Music for Birds

Music For The Various Creatures That Inhabit the Farm I Work At

I find it nice to know some tunes that dwell within one octave. 

One reason is that for the majority of my tune writing and playing, I lived with a cat. His ears didn't seem to appreciate any tin whistle notes above the first octave. So out of consideration to his ears, a large amount of the tunes I wrote stayed in the first octave.

I also play musical instruments for people with developmental disabilities. If the mood is calm & quiet, and I'm maybe trying to help them relax or sleep, a tune that goes into the 2nd octave on a tin whistle or flute may be a bit too loud. So one octave tunes are nice for this as well.

One octave tunes also give me an option of what key to play the tune in to best suit a moment. For example, on a D whistle I could play it in the first octave (D) or the second octave (G). If I'm outside and it's windy, I may choose to play in G, since the second octave is a bit more wind resistant (it's tough to play whistles in windy weather). And I could choose D or G depending on the volume of the place I'm playing. It's also nice to have options of different keys to play in so you have more of a chance of playing along with other instuments.

It might also be nice to know some one octave tunes for anyone who plays an instrument that can only play 8 notes or so. For me, this would be my pendant ocarina, which I often bring along to play while out in a forest.

And lastly, I also just find that I enjoy simplistic tunes.

So here are some one octave tunes I've recorded. Most of these are original compositions, with a few traditional tunes here & there.

One Octave Tunes

Music for the painting session

Original Folk Tunes

A tune titled in appreciation of a very neat looking and very neat sounding bird.

Instruments:
Gold Tone tenor guitar, Burke tin whistle, Mk Pro low whistle

Starlings In The Oak Tree

Instruments:
Gold Tone tenor guitar, Doug Tipple flute

Jade By The Window

Instruments:
Nick Metcalf tin whistle, Kentucky mandolin, Gold Tone tenor guitar, Gold Tone tenor banjo, shruti box, tingsha bells, ankle bells, tambourine, bongos, cymbal, triangle, egg shaker

Milkweed

Instruments:
McNally Strumstick dulcitar, Burke tin whistles, Gold Tone tenor guitar, panflute, dilruba, tingsha bells

Chipping Sparrow

Instruments:
tin whistle, bongos, tingsha bells, triangle, egg shaker, sleigh bells, frame drum, seed rattle, tongue drum, claves, ghungroo bells, guira

Chickens In The Pig Pen (version 2)

Instruments:
Burke tin whistle, WuYou tongue drum

Daffodils Beside The Barn (version 2)

Instruments:
Hora octave mandolin, Burke D & low G whistles

Two Raccoons In A Blueberry Bush

A song written and recorded shortly after visiting a large sleeping pig.

The drawing is of ferns playing a kalimba.

Instruments:
Kalimba, Tin Whistle, Synthesizer, Bell

The Sleeping Pig

A song recorded the day after recording "The Sleeping Pig". And before recording this song, I visited the same large sleeping pig as it was waking up for dinner from a nap in a mud bath. 

The photo is of myself playing the adungu used in this song, and Bomba the cat.

Instruments:
Adungu, Tin Whistles, Synthesizer, Bell

The Waking Pig

A waltz that was written while sitting on a stone above a river, surrounded by white caterpillars.

Instruments:
High D Killarney Tin Whistle, Low D Kerry Optima Tin Whistle, Jerry Freeman Tin Whistle in the key of A

Waltz Of The White Caterpillar (version 2)

I made my friends some homemade vegetable stock as a gift for their wedding, though i felt another gift to accompany the vegetable stock would be nice, so here's an original waltz written for my friends to accompany their vegetable stock. 

Instruments: Killarney D tin whistle, Kentucky mandolin, Jerry Freeman low A tin whistle, ankle bells, tingsha bells

Vegetable Stock Waltz

A tune written while playing a tin whistle as I was wading down a river. Every now and then I'd catch up to a duck, eventually getting fairly close as I continued to wade and whistle, then once I was quite near it, the duck would fly further down the river. This pattern continued for a little while and it seemed I was accidentally slowly chasing the duck. Which is where the name arose from. 

Instruments:
Kentucky mandolin, Killarney D tin whistle

Accidentally Following A Duck Down A River

Instruments:
Acoustic guitar, Doug Tipple flute, Jerry Freeman tin whistle, glockenspiel

The New Donkey

Instruments:
Doug Tipple flute, Moroccan clay drums, sleigh bells, karatala, guiro, tongue drum

Four Pheasants

An old time folk tune.

Instruments:
Hugh Tracy kalimba, Doug Tipple low D flute, frame drum, Moroccan clay drums, egg shaker, glockenspiel

Ducks On The Millpond

Instruments:
Burke low G whistle, tenor guitar, organ

White Goat

An original tune written while watching a line of ducks waddle through grass and dandelions.

Instruments:
Kentucky mandolin, sleigh bells, claps, tenor guitar, Doug Tipple Flute

Ducks In The Grass

This composition arose while sitting beside a window with my cat and listening to the birds chirp in the morning.

Instruments:
Gold Tone tenor guitar, Doug Tipple low D flute, Jerry Freeman low A whistle

Sitting Beside A Cat And Listening To The Chirps Of Birds

An original whistle waltz, written on a day that I saw a lot of Eastern Pheobes.

Instruments:
Burke tin whistle, Gold Tone tenor guitar

Eastern Pheobe

One track from my duo with Baron Collins-Hill.

www.velocipedemusic.com

Velocipede - Quail is a Pretty Bird

Instruments:
Doug Tipple flute, Burke tin whistle, Gold Tone tenor guitar, triangle, iPad organ

A Long Line Of Yaks (version 2)

Instruments:
Burke tin whistle, Doug Tipple flute, bongos, conga, frame drum, karatala, egg shaker, shruti box, organ effect on iPad

Downy Woodpecker

Original compositions played upon various acoustic instruments. 

At the moment, the majority of music I record is original folk tunes. Most of these tunes arise whilst out in natural ecosystems or shortly after visiting a natural ecosystem. The titles often reflect an aspect of the ecosystem I had noticed while the tune came about. Lately this is usually a species of bird.

Tin whistles and flutes appear the most often in my recordings; though mandolin, tenor guitar, lyre harp, jaw harp, dulcitar, and a handful of other instruments show up fairly often as well.

And here's some more music I've made along with my friend Dan Jones:
https://soundcloud.com/user-453898279

Chickens In The Pig Pen (version 2)

Zach Schneider