On the other hand, we do have a number of Paddy Fahy's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_dove) that show up every once in a while. Slow and timid, they do manage to get a few bits of birdseed off the ground while the Rakish Paddys argue over the tunefeeder above. From a distance, they appear a dull brown, but when seen closely they actually shimmer with beautiful pink and teal highlights.
But I tend to think of tunes as individuals, not species. So, for instance, Tuttles, and Jenny's Welcome, and the Tempest, and Sergeant Early's are all ravens, of different sizes and complexities.
You never used to see blackcaps much because they were summer visitors sitting high up in trees. All of a sudden some of them have started staying in Britain for the winter and feeding at bird tables. Their novelty value makes them interesting for a while, and you think they're quite cute and get excited about them. Then you realise that they're muscling in on the bird table and kicking out the other birds, which, you realise, are actually more beautiful than the blackcaps anyway (think robins and blue tits). Suddenly you find that the only birds at your bird table are the blackcaps, so they lose their appeal.
Similarly, MacLeod's Farewell was popularised by Lunasa and people were playing it all the time. It keeps turning up in sessions at inappropriate times, and sometimes seems strange juxtaposed with other tunes that have been around for longer. Something doesn't quite seem to fit, somehow. But you never know whether it will just fade into oblivion eventually and people will get back to their old habits, or whether it's here to stay as a permanent fixture in the tradition.
Everyone seems to hate starlings. They're ubiquitous. They come in flocks all the time and eat all the food and swagger around, pushing other birds away. Everyone recognises starlings when they see them. At first sight, they seem like nothing special, but at the right time of year, in the summer when there are fewer starlings around because a load of their mates have migrated, you might see a solitary starling in its summer plumage. If you see the sun catch its feathers, you'll realise that beneath its seemingly boring exterior, there's an incredibly beautiful thing under there. If you're with the right musicians one day, and you play the Maid Behind The Bar for the first time in ages, you'll get a shock when you realise it's not "just another reel in D".
Yeah:
Feral Pigeon = Drowsy Maggie. http://www.animalpicturesarchive.com/ArchOLD-7/1193646537.jpg
Especially that way it's colours have been distorted by inbreeding and how scabby they often are, especially in towns. Hopping around with missing toes and nasty infections. Winged rats. And people who know no better feed and encourage them.
But what about the pristine rock dove? The original bird that was domesticated and turned feral. When you see them in their natural habitat of wild sea cliffs they are spectacular.
Well, the Skylark has to be The Syklark. Anytime, I'm up the heathery hills and these tiny little things soar and flutter above your head - this tune always comes to mind. It even flutters, dips and weaves like the bird itself.
Both birds are really common and make a constant noise all day. They're really annoying.
The Common Mynah was brought over from India ages ago, but it doesn't really matter because it's established now, so nobody really thinks about the fact that it's not even native. You'd have to admit that there are some attractive aspects about the bird - especially the contrast between its black head and bright yellow eye patch, but its general annoyingness overrides all that.
The Noisy Miner is a bully. It thinks it's better than the other birds, and harrasses birds much bigger than itself like for instance members of the crow family. The Noisy Miner is a boring, boring bird to look at, and to listen to. It drones on and on in its little chirrups and squeaks, and it wakes you up in the morning with its repetitive "tew-tew-tew. tew-tew-tew. tew-tew-tew". Then they all join in with each other in chorus, but slightly out of time with each other: "TEW-TEW-TEW. TEW-TEW-TEW. TEW-TEW-TEW". You want to shout at it to shut up, but you know it's pointless because it won't understand. The worst thing about the Noisy Miner is that it's a native species of honeyeater, so you don't really feel like you can criticise it in the way that you might be able to criticise the Common Mynah because it's an imported species. You wouldn't be able to shoot them even if you wanted to because they're a protected species. It has a kind of sacredness you feel is undeserved.
Ha, I like the "Myna Baffle" on that link. Could you construct a concertina reel baffle?
I was thinking about corvids and big jigs again and:
chough = strayaway child http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/media/image/7/g/chough01_1__image.jpg
Prety much the same dark colour all the way through, but they only serve to enhance the flashes of red. And very sociable birds, all choughing in unison.
One interesting thing about the Common Myna is that it has the ability to mimic loads of different things, like mobile phones and stuff. Even though it's regarded as a pest, this ability to mimic kind of redeems it, because you listen to its chirps and squeaks and you're reminded of other things.
The part endings of Miss McLeod's are a blessing to me, as they mimic the turnaround phrases in 2 much better tunes: Tim Moloney's and Garrett Barry's (aka Mr. McLeod's). So even if someone plays Miss McLeod's, it's not the end of the world... it reminds you to save up those 2 great tunes for later in the session.
I like your last 4 there (I had to look up a Galah - a perfectly preposterous parrot) but I'm not convinced about the Kingfisher - High Reel. The Hich reel is way too pedestrian and repetative a tune to waste on a bird as glorious as a kingfisher. I'm asuming you mean the european kingfisher, this one: http://www.cuerdenvalleypark.org.uk/jpegs/kingfisher.jpg
While riding to a friend’s house yesterday for an afternoon of tunes, I spotted a Sandhill Crane in a stubble field. Like Kitty O’Shea’s Hornpipe – impossibly large, even ungainly, but magnificent in flight.
Here in North America we have three Accipiters, the Sharp-shinned Hawk, the Coopers Hawk and the Goshawk. A family of woodland raptors with short wings and long tails, each is a successively larger version of the last. I think of the Rolling in the Barrel/The Tap Room/the Earl’s Chair set: swift, fierce and relentless.
I respectfully beg to differ a bit with Dow in regards to Starlings. In late 1800s they were famously released in New York by literature enthusiasts as part of a project to introduce all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare. Within a few decades they’d spread across North America, pushing out other species with raucous aggression. I think of them as tunes like The Rakes of Mallow, released on a session by well-meaning folks. They might even be considered beautiful if only they were very much rarer.
Rakes of Mallow is an entertaining tune when one starts to learn it. But after spending time ironing out the kinks....it wears very thin, very quickly....and someone inevitably brings up John Wayne in the "Quiet Man".
I have never seen a movie I couldn't sleep through. And that one is a snoozer.....
Yes, I like the idea of cranes and storks being horpipes. They are most often played stood on the groung. Ideed, when you see them you wonder if they could ever fly. Ah, but when they do ...
