Songs of the Humpback Whale
Capitol, 1970"SONGS OF THE HUMPBACK WHALE is a timeless classic of the earth's music. It deserves a place in our cultural pantheon, alongside the music of Bach, Stavinsky, and Ellington.
The rare recordings are from a 'Bel Canto' era of whale singing. Even though Humpbacks change their songs every year, none from recent years has been so beautiful as these they sang in the 1960's." -Paul Winter
You can purchase a remastered CD version from Paul Winter´s website. I´ve uploaded a rip from my LP I bought at a thrift store in Rock Hill, SC. If you´re looking for pure whale sounds at the best sound quality with no vinyl crackle, go for the CD... I like my rip quite a bit:-)
From the front panel:
"Whale songs have probably been heard, though seldom recognized as such, ever since man began to make voyages by sea. In the literature of whaling alone there are many accounts of strange, ethereal sounds, reverberating faintly through a quiet ship at night, mystifying sailors in their bunks. Long after such experiences were first mentioned, scientists were able to explain what caused them... If the idea of whale "singing" seems odd, the cause may lie in the several meanings of the word "song." Quite apart from any esthetic judgment one might make about them, the sounds produced by Humpback whales can properly be called songs because they occur in complete sequences that are repeated. Bird sounds are called songs for the same reason. Birds sing songs that are repeated fairly exactly and Humpback whales too are very faithful to their own individual sequence of sounds. Humpback whale songs are far longer than bird songs. The shortest Humpback song recorded lasts six minutes and the longest is more than thirty minutes. The pauses between Humpback songs are no longer than the pauses between notes within the song: in other words, they are recycled without any obvious break. Again, in contrast with birds, who complete a song before pausing, it doesn´t matter where in its song the Humpback starts or stops..."
From the back panel:
"Dr. Roger S. Payne, whose work produced this record, has spent the last fifteen years doing research in biological acoustics and is currently at The Institute for Research in Animal Behavior operated jointly by the New York Zoological Society and The Rockefeller University. His studies began with work on the directional sensitivity of the ears of bats, which he did while still an undergraduate at Harvard University. He later received his doctorate in biology from Cornell University for brilliant work on the ability of owls to find their prey in complete darkness by hearing. He then did equally important work on moths, discovering their ability to judge the direction of bat sonar and thus evade capture. When asked how he reached the decision to do research on whales Dr. Payne replied, "The decision reached itself really. It was something I had wanted to do for a long while. Certainly, I wasn´t first led to it through any particularly inspiring encounter with whales. I´ve had any number of wonderful days among wild whales since, but at the time I decided to study whales I hadn´t even seen one. In fact, the first whale I did see was a dead one and the encounter was anything but inspiring.
I was working in a laboratory at Tufts University one March night during a sleet storm when I heard through the local radio news that a dead whale had washed ashore on Revere Beach. I wanted to see it, so I drove out there. The sleet had turned to rain when I reached the place. Many people had come to see the whale earlier but there were only a few on the beach when I arrived and by the time I reached the tidal wrack where the whale lay, the beach was deserted.
It was a small whale, a Porpoise about eight feet long with lovely subtle curves glistening in the cold rain. It had been mutilated. Someone had hacked off its flukes for a souvenir. Two other people had carved their initials deeply into its side, and someone else had stuck a cigar butt in its blowhole. I removed the cigar and stood there for a long time with feelings I cannot describe. Everybody has some such experience that affects him for life, probably several. That night was one of mine.
At some point my flashlight went out, but as the tide came in I could periodically see the graceful outline of the whale against the white foam cast by the waves. Although it is more typical than not of what happens to whales when they encounter man, that experience was somehow the last straw, and I decided to use the first possible opportunity to learn enough about whales so I might have some effect on their fate."
FILL YOUR EARS
3 comments:
Fantastic! Thank you so much for posting this. You've inspired me to seek out other field recordings. There's more to music than what we humans create.
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