{"id":700,"date":"2008-10-31T09:54:37","date_gmt":"2008-10-31T13:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/?p=700"},"modified":"2008-10-31T12:06:52","modified_gmt":"2008-10-31T16:06:52","slug":"birds-singing-other-birds-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/2008\/10\/31\/birds-singing-other-birds-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am intrigued by the idea of a work of art being based on the transcription of bird sounds into phonemes.\u00a0 I love to listen to the different sounds birds make.\u00a0 Even within a genus like gulls (Larus), there can be a wide variance of sounds produced by birds of different species.\u00a0 In the summer, I live on Hatteras Island and witness this fact.\u00a0 Bonaparte’s gulls make a “cherr” sound.\u00a0\u00a0 Ring-billed gulls call “hyah hyah.”\u00a0 Herring gulls have a longer call that sounds like “ow ow ow keekeekee kyow kyow.”\u00a0 \u00a0Lesser black-backed gulls make the same sound but in a lower pitch.\u00a0 Great black-backed gulls make a low “cowp cowp cowp” sound. \u00a0My favorites, laughing gulls, make a high pitched call that sounds like laughing.\u00a0 In Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs<\/em>, humans voice the linguistic interpretations of bird sounds.\u00a0 In a variety of creative ways, these sounds are merged with a corresponding visual image of a bird.\u00a0 In each image, the analogous phonemes are represented.<\/p>\n

When I first watched and listened to this piece, I was disappointed.\u00a0 I have heard people mimic bird calls with accuracy, and that is what I was expecting.\u00a0 Although the introduction stated otherwise, I still wanted the shape of each bird to accurately correspond to the sound it makes. But it seems that Marie Mencia had something else in mind.\u00a0 Clearly, Mencia wanted the emphasis to be on the human voiced phonemes and morphemes not the accuracy of the birds, thus the difference between what I was expecting and what I experienced.\u00a0 The piece is interesting and to some degree thought provoking.\u00a0 I love nature and couldn’t help but think of other animal sounds that could be transcribed, like the sounds made by marine mammals.\u00a0 Although it would be challenging to transcribe whistles, they could be scored like music.\u00a0 The click is already a recognized phoneme.\u00a0 The songs of whales and other marine mammals have been recorded and graphed.\u00a0 Another idea would be to create a system of applying consonants and vowels (or other symbols)\u00a0to points on the graph that would translate into a language code.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For me, Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs<\/em> is a more enjoyable engagement than many of the other works we have explored. I appreciate the fact that Mencia assigns control of the experience to the user.\u00a0 The ability to select the entrance and exit of the birds with a stop and start button allows each user to experience the piece in her own way.\u00a0 For me, this empowerment circumvents the frustration and agitation that result from a bombardment of overstimulation that cannot be regulated or controlled.\u00a0 True to nature, Mencia does not force her users into sensory overload.\u00a0 She presents the work and politely invites us to participate. \u00a0Whether you choose to focus on just one or two birds at a time or invite a cacophony of sounds to enter your sky, Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs<\/em> is an enjoyable experience, like a pleasant day outside.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just in case anyone is interested, this link is to a page of recorded marine mammal sounds http:\/\/www.whoi.edu\/science\/B\/people\/kamaral\/Sound\/MammalHits.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am intrigued by the idea of a work of art being based on the transcription of bird sounds into phonemes.\u00a0 I love to listen to the different sounds birds make.\u00a0 Even within a genus like gulls (Larus), there can be a wide variance of sounds produced by birds of different species.\u00a0 In the summer, … Continue reading Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":703,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions\/703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}