I'm not so sure about hawks. Or any of the raptors really. falcons, eagles, buzzards etc. I rarther see reels as finches. There's just so many of them. Some stand out like beacons, like the Gold finch and the Spike Island lasses I mentioned earlier. But most are really really similar forming their own subgenres like buntings etc. Each perfect, but very similar.
If you made reels as raptors (there's still a lot of em) you'd have to make all reels raptors. I supose the Bucks of Oranmore would have to be the Golden Eagle. perhaps the most wide spread bird on the planet, but bloody impressive all the same.
Intereesting analogy. A frined of mine who went to Seamus Tansey for flute lessons said he used to take her out to his back garden to listen to the birds and get inspiration.
Only a few still lingering now that the snows are gone (though we had light flurries only yesterday). A clean, classic fellow that makes me think of a sweet simple jig like My Darling Asleep.
Agreed - super thread. I just wonder how long it will be before some clown drags it down with references to tunes like The Swallowtail / Pigeon on the gate / Jenny's chickens / or even Cock o' the north ;-/
Ah, dark-eyed juncoes (Junco hyemalis) are among my favorite birds. They often winter over, even here in Montana. In summer, they build their nests on the ground, under downed logs or sometimes against the wall of a hollow left from a tree uprooting. Dapper is indeed the right word--the flash of white against black on their tail as they flit away through the underbrush always makes me think of the sheen of satin on a tuxedo.
And My Darling Asleep is a great match, well done fidkid!
Too literal. Getting hung up on the titles doesn't work. Any way, a skane of geese is a really noisy affair, constantly honking, And if you've ever seen/heard a skane of 600 or so greylag geese descend on an estuary you'd know what I mean. I don't think it fits that little tune at all. I'd say a tree creeper for that tune. Busy, purposeful and always moving up the tree, until it flies down to the base of the next tree. lovely things, quiet and unassuming. http://www.thebaynhams.com/Photo's/treecreeper.jpg
Yep. Coloration varies somewhat across six distinct populations of this species. Two of these have little to no red or brown on them--just white and slate grey.
I am not sure if the rest of you have these, but out here in the boonies there are these birds called whippoorwills ,so called because they go, whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill-
whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill-
whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill-
whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill-
whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill-
whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill-
all %#$@ing night. I would equate them with a tune, but I can not think of one that would be even close to as annoying and repetitive as the blasted whippoorwills. So folks, what is the most repetitive and long lasting tune in the history of ITM, because that is surly the whippoorwill.
Arlo
This reminds me of the hours I've spent at places like Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania, and Cape May, New Jersey, and Rogers Pass, Montana watching parades of migrating birds train past. All these years, and I could have had my fiddle with me, stringing tunes together in sets to match the birds soaring by.
"Quite rare round these parts" congratulations.
Oh, and did I mention that whippoorwills are possibly the loudest birds on the face of the planet, you can here them quite literally hear them from half a mile away. So what ever that supremely annoying tune is, it would have to be played by a 100 highland bagpipes to achieve the full effect.
Arlo
Tunes in A Minor are warblers. Like them, they are brownish, very small, very fast, and indistinguishable, unless one really is a musical equivalent to a twitcher. But The Old Copperplate can be isolated and paired with the chiffchaff, whose song is unmistakeably repetitive and monotonous.
The only nightjar I've ever seen was on the Isle of Arran in 1992. It made this amazing churring sound like a cricket or cicada or something. A knowledgable friend of mine waved a white handkerchief around above his head, and the bird flew at it a few times, thinking it was a mate (they go for the white flash of colour on the breast during courtship/mating rituals or whatever). It was very weird seeing this thing swooping around in the dark like that. Very otherworldly...
...which prompted me to look up the answer to the question of what is a whippoorwill. Turns out it's a member of the nightjar family, but not the same as the European one. Their Latin names are Caprimulgus Vociferus and Caprimulgus Europeus respectively. I know, I'm geeky and sad.
Over here in Oz, there's an even weirder bird called a Frogmouth that's like a cross between a nightjar and an owl http://www.drellenrudolph.com/featureanimals/tawnyfrogmouth.html. I've only seen one once, when I was camping in the bush. They're definitely not as shy as nightjars. The one I saw just sat there on a fence post and didn't even fly away when you walked up to it.
As to the question of what tune is like a nightjar, for some reason the tune that springs to mind is "Ahearne's Egg" by Finbarr Dwyer, because it's in an unusual key you hardly ever come across (some people may never have come across it at all), it has an air of mystique surrounding it, it's slightly crooked and quirky, and, like a nightjar's churring, it has an ongoing, unstoppable cyclic quality to it that's hard to describe.
Ha, I was gonna say about the Tawny Frogmouth. The tune I had for that was was the dingle reggatta. It's really not a great tune, very good camouflage, slips in under the radar. Then the thing opens its mouth (it does this as a defence thing, it has a terrifying bright red gape). It's so scary, everyone jumps up it fright.
The King Of The Fairies is the familiar of the Great Skua or Bonxie, one of the most horrible creatures on earth.
Sleep Soond Ida Moarnin' is its lesser relative the Arctic Skua or Artie. The shrill, vengeful nature of that tune could be the wind in the pinions of the Artie as it dives from behind to peck someone in the head or at any rate buffet him, for presuming to walk anywhere near its nest.
there's been a rush of negative ones. As is the norm here. I wanted this to be a positive largely thread.
New rule: two positive for one negative.
red crowned dancing crane = the groves http://www.fieldguides.com/japanRCCraneDS_sm.jpg
sticking with fidkid's cranes and hornpipes. An astonishing bird that actually migrates over the Himalayas
lost in the loop = goosander http://www.rothervalley.f9.co.uk/jpgs/bigjpgs/DSC_6145.jpg
It's a big colourful diving duck with teeth. Interesting that the duck and the drake are so different. You can play the tune in a very masculine black and white way ... or the the more subtle shades of brown. But both with teeth.
Their Latin names are Caprimulgus Vociferus and Caprimulgus Europeus respectively. I know, I'm geeky and sad
These Latin names sound like they could be the names of "Sets" --- if some dancers in the Balkans were trying to come up with the equivalent of something like "The Clare Set"
The skylark suggests The Random Jig. Both come up with more notes than one would think possible, and fly up and down a lot. This one isn't negative - I'm very fond of both.
