Table of Contents

  1. Series page
  2. Title page
  3. Copyright page
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. 1 Eavesdropping in the Wild
  6. 2 Scientific Scores and Musical Ears: Sound Diagrams in Field Recording
  7. 3 Staging Sterile Sound: Producing and Reproducing Natural Field Recordings
  8. 4 Sampling Assets: Economies of Scientific Exchange at the Cornell Library of Natural Sounds
  9. 5 Patterned Sound: Inscriptions and the Trained Ear in Birdsong Analysis
  10. 6 Conclusion
  11. References
  12. Index
  13. Inside Technology
  14. Color Plates

List of Illustrations

  1. Figure 1.1 Cornell ornithologist Peter P. Kellogg on a field expedition, in an improvised studio observing and recording a nest of ivory-billed woodpeckers, in 1935. Source: Albert R. Brand Papers, #21-18-899, Folder 2:1, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University.
  2. Figure 2.1 Musical transcript of a bobolink song by Ferdinand S. Mathews. Source: F. S. Mathews, Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music: A Description of the Character and Music of Birds (New York: Putnam, 1904), 51.
  3. Figure 2.2 Adapted “scientific” musical notation by Hans Stadler and Cornel Schmitt. Source: H. Stadler and C. Schmitt, “The Study of Bird-Notes,” British Birds 8 (1) (1914): 7. Reproduced with kind permission of British Birds.
  4. Figure 2.3 Musical transcription of a fox sparrow song by Robert T. Moore. Source: R. T. Moore, “The Fox Sparrow as a Songster,” Auk 30 (2) (1913): 178. Reproduced with kind permission of the American Ornithological Society.
  5. Figure 2.4 Graphic transcription of a field sparrow song by Aretas A. Saunders. Source: A. A. Saunders, “Some Suggestions for Better Methods of Recording and Studying Birdsongs,” Auk 32 (2) (1915): 175. Reproduced with kind permission of the American Ornithological Society.
  6. Figure 2.5 Graphic transcription of a song sparrow song by Wheeler and Nichols. Source: Wheeler, W. C., and J. T. Nichols. 1924. The song of the song sparrow. Auk 41 (3): 446. Reproduced with kind permission of the American Ornithological Society.
  7. Figure 2.6 Graphic-syllabic rendering of a curlew call by William M. Rowan. Source: W. M. Rowan, “A Practical Method of Recording Bird-Calls,” British Birds 18 (1) (1925): 18. Reproduced with kind permission of British Birds.
  8. Figure 3.1 Preparing and leveling the recording van in the field. Source: E. M. Nicholson and L. Koch, More Songs of Wild Birds (London: H. F. & G. Witherby, 1937), viii.
  9. Figure 3.2 Listening at the loudspeakers in the mobile studio. Koch sits to the right. Source: E. M. Nicholson and L. Koch, More Songs of Wild Birds (London: H. F. & G. Witherby, 1937), 5.
  10. Figure 3.3 Cornell ornithologist James Tanner aiming a parabolic reflector. Source: Albert R. Brand Papers, #21-18-899, Folder 2:1, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University.
  11. Figure 3.4 British recordists setting up a microphone near a song perch. Source: E. M. Nicholson and L. Koch, More Songs of Wild Birds (London: H. F. & G. Witherby, 1937), 4.
  12. Figure 3.5 Schemes illustrating the recording range of an ordinary crystal microphone (top) and the parabolic reflector (bottom). Source: F. Purves, Bird Song Recording (London: Focal Press, 1962), 38.
  13. Figure 4.1 Amateur recording couple Jerry and Norma Stillwell with their equipment in the field. Source: N. Stillwell, Bird Song: Adventures and Techniques in Recording the Songs of American Birds (New York: Doubleday, 1964), 51.
  14. Figure 5.1 William H. Thorpe recording a dove at the Madingley Ornithological Field Station near Cambridge. Source: J. Hall-Craggs, “Obituary: William Homan Thorpe,” Ibis 129 (s2) (1987): 568. Reproduced with kind permission of Les Barden.
  15. Figure 5.2 Original spectrogram of the phrase “This is visible speech.” The horizontal axis expresses time, the vertical axis frequency. Amplitude is suggested by the darkness of the trace. Source: R. K. Potter, “Visible Patterns of Sound,” Science 102 (2654) (1945): 464. Reproduced with kind permission of AAAS.
  16. Figure 5.3 Visual model for dividing song structures into analyzable components. Source: P. Marler and M. Tamura, “Song “Dialects” in Three Populations of White-Crowned Sparrows,” Condor 64 (5) (1962): 369. Reproduced with kind permission of the American Ornithological Society.
  17. Figure 5.4 Ink tracing by hand of a spectrogram. Source: P. Marler, M. Kreit, and M. Tamura, “Song Development in Hand-Raised Oregon Juncos,” Auk 79 (1) (1962): 15. Reproduced with kind permission of the American Ornithological Society.
  18. Figure 5.5 Thorpe and Lade’s diagrammatic notation based on sonagrams. Source: W. H. Thorpe and B. I. Lade, “The Songs of Some Families of the Passeriformes. I. Introduction: The Analysis of Bird Songs and Their Expression in Graphic Notation,” Ibis 103a (2) (1961): 238. Reproduced with kind permission of the British Ornithological Union.
  19. Figure 5.6 Musical notation of duetting shrikes by Thorpe. Source: W. H. Thorpe, “Ritualization in Ontogeny. II. Ritualization in the Individual Development of Bird Song,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 251 (772) (1966): 355. Reproduced with kind permission of the Royal Society of London.
  20. Figure 5.7 Adapted spectrogram fitted with logarithmic scale and musical octaves. Source: J. T. Marshall Jr., “Voice in Communication and Relationships among Brown Towhees,” Condor 66 (5) (1964): 346. Reproduced with kind permission of the American Ornithological Society.
  21. Figure 5.8 Sound spectrographic analysis of a wren song, with logarithmic scale and musical score superimposed. Source: J. Hall-Craggs, “Sound Spectrographic Analysis: Suggestions for Facilitating Auditory Imagery,” Condor 81 (2) (1979): 190. Reproduced with kind permission of the American Ornithological Society.
  22. Figure 5.9 Musical staff made by a sound spectrogram, superimposed with microtone intervals. Source: J. Hall-Craggs, “Sound Spectrographic Analysis: Suggestions for Facilitating Auditory Imagery,” Condor 81 (2) (1979): 189. Reproduced with kind permission of the American Ornithological Society.
  23. Figure 5.10 A synoptic display of the western meadowlark by Wesley Lanyon and William Fish. Source: W. Lanyon and W. Fish, “Geographical Variation in the Vocalization of the Western Meadowlark,” Condor 60 (5) (1958): 340. Reproduced with kind permission of the American Ornithological Society.
  24. Figure 5.11 Sonagrams enabling the synoptic comparison of songs of two individual birds in one location. Source: R. E. Lemon and A. Herzog, “The Vocal Behavior of Cardinals and Pyrrhuloxias in Texas,” Condor 71 (1) (1969): 6. Reproduced with kind permission of the American Ornithological Society.
  25. Figure 5.12 One further cascade: graph representing the statistical relation between the duration of syllables and the mean number of repetitions of the syllables for each song, for six separate individuals in two different localities. Source: R. E. Lemon and A. Herzog, “The Vocal Behavior of Cardinals and Pyrrhuloxias in Texas,” Condor 71 (1) (1969): 8. Reproduced with kind permission of the American Ornithological Society.

Guide

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