Birdsong I
2002
electronic music (8 channels)
45 min.
Birdsong II
2005
electronic music (stereo)
52 min.
Birdsong III
2025
electronic music (4 channels)
9:30 min.
The Birdsong project started in 2002, inspired by the opportunity to compose 8-channel electronic music for a performance in a public park. Based on recordings of birdsong the basic operation includes three phases. First birdsong is dissolved away from its context and background and becomes subject to acoustical and musical analysis. Then it is transformed and recomposed according to complex musical criteria. Finally the outcoming singings are released back to nature. Single birdcalls are turned into elements of a polyphonic composition by their selection and alignment to certain rhythmic and tonal specifications.
Birdsong I features rhythmic recomposition and polyphonic rearrangement of birdsong which is left in its original sound. Short repetitions occur on certain conditions becoming more frequent in the course of time. Subsequent episodes thus sound more artificial than former parts.
Birdsong II continues with the application of techniques developed already for Birdsong I. Furthermore microstructural changes of the recordings are introduced. Birdsong pitches are analyzed and gently altered. On the occasion of a simultaneous performance with the composition Creating Reality (2003) by Siegfried Koepf the total time and the duration of single episodes are synchronized with Koepf’s piece which implements a symmetric tuning system. While birdsong melodies undergo a periodic alteration they fit into the tuning system.
Birdsong I, Birdsong II and Birdsong II/Creating Reality can be performed as concert pieces or as sound installations.
Birdsong III is a concert piece composed for the Theran International Electronic Music Festival (TIEMF) 2025, consisting of 14 short episodes. In each episode, a texture with a certain density, i.e. a certain polyphonic arrangement of bird calls from a selected group of birds, changes from one state to another. The states are defined by the degree of deviation of a series of musical parameters such as pitch, tempo and waveform/spectrum from the natural sound sources. While gradually progressing parallel transformations between these parametric states characterise the musical flow within the episodes, the montage technique varies between them, ranging from cross-fades to sudden cuts. In some parts, melodic progressions of just intervals become audible due to the bending of the original pitches of the bird calls according to certain tonal specifications.
Birdsong III (2025)
first performances: Cologne, August 30, 2002 (Birdsong 1), Cologne, October 24, 2005 (Birdsong 2), Theran, September 13, 2025 (Birdsong 3)