Not to do disservice to the tune the skylark, which is a brilliant tune. I was thinking snow bunting, but came across this one instead. The painted bunting. Extraordinary. (I've never seen one and have no idea of its character, so this pairing could be flawed. But on it's colouring alone ...) http://www.houstonaudubon.org/html/PaintedBuntingAMmed.jpg
I would actually associate tunes like The Bucks, The Leitrim Bucks (a superb variation) and Lucy Campbell with marsh harriers. Those birds hover majestically in circles for hours at low altitude and the tunes have a kind of seamless loop structure that allows them to be played over and over with renewed delight.
A species that’s been brought up on here before is the Waxwing. A wonderfully proportioned jewel. And if the silky plumage, crest and roguish mask weren’t enough, the hints of unexpectedly vivid red and yellow primaries make it a stunner. Yet it’s still not showy – overall the effect seems understated. The Culfadda? Eileen Curran, maybe? I wish my repertoire could do it justice.
the Puffin.isJohn Cages reel.
WrenHornpipe Cuckoo hornpipe.
Rodneys glory is a bantam cockerel
Blackbird is a blackbird.
Garden of Daisies,is a robin redbreast
I've sometimes been quite shocked to find country people and farmers who see only 'crows', when in fact the birds they see are jackdaws, rooks, ravens, carrion crows, all very, very different when you study them.
I used to be that ignorant myself once, about ITM. It was all diddly music, all sounded the same. But when you zoom in on the fine detail, the tunes get more and more interesting.
Even the ubiquitous blackbird is fascinating. They practice their song very quietly to themselves before they sing it loud for all the world to hear.
I have often seen snow buntings, a winter visitor here on the North East Coast perhaps Scooter Scerry would be a good tune for them.
Last year I saw an Eagle Owl on my window ledge it makes me think of Chief O'neils favourite both look and sound good with the hint of something out of place
Of course they are all crows, in the sense of biological classification. But they are different species, with distinct behaviour and conformation.
My point was really a personal grumble about ignorance, that some people do not see any difference. They see a black bird, so it must be 'a crow'.
Actually, my contribution was a rather lame attempt to say something vaguely connected to the topic. I think I have a fundamental philosophical problem here, in that I see music as popular human culture, but I see birds from a very different perspective, things in their own right. One reason I loathe Disney, for making birds and animals into absurd caricatures with projected human features. I hate that.
But I'm being too serious for your light hearted thread, Michael. Just my mood of the moment. I watch birds a lot, every day, for most of my life.
Someone said, up the page, that whipoorwills are the loudest bird. I don't know what the loudest bird is, but I have rheas. During the breeding season the males boom, a bit like a bittern's sound, and on a quiet night the sound carries for several miles, bit like a foghorn.
I mentioned earlier about corvids and big jigs, Will. There's something about them (a lot of them) being outwardly plain, but harbouring that intelligence. You mentioned individual tunes being individual ravens ... I understand, however, for the sake of this particular thought experiment, ther are plenty of other corvids.
I'm seeing it as tune = species.
And each time you or someone else plays the tune = individual.
Yes, allegorical....nothing wrong with that, just I'm in a literal mood...best I can think of at the moment is 'Toss the feathers'
Wish I could play it...I've listened to People's, Canny's, and Kevin Burke's versions today. They are each very individual, but no birds connection comes to mind...
A tune like Jenny's Welcome to Charlie is dark, smart, agile, intentional, and loves to float effortlessly above my head when I'm out on a hike or bike ride. Which also exactly describes what the ravens around here are like.
I've been thinking about this thread, and why it doesn't seem to work for me, when so many of you find easy links between tunes and bird imagery. Maybe it's because my brain doesn't work in that sort of poetic fashion. Or maybe it's something else. I followed Soto Zen for forty years. I remember in my teens, thinking about drug experiences and how the world could appear so different and then you come down and everything's kinda back to normal, rather dreary and scary and miserable. The constant background of nuclear Armageddon and traumatic family relationships and all that stuff.
The experience became a sort of koan. I used to think myself into 'enlightenment', try and see everything fresh and new, as an attempt to escape from the depression and confusion of what everyone called 'real' or 'normal'. That was a long time ago. I discovered that the meditation works in it's own way, goes much deeper than thoughts. The way that soceity sees the world is really just a description, culturally conditioned. At various times in my life, that kind of overlay has peeled off. I tend to live now in the raw reality. The birds are just whatever they are. They are as alien as Martians, in a way. Or maybe I see them as if for the first time, as if I was a Martian.
I studied animal ethology after reading Niko Tinbergen. I don't project human qualities onto wildlife, that is, anthropomorphism in the sense that most scientists use the word. But nor do I see animals and birds the way most scientists do, as kind of biological machines without souls (in the Cartesian tradition) which I consider ridiculous. They have thrown the baby out with the bathwater,IMO. My dog has a character, feelings, thoughts, moods, and way more than I can comprehend, and is as much of a 'person' as I am, just different shape.
I see birds the same way. I've kept various fowls for the last few years, not as pets or as a commercial enterprise, but as a philosophical quest, to try and better understand their nature and thus also my own nature and existence. It's a big part of my life. It's a kind of project, like if you wanted to understand what a hunter - gatherer lifestyle was like, then best go and live with the people for a few years, without preconceptions, and observe and learn.
So, for me, birds are in that sort of a separate compartment. Tunes are some different compartment, to do with my moods and feelings, food for the soul, and the constant challenge to be able to play better.
I know quite a lot about ravens, see them most days, and they have a very strong character which resonates in many parts of my being, but I don't find anything musical or make the linkage.
Like fidkid, I thought of My Darling's Asleep in association with the little guys that visit my feeder, not only juncos, but goldfinches, tufted titmice and chickadees. There should be a different tune for the nuthatches who like to eat upside down, maybe Tripping Up the Stairs, which kind of goes in the opposite direction of the first jig.....
Nice thread, Michael!
Re: tunes/birds: Concertinas are hedgehogs. Hedgehogs are concertinas.
Shifting the subject but continuing to make piquant comparisons:
Mellowing out over excellent Castle Eden ale and tunes tonight, I studied the adjacent Anglo player.
I concluded his concertina had the essential characteristics of a hedgehog.
I've picked up more live hedgehogs off roads than I've handled concertinas - not many in either case. Hedgehogs are fat little brutes that roll up, and sag, and twist, and have prickles, and are not really that easy or friendly to handle. Concertinas are the same.
And the Shakespeare line - "Twice, and thrice the hedgepig whined..." - Don't you hear the sound of a concertina starting up, when you read that? Not to mention the creature's other wuffles and wheezes, so like a concertina with knackered-up bellows and reeds.
At least concertinas are not notorious for passing on fleas or diseases, but I wouldn't bet against it. Some look capable of anything.
