More Birds

Well, ain't that fishy: while Grey Calx was preparing his "Bird Songs of Dooryard, Field and Forest" post last Sunday, I was simultaneously doing my bird-mix for "Hush! Caution! Echoland!". In my mix I used excerpts from another very interesting Bird Song record, so I think it's a neat idea to post this record here in its full length.

Hungarian scientist Peter Szöke's "The Unknown Music of Birds", released in 1987, takes a very unique approach towards the anthropomorphous musical non-art of our fine feathered friends.

From the liner notes:

The true Music of Birds

This unusual record reveals for the first time to the human ear the hidden and hitherto undiscovered microcosm of the true music of birds and bird vocalization in general. Bird song is not as it seems to man as he hears it under normal conditions in nature, nor do the birds themselves perceive it in that seemingly natural form. It is possible to slow down (stretch) bird song (the tape recording) to 2, 4, 8, 6 and 32 times its natural duration. This is mainly for use in audio demonstrations (as on this record, too). If the vocalizations are too fast and exceedingly high pitched, then they can (sometimes must) be slowed down to 64 or even to 128 times their natural duration. On this basis it is possible to make authentic and wholly detailled musical or non-musical representations as the case may be. A one second recording slowed down in this way and usually transposed to a lower register can last for one to two minutes. Once they are slowed down in an appropriate form, then our ears can recognize the true melodic structure of the bird songs, whether musical or non-musical, which was hidden behind their original microscopic form. We can also measure both the slowed down as well as the natural speed of the vocalization. Songs frequently comprise 50 - 100 - 150 or even more tiny successive sounds per second. This is the reason for which it is necessary to slow down the recordings. The method of slowing down and the necessary lowering of pitch register do not alter the physical frequency relations and the actual melodic form of the bird vocalization. In fact it is due to this very method that the existence of true avian music was discovered. A new, hitherto unknown anthropomorphous musical (partly non-musical) world has been found outside the realm of musical art, in the biological sphere of the life of birds.

The essence and the theoretical significance of the discovery of true animal (avian) music have been explained in detail and illustrated with numerous slowed down bird vocalizations in the author's book "The origin and the three realms of music - on the levels of pre-life, animal, and human existence", published in Hungarian in 1982 ... In making the choice of sound material for the record the author was guided not so much by the beauty of the vocalizations but by the beauty and the importance of the recognition ofthe Unknown.

***

Of course, after reading this, you just HAVE to hear the record: Chirpy-chirpy-cheep.

(1)