birdsong

also if someone can tell stories about messiaen that'd make me happy.

I heard the bird at Persepolis, in Iran, one evening, at sundown. It was singing along the bas reliefs of the twin stairway of the Apadana of Darius, the ruins of the columns, and the stones of the hill that close on one side of the landscape. It was a bird that belongs to the ruins and rocks but what bird? I noted its song as a blind man, standing between the advancing shadow and the red and gold glints of the dying sun. Having not seen the bird, and hearing its magnificent song for the first time, I called it "the bird of Persepolis"

its all i got...

I heard the bird at Persepolis, in Iran, one evening, at sundown. It was singing along the bas reliefs of the twin stairway of the Apadana of Darius, the ruins of the columns, and the stones of the hill that close on one side of the landscape. It was a bird that belongs to the ruins and rocks but what bird? I noted its song as a blind man, standing between the advancing shadow and the red and gold glints of the dying sun. Having not seen the bird, and hearing its magnificent song for the first time, I called it "the bird of Persepolis"

http://www.spaceagepop.com/fassett.htm
http://www.showandtellmusic.com/pages/galleries/gallery_m/fassett2.html

I'm still looking for a copy of this one:
http://www.showandtellmusic.com/pages/galleries/gallery_m/fassett1.html

great overview link, mostly summarizing classical music influence, stopping with the first few concrete pieces: http://www.colander.org/gallimaufry/Birdsong.html

http://www.showandtellmusic.com/pages/galleries/galleries_m_page.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/johnpeel/artists/r/ronnieronalde/

"Here he is, the world's greatest whistler... Yes, Ronnie Ronalde has made a career of whistling, plus being a hit singer and yodeller to boot. Starting his career in the 1930s, by 1945 Ronalde had his his own BBC Radio show and received so much fan mail, extra secretaries had to be employed to deal with it. Weekly TV and radio shows and a series of hits on the EMI label including 'Mocking Bird Hill', 'Beautiful Dreamer', 'In A Monastery Garden' and 'If I Were A Blackbird' made him a million seller in the pre-Beatles age. Such was his success in the US in the 1950s, he was even seen as serious competition to Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Ronalde has now retired to New Zealand and named his home Whistler's Lodge, but still makes the occasional personal appearances. If you need any more recommendation than that, well... go and whistle."

Messiaen's musical imagination was not satisfied by mere representation of birds. He did not transcribe birdsong simply as a source of musical material. He was equally interested in the evocation of a particular landscape or the depiction of a passage of time. His portrayals of birds can often dwell on elements not related to the actual sound of the bird, for example the intense colors of the avian plumage (tying into Messiaen's synaesthesia), religious beliefs (viewing birds as representations of divinity on earth), or social dynamics within the avian community (appearing to some listeners as rather anthropomorphic projections).

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/nyregion/tiny-birds-big-drama-inside-the-world-of-the-birdmen-of-queens.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Mr. Harinarain, a heating and air-conditioner repairman from Brooklyn, joined a procession of middle-aged men in fedoras and flat caps, cradling wood poles and cages the size of large shoe boxes, streaming into a pocket-size park in Richmond Hill, Queens, on a recent Sunday morning. The cages were blanketed in white coverlets, some trimmed with lace. Inside each one was a delicate songbird: a chestnut-bellied seed finch native to the northern parts of South America and the Caribbean.

Sundays are race days, though the events are not really races but speed-singing contests. Two cages each containing a male finch, whose fierce calls are triggered by an instinctive desire to woo females and defend turf, are hung on a pole about an inch apart. The birds are judged on the number of songs they sing. The first to reach 50 wins.

Ostensibly, it’s a battle of the birds. But there is just as much grandstanding by their male handlers. Many hail from Guyana, with others from Trinidad, Suriname and Brazil, places where amateurs and professionals line grassy roadsides and town squares, vying for trophies, cash prizes and prestige at tournaments or impromptu matches. Owning a champion, which can be worth as much as a car, also has cachet. Even well-known soccer players have acquired them as status symbols.

But as the finches migrated with their human wards to North American cities, where it is more common to see someone walking a cat than a bird, the hobby has attracted unwanted attention from federal law enforcement. Although it is much gentler than cockfighting, the sport has a seedy side.

Customs agents at John F. Kennedy International Airport began uncovering birds zipped into suitcase linings, sometimes stuffed in toilet paper rolls, or tucked inside socks, pantyhose, or specially tailored pants. The discoveries prompted agents at the United StatesFish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforcement to start what would become an eight-year investigation, nicknamed Operation G-Bird, that focused on the illegal smuggling of these prized competitors.

From the past year, Stella Chiweshe's "Bird Song", where she got everyone at the Funkhaus in Berlin to be a bird. Worth it just for the introduction...

- https://open.spotify.com/album/5RwXNolJAizrkKxhbQCPWE (posted in the Outernational thread)

And in New Zealand wildlife news, Rei's rap song "E Kī" has a TUI SOLO :-D

I get the 'not musical' thing at the top of the thread, but it's close enough to feel musical to me - like a subset of music or something. I'm sure I read somewhere that the European blackbird comes closest to 'actual music' - close to a major C.

Anyway, it's the return of birdsong that makes this time of year bearable.