Music doesn’t only belong to humans. Whales and songbirds also hand down their songs from generation to generation. Musician David Rothenberg improvises with nightingales, biologist Tina Roeske studies their social behavior; both want to understand: Can nightingales and humans communicate with each other via sound? Can they learn from each other in doing so? In “Chirp Along! The Joys of Making Music with Nightingales,” they talk about the nightingale as a symbol, how it compares to techno and about the inter-species joy of music. 

Commentary by Sarj Lynch, directed and produced by Julia Vorkefeld, written and conceived by Arno Raffeiner

Songs:
David Rothenberg: The Boori Sound (feat. Lembe Lokk & Sanna Salmenkallio);
Brood X Band: Arvo’s Brood;
Olivier Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps: III. Abîme des oiseaux;
Native Instrument: Live @ Mash 17;
David Rothenberg: Addicted to Birds;
David Rothenberg: Sharawaji Blues;

More about the On Music series:
www.hkw.de/en/onmusic

Nightingala | On Music

Midway in the journey of our second lockdown Spring I started performing live with the pond, on iPad running electronic Animoog, Samplr, and Shoom sounds, mixing the live underwater boatmen sounds with on the spot human interaction.

I wanted a new place to play—no audience but the redwing blackbirds and me, plus the submerged pond beasts who at times seemed to join in with what I was doing. 

Later when I listened to the underwater track I heard, not surprisingly, the low bass sounds from the Bluetooth speaker coming from the iPad, which they could plainly hear. We know insects respond to heavy vibrations, so why wouldn’t they do this underwater too? “Do the animals respond?” is the number one question people ask me when I make this interspecies music, and here perhaps they really do.

That question really doesn’t interest me. I’m more interested in making a music no one species could make alone. It is unclear who this music is actually for. You, or the universe? 

Both are welcome.

Inhabit the Pond

The method is simple: run the hydrophone under the water into a speaker above the water, so everyone can hear it: birds, frogs, terrestrial insects, deer, raccoons, squirrels. When they all hear the subaqueous sounds they often respond, because it’s not all that far from their world.

Any humans nearby, their ears perk up too.

Then I play live along with all the sounds around: sometimes on clarinet, more often on electronics: here I’m playing Samplr, Shoom, and a new test, GeoShred running the SWAM cello instrument.

Above And Below

There are scientists who believe only humans can ‘entrain’ to a beat, plus a few special songbirds like Snowball the cockatoo who dances to the Backstreet Boys. In my experience nearly all big parrots like to dance to a beat, and here, we’ve got an invisible plant who is doing it! What does this mean? Surely this is not an intentional music?
It is a found music, something going on all around us that usually remains unnoticed.

In the background of this recording, high and faint, are the indistinct mumbles of terrestrial creatures: parents, children, others, chatting away.

But the pond plants, and occasional instincts, are the louder rhythms here.

With this piece we flip our experience into the background: This is the music of the pond heard from beneath the pond, the new world of sound we are now such a part of.

Swan Lake One Hour In

Short instrumental version of an upcoming track that will last over 8 minutes with five rapped verses! 
Version courte & instrumentale d'un morceau à venir qui durera plus de 8 minutes avec cinq couplets rappés !
Stay tuned! 
Artwork/Painting: Malka

Desert (Instrumental Short Version)

And The Earth Finally Took You Under

And the Earth Finally Took You Under

No Rain, forest, raven talking and flying around

Raven Talk in the Fog

01/12/2023 A floating bungalow village on Cheow Larn Lake in Khao Sok National Park.
The first soundscape was recorded at night time, when most of the tourists and locals were asleep. Kayaks bubbling on the lapping waves, metal constructions creaking, crickets and suddenly Southeast Asian Toads (Duttaphrynus melanostictus) croaking in the mountain-peak-island next to the floating village. I've edited together three recordings from slightly different perspectives. Brass-instrument-like-sounding constructions, bubbling kayaks and floating devices, and this strange smooch-like-sound-creating insect that I couldn’t identify! (mayyybe Liara magna brachyptera?)

Croaks and Plops on Cheow Larn Lake

[PL, EN below]
Napotkałem malutki, zamarznięty strumyk. Odrobina wody przeciskała się pod lodem. Razem z nią przedostawały się pęcherzyki powietrza.

[EN]
I came accross a tiny, frozen brook. A little water was squeezing through the ice. Air bubbles were escaping with it.

16/02/2025, 12:56 - 13:06
50.2895717, 16.5981698
Zoom F4, AT BP4025

Buy/DL on Bandcamp

zamarzniety strumyk / frozen brook

To those who took me to forests (and noticeably to Nils Frahm for making possible to crystallize those stories within).

Here in There

International Dawn Chorus Day 2025, live with birds 6am Lower Arroyo Park, Pasadena

photo by Lewis Rapkin. Recorded with Dodotronic stereo parabolic mic, mikro usis, and Audio Technica AT8022, two Sony A10s and one Tascam FR AV 2   

tell me all the birds you hear!

Live on International Dawn Chorus Day in Lower Arroyo Park

Lithuanian-born, Berlin based sound artist, field recordist and composer.

Croaks and Plops on Cheow Larn Lake

Andrius Mack