren't birds; all the 'birdsong' had been sung by a choir!