I should add that the guy whose playing inspired these musings is a very good player, btw.
It's a bit obvious, but fiddles are like many cats (not all cats, I had one once that was nothing like this). They're moody, often grumpy, needy, screechy, will leave home if you don't give them enough attention, but will purr if stroked often enough. (And I was thinking about what it feels like the first time you pick up and try and play a fiddle: like holding a cat by the scruff of its neck and trying to trap it's back legs under you chin, then trying to stroke it with a canary you are trying not to squeeze to death.)
The fretted instruments, guitars, bazoukis, mandolins etc. are like dogs. All shapes and sizes. Yappy, unsubtle, will wreck the place unless trained well from an early age. They'll fight if they don't know each other.
Bodhrans are like big 40lb carp, out of water, gasping for breath.
tunes/birds
tunes/birds
Seeings as, by definition, we are all internet nurds here, here's a perticularly internety nurdish analogy thing.
What birds are what tunes?
I know there are plenty of holes in the analogy, too easy to pic holes, so just don't bother.
Here's how it works. I'll start you off with a few. The familiarity you have with your local birds is the starting point.
House sparrow = Rakish Paddy.
Once ubiquitous but been missing for a few years. Now making a welcome come back.
Carion crow = Lark in the morning.
http://www.asks86.dsl.pipex.com/europephotos/corcoron6385.jpg
Not sure why I link the corvids with big jigs. Carrion crows are great, bags of personality. But a bit bland and not very subtle.
Magpie = Kilffenora jig
http://www.bbc.co.uk/lancashire/content/images/2006/06/06/magpie470_470x300.jpg
Such contrast in a tune/bird. Very interesting
Blue tit = Mountain road
http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/photos/birds/blue-tit-3061.jpg
You hear it out of the corner of your ears and often, you don't even bother to turn your head. Shame really, a perfect little package.
Gold finch = Spike Island lasses
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/graphics/2008/01/24/eabirds124.jpg
The most colourful and what a great singer too. I never tire of goldfinches. Such a contrast of bold primary colours and subtle dusky browns. And so agile.
Gulls = scottish pipe reels.
You have to be an expert in the subgenre to tell them apart. But even when you can, they're still all the same.
I could go on and on. (probably will)
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
Big tit = Michael Gill
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Bored with thesession.org
Re: tunes/birds
Ugh. Rakish Paddys.
Our back yard has been taken over by Rakish Paddys. They are really pushy little things that spend all afternoon chasing away the Spike Island Lassies, and the Foxhunters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_%28bird%29) leaving the tunefeeder (http://www.burren.com) in an awful state, with almost as much seed (http://www.harpoonbrewery.com/index.cfm?pid=28507) on the ground as is left in the feeder.
On the other hand, we do have a number of Paddy Fahy's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_dove) that show up every once in a while. Slow and timid, they do manage to get a few bits of birdseed off the ground while the Rakish Paddys argue over the tunefeeder above. From a distance, they appear a dull brown, but when seen closely they actually shimmer with beautiful pink and teal highlights.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Georgi
Re: tunes/birds
frisbee = dodo
hahahahaha
Oooooh, I *like* the Fahy's/mourning dove analog!
But I tend to think of tunes as individuals, not species. So, for instance, Tuttles, and Jenny's Welcome, and the Tempest, and Sergeant Early's are all ravens, of different sizes and complexities.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: tunes/birds
Can't wait to see what tune someone associates with the pigeon...
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Whiddler
Re: tunes/birds
That one's too easy.
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/517
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Georgi
Re: tunes/birds
(actually, "Drowsy Maggie" might be a better pidgeon metaphor, but it would have been less funny)
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Georgi
Re: tunes/birds
There are a LOT of noisy (noisy in a good way) robins in my area; I think the Green Mountain reel suits them well!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7e94SVaSkg
ps. this is a surprisingly fun topic. There should be more discussions like this!
My boyfriend just called me a huge "nurd"
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Tasia
Re: tunes/birds
Blackcap = MacLeod's Farewell
http://www.britannica.com/eb/art-23986/Male-and-female-blackcaps
You never used to see blackcaps much because they were summer visitors sitting high up in trees. All of a sudden some of them have started staying in Britain for the winter and feeding at bird tables. Their novelty value makes them interesting for a while, and you think they're quite cute and get excited about them. Then you realise that they're muscling in on the bird table and kicking out the other birds, which, you realise, are actually more beautiful than the blackcaps anyway (think robins and blue tits). Suddenly you find that the only birds at your bird table are the blackcaps, so they lose their appeal.
Similarly, MacLeod's Farewell was popularised by Lunasa and people were playing it all the time. It keeps turning up in sessions at inappropriate times, and sometimes seems strange juxtaposed with other tunes that have been around for longer. Something doesn't quite seem to fit, somehow. But you never know whether it will just fade into oblivion eventually and people will get back to their old habits, or whether it's here to stay as a permanent fixture in the tradition.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Dow
Re: tunes/birds
Starling = The Maid Behind The Bar
http://www.pixalo.com/community/photo-sharing/european-starling-8957.html
Everyone seems to hate starlings. They're ubiquitous. They come in flocks all the time and eat all the food and swagger around, pushing other birds away. Everyone recognises starlings when they see them. At first sight, they seem like nothing special, but at the right time of year, in the summer when there are fewer starlings around because a load of their mates have migrated, you might see a solitary starling in its summer plumage. If you see the sun catch its feathers, you'll realise that beneath its seemingly boring exterior, there's an incredibly beautiful thing under there. If you're with the right musicians one day, and you play the Maid Behind The Bar for the first time in ages, you'll get a shock when you realise it's not "just another reel in D".
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Dow
Re: tunes/birds
Excellent. All very good.
Yeah:
Feral Pigeon = Drowsy Maggie.
http://www.animalpicturesarchive.com/ArchOLD-7/1193646537.jpg
Especially that way it's colours have been distorted by inbreeding and how scabby they often are, especially in towns. Hopping around with missing toes and nasty infections. Winged rats. And people who know no better feed and encourage them.
But what about the pristine rock dove? The original bird that was domesticated and turned feral. When you see them in their natural habitat of wild sea cliffs they are spectacular.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
Well, the Skylark has to be The Syklark. Anytime, I'm up the heathery hills and these tiny little things soar and flutter above your head - this tune always comes to mind. It even flutters, dips and weaves like the bird itself.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by the wounded hussar
Re: tunes/birds
Let's have an Aussie one:
Common Mynah = Miss McLeod's
Noisy Miner = The Concertina Reel
http://www.tvwc.org/HTML/myna%20baffles%20for%20nestboxes.htm
Both birds are really common and make a constant noise all day. They're really annoying.
