The first International Conference on Deep Listening
Birdsong and Beyond: The Spectrogram as Score
This presentation explores the nature/spectrogram relationship as a palpable ear-training modality for musicians, birders, and listeners-at-large, framed historically and phenomenologically in the context of bird song.
The marriage of art and science has as one of its myriad beginnings one question, “What bird is that I hear?” Aristotle, the first person in Western civilization who asked (and answered) that question, also asked, “What is art?”
Ever since, interweaving threads of inquiry, observation, experimentation and creativity on the part of ornithologists, inventors, musicians and an army of dedicated amateur birders continue to ask more questions, seeking whatever insights may come to light.
David Arner’s wall-size spectrogram score for his “Abstract Songs for Birds: American Goldfinch ” will be on display.
Abstract Songs for Birds: American Goldfinch