Thursday, April 10, 2008

Another Boird Song








This little guy is so good.
He sounds like a panflute. He flattens the decay on each of his notes.

His song is in the key of C# Mixolydian, but he often changes key. The second phrase modulates down a half step, but it isn't a perfect transposition to C Mixolydian. Instead of hitting the C at the end of the phrase, he hits a B. What a crazy boird!

Here's the full song.

As with all bird songs, there are more rests than notes. It calls to mind French composer Claude Debussy's famous quote: "Music is the space between the notes." Of course, there aren't any rests in the ambient noise that surrounds him - the pink noise of a river, the Ionian honks of car horns, and a million other oscine songs.

The very awesome Stevie Nicks' song "Edge of Seventeen" uses the dove's riff. The chorus also features a very bird-like call & answer. Sexy hot.

My progressive bird band Boird band also covers the dove.

3 comments:

Alex said...

OH MY GOD this is such a great idea. Did you know that many people wonder why the Mourning Dove makes its signature call in the evening rather that the morning? These people do not realize it was named after the tone of its song, not at the time at which the song takes place.

Unknown said...

I am pretty sure I have heard mournign doves but i think i always thought they were owls.

los doggies said...

Owls go "hoot". They don't sing so much.
I'm working on the Barn Owl. But how does one transcribe the aforementioned hooting tones. It probably needs a lot of tom tom work, and men, lots of men.