The Common Mynah was brought over from India ages ago, but it doesn't really matter because it's established now, so nobody really thinks about the fact that it's not even native. You'd have to admit that there are some attractive aspects about the bird - especially the contrast between its black head and bright yellow eye patch, but its general annoyingness overrides all that.
The Noisy Miner is a bully. It thinks it's better than the other birds, and harrasses birds much bigger than itself like for instance members of the crow family. The Noisy Miner is a boring, boring bird to look at, and to listen to. It drones on and on in its little chirrups and squeaks, and it wakes you up in the morning with its repetitive "tew-tew-tew. tew-tew-tew. tew-tew-tew". Then they all join in with each other in chorus, but slightly out of time with each other: "TEW-TEW-TEW. TEW-TEW-TEW. TEW-TEW-TEW". You want to shout at it to shut up, but you know it's pointless because it won't understand. The worst thing about the Noisy Miner is that it's a native species of honeyeater, so you don't really feel like you can criticise it in the way that you might be able to criticise the Common Mynah because it's an imported species. You wouldn't be able to shoot them even if you wanted to because they're a protected species. It has a kind of sacredness you feel is undeserved.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Dow
Re: tunes/birds
Ha, I like the "Myna Baffle" on that link. Could you construct a concertina reel baffle?
I was thinking about corvids and big jigs again and:
chough = strayaway child
http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/media/image/7/g/chough01_1__image.jpg
Prety much the same dark colour all the way through, but they only serve to enhance the flashes of red. And very sociable birds, all choughing in unison.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
One interesting thing about the Common Myna is that it has the ability to mimic loads of different things, like mobile phones and stuff. Even though it's regarded as a pest, this ability to mimic kind of redeems it, because you listen to its chirps and squeaks and you're reminded of other things.
The part endings of Miss McLeod's are a blessing to me, as they mimic the turnaround phrases in 2 much better tunes: Tim Moloney's and Garrett Barry's (aka Mr. McLeod's). So even if someone plays Miss McLeod's, it's not the end of the world... it reminds you to save up those 2 great tunes for later in the session.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Dow
Re: tunes/birds
Kingfisher - High Reel
Cockatoo - Another Jig Will Do
Emu - The Galopede
Galah - Tripping Up The Stair
(Laughing) Kookaburra - Haste To The Wedding
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by jamascc
Re: tunes/birds
I like your last 4 there (I had to look up a Galah - a perfectly preposterous parrot) but I'm not convinced about the Kingfisher - High Reel. The Hich reel is way too pedestrian and repetative a tune to waste on a bird as glorious as a kingfisher. I'm asuming you mean the european kingfisher, this one:
http://www.cuerdenvalleypark.org.uk/jpegs/kingfisher.jpg
Maybe a better kingfisher for that tune would be the african pied kingfisher. This one:
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/birdingtrips/gambia_images/4498-PiedKingfisher-CIS.JPG
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
While riding to a friend’s house yesterday for an afternoon of tunes, I spotted a Sandhill Crane in a stubble field. Like Kitty O’Shea’s Hornpipe – impossibly large, even ungainly, but magnificent in flight.
Here in North America we have three Accipiters, the Sharp-shinned Hawk, the Coopers Hawk and the Goshawk. A family of woodland raptors with short wings and long tails, each is a successively larger version of the last. I think of the Rolling in the Barrel/The Tap Room/the Earl’s Chair set: swift, fierce and relentless.
I respectfully beg to differ a bit with Dow in regards to Starlings. In late 1800s they were famously released in New York by literature enthusiasts as part of a project to introduce all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare. Within a few decades they’d spread across North America, pushing out other species with raucous aggression. I think of them as tunes like The Rakes of Mallow, released on a session by well-meaning folks. They might even be considered beautiful if only they were very much rarer.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by fidkid
Re: tunes/birds
Rakes of Mallow is an entertaining tune when one starts to learn it. But after spending time ironing out the kinks....it wears very thin, very quickly....and someone inevitably brings up John Wayne in the "Quiet Man".
I have never seen a movie I couldn't sleep through. And that one is a snoozer.....
If it were a bird...it would be a parakeet.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by zippydw
Re: tunes/birds
Yes, I like the idea of cranes and storks being horpipes. They are most often played stood on the groung. Ideed, when you see them you wonder if they could ever fly. Ah, but when they do ...
I'm not so sure about hawks. Or any of the raptors really. falcons, eagles, buzzards etc. I rarther see reels as finches. There's just so many of them. Some stand out like beacons, like the Gold finch and the Spike Island lasses I mentioned earlier. But most are really really similar forming their own subgenres like buntings etc. Each perfect, but very similar.
If you made reels as raptors (there's still a lot of em) you'd have to make all reels raptors. I supose the Bucks of Oranmore would have to be the Golden Eagle. perhaps the most wide spread bird on the planet, but bloody impressive all the same.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
But I'm more inclines to see the:
Bucks of Oranmore = Hawfinch
http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/photos/birds/hawfinch-8448.jpg
Look at that face, what an attitude
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
Jigs are more varied, and could be anything really. How about this one I've just learned:
Sport = hoopoe
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/870
http://www.kruger2canyons.com/images/hoopoe.jpg
One of a kind
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
E dorian reels are the genus Empidonax – virtually indistinguishable except by experts, and sometimes only by dissection.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by fidkid
Re: tunes/birds
oops, empidonax
http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/archive/empid/empid.html
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by fidkid
Re: tunes/birds
yes, there are great swathes of tunes like these, but this only makes the good tunes stand out more
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
Rakes of Mallow as a starling? Reminds me more of a woodpecker, pecking away in time to the notes, particularly the quaver runs in bars 2, 4 etc
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by domnull
Re: tunes/birds
Any more tunes to match a woodpecker?
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by domnull
Re: tunes/birds
but what kind of woodpecker?
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
Try not to get too onomatopoeic, or they'll all be bloody woodpeckers
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
Intereesting analogy. A frined of mine who went to Seamus Tansey for flute lessons said he used to take her out to his back garden to listen to the birds and get inspiration.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Sinocal
Re: tunes/birds
Kevin Burke's B min jig 'Up in the air' = geese
(a skane of course, rather than a flock ! )
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/894
There's a lovely slow tune called 'Floating from Skerry' which brings an image of a swan to mind. But a cob, rather than a pen, for some reason.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by domnull
Re: tunes/birds
http://kazimodal.trad.org/partitions/valses/Floating_from_Skerry/Floating_from_Skerry.pdf
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by domnull
Re: tunes/birds
Condor = Farewell to Erin
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by grego
Re: tunes/birds
A welcome winter visitor, very simple and elegant is the Dark-eyed junco (slate-colored junco). “Dapper” comes to mind.
