Artificial Birdsong
Project by Phillip Chao and Leo Seligo
Sound: Artificial Birdsong In The Arb (try link if player won’t load, download recommended)
Music, Field Recordings by Phillip Chao and Leo Seligo
Program Note:
This composition is a reflection on the insertion of human influence in areas deemed part of the “natural environment”. We have taken our own recordings from multiple areas in the Oberlin Arboretum on a December Saturday morning, which contain the sound of “real” birds, and integrated these with our synthesized sounds of bird calls, selected from a list of birds at varying levels of risk for extinction which are known to exist in this area of Ohio. In the recordings the sound of walking is audible, indicating the human presence and perspective. In our composition, the overlap of “real” versus “synthesized” is also influenced by our choices and intentions as humans. Because of this, the process of this project is as much a part of the composition as the final product. We are interested in blurring the distinction between these two ideas; this represents the separation by society of “human” and “nature”, but also the ways in which we are part of the environment and affect it. There are moments when the synthesized sound and real sound are in harmony, and times when they are not.
The first recording was taken in the marsh on the west side of the Arboretum. The synthesized bird calls added to this region were the Marsh Wren, the Prothonotary Warbler, the Sora, and the Northern Harrier. The second recording (starts around 3:35) was taken walking down the path that wraps around this marsh and then leads into the forest. The path led us past trees with more birds in them, but as we walked into the forest there were less birds and the wind started to pick up. The start of this walk includes some of the same synthesized bird calls as the pond due to it being nearby, as well as the Grasshopper Sparrow, Cerulean Warbler, and Red-Headed Woodpecker (the call of a fledgling). Finally, we walked to the bike path (at around 6:45), which surprisingly has by far the most birds of anywhere we went in the Arboretum. Here many of the previous synthesized bird calls return as well as the Black-Billed alCuckoo. Please see the references for the list of synthesized birds.
The purpose of this work is to utilize music as a platform for highlighting the environmental issue of extinction driven by human influence. By telling the listener that certain bird species are synthesized, we hope it causes them to listen closely. If they can differentiate between the real and synthesized birds, then they will know which calls belong to the endangered birds. In noticing these specific sounds, the listener can gain more context than from just hearing a general decline in the density of bird calls in a natural environment. This is a way for the sonic medium to draw attention and awareness to the decline of specific species that might otherwise go unnoticed. In reference to Moore’s idea of “Style As Environment”, the “protest song can imply the presence of two environments” (Moore, 391), meaning that layers discussing the issue are created. With the context of our piece, we not only aim to appeal to the pathos of the listener while inviting them to engage with the issue, but also reveal that the possibility for the now-at-risk birds existing in that area was once higher by putting artificial sound in the absence of real birds.
Our piece can be regarded as a soundscape, as Schafer states that “the soundscape is any acoustic field of study” (Schafer, 7). An interesting juxtaposition is created by placing the composition in the context of a real place and adding material that didn’t naturally exist there at the time– this creates a new and artificial soundscape, as we have taken it out of the original context. A created soundscape has value in that it can depict varying information and ideas in a way where precise control can be exerted as to determine the contents. This idea can be applied in the context of Krause’s theory of biophony– as we have the sound of birds– but we must also examine anthrophony, which Krause defines as human-caused sound and views it as “the cause of most noise” (Krause, 157). He states that from a natural perspective, this is directly antithetical to biophony. Therefore, our insertion of synthesized sound could be classified as noise under that definition, and another layer of anthrophony. It is also important to mention that the place of recording– the arboretum– is not a completely natural environment– there is the constructed wetland and reservoirs, and paths throughout the forest which are frequented by people; much of its landscape was shaped by human influence, especially the bike path. It is a semi-artificial way for humans to interact with the natural environment, similar to our composition. The intended purpose of the combination of these two elements in this work is to allow listeners to engage with both elements and find value in learning from soundscapes that do not naturally exist but are also grounded in real, applicable issues. In this way, anthrophony can be used as a tool to reveal information about the biophonic soundscape.
Creating this as a musical composition, rather than treating it as a realistic and accurately representative field recording, allows us to present information to the listener more effectively. For a listener to hear a recording of the Arboretum and understand the sounds of that environment, they would not only need great knowledge of bird calls, but also have experience and accurate memory of going to this arboretum for enough years to hear the decline of certain birds. This composition in combination with the program notes can allow a listener to go in with no prior knowledge and attempt to identify which bird calls in the recording are artificial, and in finding those sounds, they would be able to understand which bird calls in this environment are in decline. This creates an accessible entry point into learning about bird calls and their meaning in the environment that only requires people attentively listen.
List of Synthesized Bird Sounds
- By the Pond: Marsh Wren, Prothonotary Warbler, Sora, Northern Harrier
- Moving to the Forest: Sora, Marsh Wren, Cerulean Warbler, Grasshopper Sparrow, Red-Headed Woodpecker (fledgling)
- Walking along the Bike Path: Cerulean Warbler, Red-Headed Woodpecker (fledgling), Black-Billed Cuckoo, Grasshopper Sparrow
List of Birds, between eBird checklist and Ohio Listed Species (endangered – of concern)
American Bittern, Black Tern, Northern Harrier, Black-crowned Night Heron, American Coot, Black-billed cuckoo, Common nighthawk, Cerulean Warbler, Eastern Whip-poor-whil, Grasshopper Sparrow, Great Egret, Marsh wren, Prothonotary Warbler, Red-headed woodpecker, Sharp-shinned hawk, Sora
Bibliography
Krause, Bernie. 2012. The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World’s Wild Places. New York: Little, Brown
Bryan C. Pijanowski, Luis J. Villanueva-Rivera, Sarah L. Dumyahn, Almo Farina, Bernie L. Krause, Brian M. Napoletano, Stuart H. Gage and Nadia Pieretti. 2011. “Soundscape Ecology: The Science of Sound in the Landscape.” BioScience 61(3): 203-216.
Schafer, R. Murray. 1994 (1977). The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.
Moore, Allan. 2013. “A Hermeneutics of Protest Music.” In The Routledge History of Social Protest in Popular Music, 387–99. New York: Routledge.
“Checklist for Oberlin College–Oberlin Arboretum – Ebird.” eBird. Accessed December 16, 2023. https://ebird.org/wi/printableList?regionCode=L1035893&yr=all.
“Ohio’s Listed Species – Ohio Department of Natural Resources.” OHIO’S LISTED SPECIES WILDLIFE THAT ARE CONSIDERED TO BE ENDANGERED, THREATENED, SPECIES OF CONCERN, SPECIAL INTEREST, EXTIRPATED, OR EXTINCT IN OHIO, July 2020. https://ohiodnr.gov/static/documents/wildlife/state-listed-species/Ohio’s%20Listed%20Species%20pub356.pdf.
