Readings and Links

Material from Music and Arts

Messiaen und die Vögel (Example of relevance of bird song in music and musical-analytic approaches to birdsong))

Dawn Chorus by Marcus Coates

Explores relationship between birdsong and human vocalization (and movement), and the different temporal realities

Dawn Chorus

Also, familiarise yourself with the relevant musical terms used to describe (and imitate / interpret) birdsong:

Intervals, microintervals
Rhythms
Motivs, Leitmotiv
Scales, modes, non-octave modes
Glissando
Tremolo
Vibrato
Beating
Ring modulation
Aleatorics (in music)

Approaches to Artificial Birdsong

A closer look at some transcriptions and musical interpretations of birdsong:
- Simple transcription by Peter Green
- Examples from Messiaen: Réveil des Oiseaux, (einfacher, monophon), Petites esquisses d'oiseaux (komplexer, freiere Interpretation
Starting teaser: Heinz Funk's Moog Demo ZDF (Youtube), Risset's "Sud"
Introduction to subtractive synthesis (Tal Noise Maker in Reaper, MAX-version)
Sample manipulation and stitching (Mulab / Max Patch)
Granular synthesis (Max Patch)
Tool tip: Paul Stretch (resp. das entsprechende Plugin)

Resources:

The Reaper project file containing the TAL noisemaker synth plugin- based artificial bird song, and also the surround setup example with automatization:

Error rendering macro 'view-file' : Cannot render content of attachment: birdsong synth tutorial tal noise maker.zip

The MAX Patches used by Olav for recreating bird song:

Error rendering macro 'view-file' : Cannot render content of attachment: Max4Birdies.zip