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Dark-eyed_Junco.html
Only a few still lingering now that the snows are gone (though we had light flurries only yesterday). A clean, classic fellow that makes me think of a sweet simple jig like My Darling Asleep.
I rather like this. Lovely thread, Michael.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by fidkid
Re: tunes/birds
... or maybe I've subconsciuosly got Saint-Saens' 'The Swan' in mind - I hear some vague similarities between the two.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by domnull
Re: tunes/birds
Agreed - super thread. I just wonder how long it will be before some clown drags it down with references to tunes like The Swallowtail / Pigeon on the gate / Jenny's chickens / or even Cock o' the north ;-/
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by domnull
Re: tunes/birds
Paddy taylors = Peregrine Falcon. Fast, majestic, twisting, malevolent.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Conán McDonnell
Re: tunes/birds
Didn't you just, domnull?
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by fidkid
Re: tunes/birds
Ah, dark-eyed juncoes (Junco hyemalis) are among my favorite birds. They often winter over, even here in Montana. In summer, they build their nests on the ground, under downed logs or sometimes against the wall of a hollow left from a tree uprooting. Dapper is indeed the right word--the flash of white against black on their tail as they flit away through the underbrush always makes me think of the sheen of satin on a tuxedo.
And My Darling Asleep is a great match, well done fidkid!
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: tunes/birds
Too literal. Getting hung up on the titles doesn't work. Any way, a skane of geese is a really noisy affair, constantly honking, And if you've ever seen/heard a skane of 600 or so greylag geese descend on an estuary you'd know what I mean. I don't think it fits that little tune at all. I'd say a tree creeper for that tune. Busy, purposeful and always moving up the tree, until it flies down to the base of the next tree. lovely things, quiet and unassuming.
http://www.thebaynhams.com/Photo's/treecreeper.jpg
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
http://sdakotabirds.com/species_photos/photos/dark_eyed_junco_3.jpg
Is this the fella Will?
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
Yep. Coloration varies somewhat across six distinct populations of this species. Two of these have little to no red or brown on them--just white and slate grey.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: tunes/birds
And often found in the company of chickadees and nutchatches, all amazing year-round residents here.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: tunes/birds
It's fortunate - for the analogys' sake - that the colouration (even the spelling) varies
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
I am not sure if the rest of you have these, but out here in the boonies there are these birds called whippoorwills ,so called because they go, whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill-
whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill-
whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill-
whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill-
whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill-
whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill-
all %#$@ing night. I would equate them with a tune, but I can not think of one that would be even close to as annoying and repetitive as the blasted whippoorwills. So folks, what is the most repetitive and long lasting tune in the history of ITM, because that is surly the whippoorwill.
Arlo
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Fellenbaum
Re: tunes/birds
"whippoorwill-whippoorwill-whippoorwill" -- obviously a slip jig!
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by fidkid
Re: tunes/birds
LOL, yes Michael, even how the light catches a junco's plummage changes the coloration. "The same junco is never the same junco twice."
And see how they go into sets with the chickadees and nutchatches.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: tunes/birds
Here's an archaeopteryx:
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/5696
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by fidkid
Re: tunes/birds
This reminds me of the hours I've spent at places like Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania, and Cape May, New Jersey, and Rogers Pass, Montana watching parades of migrating birds train past. All these years, and I could have had my fiddle with me, stringing tunes together in sets to match the birds soaring by.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: tunes/birds
Sounds like your whippoorwill is your music for a found harmonium.
The bird looks much like the eurpean nightjar (might be the same bird). Quite rare round these parts.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
See http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/1285. Marcus Hernon had his own take on the subject.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Floss the Tethers
Re: tunes/birds
"Quite rare round these parts" congratulations.
Oh, and did I mention that whippoorwills are possibly the loudest birds on the face of the planet, you can here them quite literally hear them from half a mile away. So what ever that supremely annoying tune is, it would have to be played by a 100 highland bagpipes to achieve the full effect.
Arlo
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Fellenbaum
Re: tunes/birds
Tunes in A Minor are warblers. Like them, they are brownish, very small, very fast, and indistinguishable, unless one really is a musical equivalent to a twitcher. But The Old Copperplate can be isolated and paired with the chiffchaff, whose song is unmistakeably repetitive and monotonous.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by nicholas
Re: tunes/birds
The only nightjar I've ever seen was on the Isle of Arran in 1992. It made this amazing churring sound like a cricket or cicada or something. A knowledgable friend of mine waved a white handkerchief around above his head, and the bird flew at it a few times, thinking it was a mate (they go for the white flash of colour on the breast during courtship/mating rituals or whatever). It was very weird seeing this thing swooping around in the dark like that. Very otherworldly...
...which prompted me to look up the answer to the question of what is a whippoorwill. Turns out it's a member of the nightjar family, but not the same as the European one. Their Latin names are Caprimulgus Vociferus and Caprimulgus Europeus respectively. I know, I'm geeky and sad.
Over here in Oz, there's an even weirder bird called a Frogmouth that's like a cross between a nightjar and an owl http://www.drellenrudolph.com/featureanimals/tawnyfrogmouth.html. I've only seen one once, when I was camping in the bush. They're definitely not as shy as nightjars. The one I saw just sat there on a fence post and didn't even fly away when you walked up to it.
As to the question of what tune is like a nightjar, for some reason the tune that springs to mind is "Ahearne's Egg" by Finbarr Dwyer, because it's in an unusual key you hardly ever come across (some people may never have come across it at all), it has an air of mystique surrounding it, it's slightly crooked and quirky, and, like a nightjar's churring, it has an ongoing, unstoppable cyclic quality to it that's hard to describe.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Dow
Re: tunes/birds
Ha, I was gonna say about the Tawny Frogmouth. The tune I had for that was was the dingle reggatta. It's really not a great tune, very good camouflage, slips in under the radar. Then the thing opens its mouth (it does this as a defence thing, it has a terrifying bright red gape). It's so scary, everyone jumps up it fright.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
We have a pair of them regularly in our garden - they are so well camouflaged - and they play the Bodhran too .. not sure you would like them llig ..
