Cities And Memory

I chose this field recording because I liked that it’s a documentation of someone imitating the music of nature. In that original recording itself there’s so many layers of the art. There’s the birdsong that the person presumably heard many times, then spent time learning how to make the whistling sound, then they made their song, which was recorded onto magnetic tape, and converted into a digital format, which finally reached me. It made me think about at what point something becomes art. In my composition, I featured the field recording mostly untouched, but I added elements that also comment on when something can be considered art. There’s the sound of a flag flapping against a pole, of which I liked the rhythmic and melodic gentle clinking. There’s the sound of a tuning fork, which I usually consider not to be a musical instrument but rather a tool used before the music is made. There’s sounds of me whistling based on my memory of the original field recording, which I felt more comfortable manipulating t