Calling Songs by Johannes Westendorp

Calling Songs is a research into the possibilities of using the sounds created by insect and frog choirs in a musical composition/soundscape. An 8-channel speaker system was developed for this purpose, able to stand outside conditions and fitting into a natural environment. The voices of crickets and frogs have characteristics that make them sound almost electronic and therefore blend surprisingly well with the sounds that the muiscians of Zwerm can produce using effectpedals, loop-feedback, modular synthesizers and occasionally a guitar. The listener is invited to question the idea of culture versus nature. For the performers, the central question is how to give non-human life a voice in our artistic practice. Calling Songs is a collaboration between Johannes Westendorp, Zwerm and Pieter Verhees

A non comprehensive list of articles and books that informed me during the two year research project:

Animal Music. Sound and song in the natural world. Tobias Fisher & Lara Cory

Bug Music. How insects gave us rhythm and noise. David Rothenberg

The Great Animal Orchestra. Bernie Krause

The Sound Book. Trevor Cox

A Taste for the Beautiful. The evolution of attraction. Michael J. Ryan

The insect Crisis. The fall of the Tiny Empires that Run the World. Oliver Milman

Consistent traffic noise impacts few fitness-related traits in a field cricket. Welsh et al. BMC Ecology and Evolution

Impact of environmental noise on insects physiolo. Marie-Claire Cammaerts and David Cammaerts. Biology, Engineering and Medicine

Mechanisms of noise disruption: masking, not distraction or increased vigilance, compromises wild bird communication. You Zhou et al. Animal Behaviour

Pollution going multimodal: the complex impact of the human-altered sensory environment on animal perception and performance. Wouter Halfwerk & hans Slabbekoorn. Biology Letters.

Some sound recordings that were made during rehearsals in Thierry Pré, France.

Listen with good headphones. If you are in a hurry, don't even bother.

Evening. Grasshoppers. Slow development into human music.

Noontime. Crickets, grasshoppers and birds. Slow development into human music.

Noontime. Try out of a choral based on Gershwin

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