The inspiration for my third artwork in 2021 began with a quote from Maya Angelou: “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”
My association with birds singing—even crows cawing, gulls screeching, or the eerie common loon’s summer song—is pleasant. Our little Hokeki alarm clock reinforces that (somewhat) with the lovely chirping of song sparrows when we have to set the alarm.
This association to the idea, for me, also goes back to an old Scientific American article about why birds sing. After much analysis and data reporting it concluded, “Birds sing because they are happy.” What is Angelou getting at?
So there too, what defines a songbird? (Skip this paragraph if you’re not taxonomically inclined.)
Songbirds are of the Order Passerine and they all have four toes, three in front, one toe in back on each leg for perching. Suborders divide these birds into Oscines or Suboscines. Songbirds are of the Oscines order and have a unique vocal structure—hence their ability to make all kinds of sounds or songs. There are about 4, 561 songbird species. These include crows, cardinals, robins, thrushes, sparrows, blackbirds, finches and more. They can be found living in open fields, woodlands, and cities. Songs may change with the season and bird’s intent.
I’m not a musician yet am delighted and intrigued by the work Alexander Liebermann has done in transcribing animal sounds into Western musical notation. He does the nightingale, wolf, wren, Emperor penguin and humpback whale at this site: https://twitter.com/i/status/1346453454357725184. Liebermann is also an award-winning composer and upcoming magnificent contributor to the field.
Back to Angelou: If anyone is familiar with some of her work, you are probably familiar with her groundbreaking memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” (1969). Her memoir is blunt and actually banned in some areas for its honesty and descriptions of actual brutality. Although she acknowledges her friend Abbey Lincoln Roach (jazz vocalist, songwriter and actress) for supplying the title of the memoir, it can also trace back to a stanza in a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar called “Sympathy.” It presents a picture of a chained slave:
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,
When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –
I know why the caged bird sings.
So my original rather chirpy feeling in response to Maya’s “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song” evolved. Some caged songbirds have their wings clipped and are tethered to the perch. The only thing left free to be is its song.
My composition displays an iridescent green background with iridescent white forms on (kind of) a 5-line staff. The white forms, representing sounds, are about as far away from Liebermann’s transcriptions as one can get. I visualize the way songbirds sounds look—soft, bright, rhythmic, magical, and mysterious in their untranslatability to speech. That’s the way I hear them. Any tethering or clipped wings are left to the bottom of the canvas—a relatively dull but same green hue. That’s the “answer.”
Note: An image of Because It Has a Song will be posted with the upcoming New Works.
My association with birds singing—even crows cawing, gulls screeching, or the eerie common loon’s summer song—is pleasant. Our little Hokeki alarm clock reinforces that (somewhat) with the lovely chirping of song sparrows when we have to set the alarm.
This association to the idea, for me, also goes back to an old Scientific American article about why birds sing. After much analysis and data reporting it concluded, “Birds sing because they are happy.” What is Angelou getting at?
So there too, what defines a songbird? (Skip this paragraph if you’re not taxonomically inclined.)
Songbirds are of the Order Passerine and they all have four toes, three in front, one toe in back on each leg for perching. Suborders divide these birds into Oscines or Suboscines. Songbirds are of the Oscines order and have a unique vocal structure—hence their ability to make all kinds of sounds or songs. There are about 4, 561 songbird species. These include crows, cardinals, robins, thrushes, sparrows, blackbirds, finches and more. They can be found living in open fields, woodlands, and cities. Songs may change with the season and bird’s intent.
I’m not a musician yet am delighted and intrigued by the work Alexander Liebermann has done in transcribing animal sounds into Western musical notation. He does the nightingale, wolf, wren, Emperor penguin and humpback whale at this site: https://twitter.com/i/status/1346453454357725184. Liebermann is also an award-winning composer and upcoming magnificent contributor to the field.
Back to Angelou: If anyone is familiar with some of her work, you are probably familiar with her groundbreaking memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” (1969). Her memoir is blunt and actually banned in some areas for its honesty and descriptions of actual brutality. Although she acknowledges her friend Abbey Lincoln Roach (jazz vocalist, songwriter and actress) for supplying the title of the memoir, it can also trace back to a stanza in a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar called “Sympathy.” It presents a picture of a chained slave:
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,
When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –
I know why the caged bird sings.
So my original rather chirpy feeling in response to Maya’s “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song” evolved. Some caged songbirds have their wings clipped and are tethered to the perch. The only thing left free to be is its song.
My composition displays an iridescent green background with iridescent white forms on (kind of) a 5-line staff. The white forms, representing sounds, are about as far away from Liebermann’s transcriptions as one can get. I visualize the way songbirds sounds look—soft, bright, rhythmic, magical, and mysterious in their untranslatability to speech. That’s the way I hear them. Any tethering or clipped wings are left to the bottom of the canvas—a relatively dull but same green hue. That’s the “answer.”
Note: An image of Because It Has a Song will be posted with the upcoming New Works.