cattail symphony

One evening last summer I rode my bike to a small creek in a park. The sun began to fall. The birds sang out for the last time that day, before retiring to their nests. A red-winged blackbird (like the one in the picture above) stayed perched on a cattail near me... singing its familiar song.

I sat there and listened to the birds for quite a while.

After some time I started hearing the combined birdsongs of the many species of birds as if it were one huge symphony. Their music was complex, but it definitely sounded like "music" to me.

I noticed that their music moved though space. I could hear one bird begin a cycle, far off, down the creek. Then another would respond, and another, and another... getting closer and closer to me... then past me, and further down the creek. Sometimes the songs would travel back and forth.

The different birds seemed to have different lengths to their song cycles. But they cycles combined in a beautiful complex rhythm. Much like the phase-shifting loops, in Brian Eno's (Steve Reich-inspired) Ambient music.

The pitch relationships of the songs were interesting too. They were quite complex. Some rose and fell. Some had little melodies. The combination was astounding. Much more complex than human music. I wonder if birds and whales might consider a lot of human music to be repetitive and dull?

It also reminded me of drum circles... how a bunch of drummers need to play for a while until they start hearing a melodic rhythm emerge, with each drummer finding the spots where his/her drum notes fit in. When everyone collaborates and locks together, it becomes beautiful music, and the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Collaborative events like this give me hope for social creatures, like ourselves.