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by jamascc
Re: tunes/birds
The King Of The Fairies is the familiar of the Great Skua or Bonxie, one of the most horrible creatures on earth.
Sleep Soond Ida Moarnin' is its lesser relative the Arctic Skua or Artie. The shrill, vengeful nature of that tune could be the wind in the pinions of the Artie as it dives from behind to peck someone in the head or at any rate buffet him, for presuming to walk anywhere near its nest.
(I encountered both species in Shetland.)
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by nicholas
Re: tunes/birds
Athol Highlanders is obviously the Corncrake ,mostly scottish drab and sounds like an old fashioned rusty lawnmower , the bird is similar
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by bazouki dave and the real tooty flutey
Re: tunes/birds
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/c/corncrake/index.asp
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by bazouki dave and the real tooty flutey
Re: tunes/birds
there's been a rush of negative ones. As is the norm here. I wanted this to be a positive largely thread.
New rule: two positive for one negative.
red crowned dancing crane = the groves
http://www.fieldguides.com/japanRCCraneDS_sm.jpg
sticking with fidkid's cranes and hornpipes. An astonishing bird that actually migrates over the Himalayas
the new policeman = yellowhammer
http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/photos/birds/yellowhammer-0946.jpg
What can you say, an absolute cracker. instantly recognisable
lost in the loop = goosander
http://www.rothervalley.f9.co.uk/jpgs/bigjpgs/DSC_6145.jpg
It's a big colourful diving duck with teeth. Interesting that the duck and the drake are so different. You can play the tune in a very masculine black and white way ... or the the more subtle shades of brown. But both with teeth.
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
I'll try to think up some nicer ones.
Goosanders turn up on the Wear in Durham in the winter; the male one is certainly spectacular.
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by nicholas
Re: tunes/birds
>there's been a rush of negative ones
Those would be the Mockingbirds?
Ok, here's my two positives then...
The Scholar - Sandhill Crane
http://www.savingcranes.org/species/sandhill.cfm
Perhaps the oldest still-living species. They even look like dinosaurs and their call is just freaky.
Maids of Michelston - Golden Eagle
Lie on your back and watch them soar (been dialing up the Bothy Band's version lately...)
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by monkey440
Re: tunes/birds
Canary --- as "My Marianne"
Pretty, sunny, sweet, melodic
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by Fid42
Re: tunes/birds
Their Latin names are Caprimulgus Vociferus and Caprimulgus Europeus respectively. I know, I'm geeky and sad
These Latin names sound like they could be the names of "Sets" --- if some dancers in the Balkans were trying to come up with the equivalent of something like "The Clare Set"
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by Fid42
Re: tunes/birds
The skylark suggests The Random Jig. Both come up with more notes than one would think possible, and fly up and down a lot. This one isn't negative - I'm very fond of both.
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by nicholas
Re: tunes/birds
Yeah, good one. Much better than the actual tune the skylark
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
Not to do disservice to the tune the skylark, which is a brilliant tune. I was thinking snow bunting, but came across this one instead. The painted bunting. Extraordinary. (I've never seen one and have no idea of its character, so this pairing could be flawed. But on it's colouring alone ...)
http://www.houstonaudubon.org/html/PaintedBuntingAMmed.jpg
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
new policeman = yellowhammer (MG)
M, would that be 'new policeman' as in 'Michael Dyer's Favourite'?
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1881
rather than
'Belles of Tiperary' (aka 'new policeman' )
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by domnull
Re: tunes/birds
I was thinking about some tunes which are syncopated eg Willafjord - brings to mind something like a quail, with its erratic flight when flushed.
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by domnull
Re: tunes/birds
yellow hammer = Belles of Tiperary
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
I would actually associate tunes like The Bucks, The Leitrim Bucks (a superb variation) and Lucy Campbell with marsh harriers. Those birds hover majestically in circles for hours at low altitude and the tunes have a kind of seamless loop structure that allows them to be played over and over with renewed delight.
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by pennhorse
Re: tunes/birds
A species that’s been brought up on here before is the Waxwing. A wonderfully proportioned jewel. And if the silky plumage, crest and roguish mask weren’t enough, the hints of unexpectedly vivid red and yellow primaries make it a stunner. Yet it’s still not showy – overall the effect seems understated. The Culfadda? Eileen Curran, maybe? I wish my repertoire could do it justice.
-- fidkid
AKA The Bird Nerd, Stork Dork, Booby Boob, Godwit Nitwit, Dodo, Turkey, Gull, Dunlin Dumdum, Loon Goon, Sapsucker Sap, Goatsucker Sucker, and Bushtit Dimwit
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by fidkid
Re: tunes/birds
the Puffin.isJohn Cages reel.
WrenHornpipe Cuckoo hornpipe.
Rodneys glory is a bantam cockerel
Blackbird is a blackbird.
Garden of Daisies,is a robin redbreast
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by dickens metrognome
Re: tunes/birds
I think this tune http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/885
is this bird http://www.elalmanaque.com/Aikos/recursos/ho-oh.gif
# Posted on April 15th 2008 by Joe CSS
Re: tunes/birds
I agree, it's not a real bird at all
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
It's incredibly cool though
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by Joe CSS
Re: tunes/birds
I would liken the Wizard's Walk to this bird http://www.silo3d.com/Tutorials/User_Tutorials/julien_tromeur_tutorial/julien_tromeur_tutorial.htm
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by Dow
Re: tunes/birds
They all sound like crows to me.
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: tunes/birds
I've sometimes been quite shocked to find country people and farmers who see only 'crows', when in fact the birds they see are jackdaws, rooks, ravens, carrion crows, all very, very different when you study them.
I used to be that ignorant myself once, about ITM. It was all diddly music, all sounded the same. But when you zoom in on the fine detail, the tunes get more and more interesting.
Even the ubiquitous blackbird is fascinating. They practice their song very quietly to themselves before they sing it loud for all the world to hear.
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: tunes/birds
I have often seen snow buntings, a winter visitor here on the North East Coast perhaps Scooter Scerry would be a good tune for them.
Last year I saw an Eagle Owl on my window ledge it makes me think of Chief O'neils favourite both look and sound good with the hint of something out of place
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by bazouki dave and the real tooty flutey
Re: tunes/birds
Wolfbird ... jackdaws, rooks, ravens, carrion crows ... etc ... are all crows
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
Corvids
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: tunes/birds
Of course they are all crows, in the sense of biological classification. But they are different species, with distinct behaviour and conformation.
