Filed under: Sonic News
On the radio the other day, I heard about a new art installation in London. The exhibit (or performance?) consists of a bunch of Les Pauls, plugged in with the volume up, lying face up in an open space. Things get interesting with the inclusion of a bunch of zebra-finches. The small birds land and prance about on the guitars’ strings, leading to a cacophony with an actually pretty gnarly tone. One finch gets really into it (see 0:45 in the video below) and starts shredding with a twig.
The inevitable question: is this music? If so, it’s definitely improvised. It’s certainly more musical than if someone were to record a bunch of finches in the wild landing on a bunch of non-Les Paul things such as branches and grass. In their natural environment, I highly doubt finches would get this close to recreating the opening riff from “Everlong” (0:25 in the video.)
On the other hand, I doubt many people would buy a CD of this. The sounds the finches create are not noteworthy out of the context of the spectacle of the exhibit. They’re just being finches, and they just happen to be doing what they do in a space created for them by some wacky French artist. Certainly taking a non-musical set of acts and transplanting them to a different sonic environment doesn’t suddenly make the acts musical, right?
Who cares? It’s a damn cool idea, and I wish I could check it out in person. Since I can’t fly over to “The Curve,” I’ll just enjoy the video, and try to cop the ambience of that guitar tone. From what little we can see of the amp, my best guess is some type of Marshall.
I wonder how they recorded the sound for the video? I don’t see any mics near the amp. If you have any thoughts, make ‘em known with a comment!
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