#birdsongtranscriptions

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multiple layers of birdsong transcriptions

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monday mid-morning piano break

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One of the commonest ways to convert bird sounds into visual code is to use transcriptions into what seem the nearest equivalent human sounds in our own spoken language, e.g. quack, caw, tu-whit to-whoo... Most field guides offer careful transcriptions of the commonest calls & sometimes songs (pictures 1&2 Collins Bird Guide). John Bevis collected such transcriptions in his book „aaaaw to zzzzzd“ (pictures 3-6).

-> see also post above

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the song of the bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) by F. Schuyler Mathews „The Bobolink is indeed a great singer, but the latter part of his song is a species of musical fireworks. He begins bravely enough with a number of well-sustained tones, but presently he accelerates his time, loses track of his motive, and goes to pieces in a burst of musical scintillations. It is a mad, reckless song-fantasia, an outbreak of pent-up, irrepressible glee. The difficulty in either describing or putting upon paper such music is insurmountable. One can follow the singer through the first few whistled bars, and then, figuratively speaking, he lets down the bars and stampedes. I have never been able to "sort out" the tones as they passed at this break-neck speed. Others who desired to record the song have found the thing impracticable. Mr. Cheney writes: We must wait for some interpreter with the sound-catching skill of a Blind Tom and the phonograph combined, before we may hope to fasten the kinks and twists of this live music-box." (F. Schuyler Mathews - Field Book of Wild Birds & their Music)