My point was really a personal grumble about ignorance, that some people do not see any difference. They see a black bird, so it must be 'a crow'.
Actually, my contribution was a rather lame attempt to say something vaguely connected to the topic. I think I have a fundamental philosophical problem here, in that I see music as popular human culture, but I see birds from a very different perspective, things in their own right. One reason I loathe Disney, for making birds and animals into absurd caricatures with projected human features. I hate that.
But I'm being too serious for your light hearted thread, Michael. Just my mood of the moment. I watch birds a lot, every day, for most of my life.
Someone said, up the page, that whipoorwills are the loudest bird. I don't know what the loudest bird is, but I have rheas. During the breeding season the males boom, a bit like a bittern's sound, and on a quiet night the sound carries for several miles, bit like a foghorn.
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: tunes/birds
I mentioned earlier about corvids and big jigs, Will. There's something about them (a lot of them) being outwardly plain, but harbouring that intelligence. You mentioned individual tunes being individual ravens ... I understand, however, for the sake of this particular thought experiment, ther are plenty of other corvids.
I'm seeing it as tune = species.
And each time you or someone else plays the tune = individual.
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
wolfbird, I abhor Disney's anthropomorphism as much as the next man.
This thread is allegorical, not literal. (some have assumed it's onomatopoeic. They are wrong too)
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
Yes, allegorical....nothing wrong with that, just I'm in a literal mood...best I can think of at the moment is 'Toss the feathers'
Wish I could play it...I've listened to People's, Canny's, and Kevin Burke's versions today. They are each very individual, but no birds connection comes to mind...
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: tunes/birds
That works for me, Michael.
A tune like Jenny's Welcome to Charlie is dark, smart, agile, intentional, and loves to float effortlessly above my head when I'm out on a hike or bike ride. Which also exactly describes what the ravens around here are like.
# Posted on April 16th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: tunes/birds
I've been thinking about this thread, and why it doesn't seem to work for me, when so many of you find easy links between tunes and bird imagery. Maybe it's because my brain doesn't work in that sort of poetic fashion. Or maybe it's something else. I followed Soto Zen for forty years. I remember in my teens, thinking about drug experiences and how the world could appear so different and then you come down and everything's kinda back to normal, rather dreary and scary and miserable. The constant background of nuclear Armageddon and traumatic family relationships and all that stuff.
The experience became a sort of koan. I used to think myself into 'enlightenment', try and see everything fresh and new, as an attempt to escape from the depression and confusion of what everyone called 'real' or 'normal'. That was a long time ago. I discovered that the meditation works in it's own way, goes much deeper than thoughts. The way that soceity sees the world is really just a description, culturally conditioned. At various times in my life, that kind of overlay has peeled off. I tend to live now in the raw reality. The birds are just whatever they are. They are as alien as Martians, in a way. Or maybe I see them as if for the first time, as if I was a Martian.
I studied animal ethology after reading Niko Tinbergen. I don't project human qualities onto wildlife, that is, anthropomorphism in the sense that most scientists use the word. But nor do I see animals and birds the way most scientists do, as kind of biological machines without souls (in the Cartesian tradition) which I consider ridiculous. They have thrown the baby out with the bathwater,IMO. My dog has a character, feelings, thoughts, moods, and way more than I can comprehend, and is as much of a 'person' as I am, just different shape.
I see birds the same way. I've kept various fowls for the last few years, not as pets or as a commercial enterprise, but as a philosophical quest, to try and better understand their nature and thus also my own nature and existence. It's a big part of my life. It's a kind of project, like if you wanted to understand what a hunter - gatherer lifestyle was like, then best go and live with the people for a few years, without preconceptions, and observe and learn.
So, for me, birds are in that sort of a separate compartment. Tunes are some different compartment, to do with my moods and feelings, food for the soul, and the constant challenge to be able to play better.
I know quite a lot about ravens, see them most days, and they have a very strong character which resonates in many parts of my being, but I don't find anything musical or make the linkage.
# Posted on April 17th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: tunes/birds
That's enough of you raven on for one night thank you.
[joking]
# Posted on April 17th 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: tunes/birds
You thinking of the Buddy Holly version, KML ?
# Posted on April 17th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: tunes/birds
Like fidkid, I thought of My Darling's Asleep in association with the little guys that visit my feeder, not only juncos, but goldfinches, tufted titmice and chickadees. There should be a different tune for the nuthatches who like to eat upside down, maybe Tripping Up the Stairs, which kind of goes in the opposite direction of the first jig.....
Nice thread, Michael!
# Posted on April 17th 2008 by AlBrown
Re: tunes/birds: Concertinas are hedgehogs. Hedgehogs are concertinas.
Shifting the subject but continuing to make piquant comparisons:
Mellowing out over excellent Castle Eden ale and tunes tonight, I studied the adjacent Anglo player.
I concluded his concertina had the essential characteristics of a hedgehog.
I've picked up more live hedgehogs off roads than I've handled concertinas - not many in either case. Hedgehogs are fat little brutes that roll up, and sag, and twist, and have prickles, and are not really that easy or friendly to handle. Concertinas are the same.
And the Shakespeare line - "Twice, and thrice the hedgepig whined..." - Don't you hear the sound of a concertina starting up, when you read that? Not to mention the creature's other wuffles and wheezes, so like a concertina with knackered-up bellows and reeds.
At least concertinas are not notorious for passing on fleas or diseases, but I wouldn't bet against it. Some look capable of anything.
I should add that the guy whose playing inspired these musings is a very good player, btw.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by nicholas
Re: tunes/birds
Yeah, I like that, concertina = hedgehog.
It's a bit obvious, but fiddles are like many cats (not all cats, I had one once that was nothing like this). They're moody, often grumpy, needy, screechy, will leave home if you don't give them enough attention, but will purr if stroked often enough. (And I was thinking about what it feels like the first time you pick up and try and play a fiddle: like holding a cat by the scruff of its neck and trying to trap it's back legs under you chin, then trying to stroke it with a canary you are trying not to squeeze to death.)
The fretted instruments, guitars, bazoukis, mandolins etc. are like dogs. All shapes and sizes. Yappy, unsubtle, will wreck the place unless trained well from an early age. They'll fight if they don't know each other.
Bodhrans are like big 40lb carp, out of water, gasping for breath.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: tunes/birds
Michael, did Jeremy's naughty word filter swap the middle letters of your Bodhran analogy?
- Chris
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: tunes/birds
ha ha
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by llig leahcim