An aquatic musical journey is going down in Philadelphia this Sunday.
Bowerbird and LandHealth Institute have teamed as much as current two outside performances that includes “interspecies” musician, David Rothenberg. If that title throws you off, don’t fear — we’re right here to clarify.
Tossing underwater microphones, referred to as hydrophones, into lakes and ponds distinguishes Rothenberg’s performances, the place he places on an improvisational musical duet with any and all sounds that emerge from the deep.
The settings for 2 performances embody Edgewood Lake in FDR Park and Centennial Lake in West Fairmount Park. Rothenberg is a educated jazz musician, a naturalist thinker, and a prolific composer and author, who’s written over a dozen books and recorded forty albums. He stated every of his duets holds a shock.
“You’re coping with nature, you by no means know what’s going to occur — you’re going to plug that microphone right into a speaker, and also you’re going to listen to all these loopy sounds occurring within the pond,” Rothenberg stated.
These “loopy sounds” can come from vegetation shifting and releasing oxygen because of photosynthesis, or varied aquatic bugs like water boatmen and backswimmers rubbing their our bodies collectively. Turtles or fish swimming by means of the water additionally generate their very own music, stated Rothenberg. Nevertheless, he famous it’s onerous to pinpoint the sounds’ origins.
“We solely know 10% of the sound in a median pond, which appears loopy to me,” he defined. “Why don’t we all know what’s occurring? Individuals haven’t bothered to pay attention.”
Many rhythms that nature gives are thought-about musical — like rustling leaves, birdsongs, cicada chirps or babbling brooks. In contrast to most western music, the beats are unpredictable.
“I’m one among these individuals who consider that these animals have extra attention-grabbing rhythms than people,” he stated. “People like these 4/4 regular beats. However nature has extra irregular rhythms, very unusual rhythms, and you’ll be taught to bounce to these.”
Bowerbird is a small experimental arts presenter. The LandHealth Institute is a non-profit whose mission is to reconnect Philadelphians to nature. The 2 organizations truly got here collectively by chance.
“I had no prior relationship with the LandHealth Institute,” stated Pete Angevine, an area musician who works with Bowerbird and helped set up the live shows.
“I reached out to David [Rothenberg] again within the fall,” Angevine stated. “LandHealth had reached out to him the identical week with mainly the identical requests. So, he type of put us collectively, as a result of we each had the impartial concept to ask him to Philadelphia.”
Rothenberg performs flutes from varied elements of the world and the clarinet (which absolutely could be welcomed by a sure pretentious and jaded cartoon squid). He additionally makes use of expertise to pattern and remix the sounds as they arrive by means of the microphone. The result’s a hodgepodge of genres, like digital music, jazz and even ASMR.
“The stuff that David’s enjoying, it’s uncommon, it’s totally different, but it surely’s not alienating,” Angevine stated. “It’s not harsh or difficult or troublesome to hearken to.”
“These sounds make you tingle throughout,” Rothenberg stated. “You possibly can’t fairly place them, however they type of shock you.”
Exploring “musical” ecosystems
And for all of the skeptics, Rothenberg insists that the noises that come from the pond are certainly music.
“Music is what you determine to contemplate as music,” he stated. “There’s no good definition for music apart from that. You recognize, numerous music sounds, anyone considers it musical, another person calls it pure, uncooked noise. Certainly, you’ve had that have rising up liking some music your mother and father didn’t like.”
Princeton College professors, Gavin Steingo and Asif Ghazanfar, have created a complete venture, The Animals Track Collective to additional discover this concept — whether or not animal songs ought to be thought-about music. The 2 have labored with and arranged live shows with Rothenberg up to now.
“Once we say, you understand, the fowl is singing, is that simply because it sounds musical to us, and the way our mind was formed by human music,” requested Ghazanfar, who teaches neuroscience and psychology. “Is it a inventive act for the fowl that it has an appreciation for?”
Steingo and Ghazanfar are fascinated by studying extra about how music originated, how totally different cultures interpret it and what that may inform us in regards to the sounds animals are making.
“The world is full of types of synchronization, types of rhythmicity or periodicity, or regularity patterns,” stated Steingo, who teaches music. “I feel these are issues that David Rothenberg could be very attuned to.”
To Steingo, Rothenberg’s music just isn’t essentially about private expressional.
“I feel David Rothenberg has at all times been fascinated by music as one thing that doesn’t belong to a person, however type of patterns and kinds on the earth you can faucet into and trip as a wave,” he defined. “So, it’s a unique mind-set about music, however I feel it’s legitimate to think about music that method.”
And the jam session isn’t just for individuals. Rothenberg stated that the underwater creatures will even be grooving to the music in their very own method. To show they’re additionally listening, he’s performed a number of experiments.
“I even did this experiment like 10 instances within the winter when there’s no sound,” he defined. “You punch a gap within the ice, stick the microphone within the ice, and above the bottom, you play the sound of one among these bugs. And nearly on a regular basis we heard it again like they have been waking up in winter and making sounds. I couldn’t consider it was taking place.”
To be able to actually perceive what Rothenberg’s music is all about, individuals should come and listen to it for themselves. The pond music session isn’t just a strategy to get outside, it’s a chance to attach with the totally different species residing amongst us however are simple to disregard. In spite of everything, people should not the one ones participating in Philly’s ecosystem.
The live shows, “Secret Sounds of the Ponds,” will happen on Sunday, April 6 at Edgewood Lake in FDR Park at 9 a.m. and Centennial Lake in West Fairmount Park at 5 p.m. In response to Bowerbird, the morning session will probably be household pleasant, whereas the latter session is aimed for the “extra contemplative crowd.”