Categories: uncategorized
Date: 22 November 2004 21:42:52
One of the music/technology web forums I frequent had a post on it today which I thought was sooo cool.
Check this.
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In my youth [when i was about 19] I used to walk to work through a nearby park [Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne] very early in the morning.
I became interested in the birds' morning song. After a while I got to recognize that birds of different species were 'jamming' together, [at least they sounded like different species] and that the song was different in different locations in the park, but in any one place it was reasonably consistent from one day to the next.
Then I discovered that I could imitate the same phrasing and actually join in the jam, [not a perfect imitation by any means, but roughly similar pitch and number of measures/beats was enough to be accepted].
It was very similar to 'trading fours', except usually shorter phrases.
Each session usually ran for about 5 minutes, or so, before all participants took a break.
Interestingly, if I ran too long and added more phrases on my turn, the jam stopped abruptly.
It was actually a very good improvisation exercise, and I used stuff I learnt from those jams in the bands I played with at night.
BTW, the evening song was much different and less organized.
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D'ya reckon if you recorded the birds one morning and played it back to them the next they would jam along or would they recognise it as being a recording of the previous day?
Wow, this has got me thinking of loads of bizarre things.......
P.S. There will be some John Cage quotes soon enough, as promised, just been sidetracked with another book for a while, 'The Ambient Century - From Mahler to Moby' by Mark Pendergast.