5.20.2010

the largest hearted beast


la

i get low
i get as low as a mammal ever goes
whatcha doing there on the beach
are you looking for me on the ceiling of the sea
are you looking for the largest hearted beast
are you peeping at my baleen
are you listening to me
are you listening to me sing

la

i breath deep
i breath as deep as mammal ever breathed
if you want to know where i've been
check my phylogeny
while you do that i'll sing

la

will's request:

who is the imagined singer
a blue whale

who is the intended listener
whale watchers

ask three questions
how long will you live?
where have you been?
can you play the cello?

describe your song in one word
soaring

1 comment:

  1. This is about the humpback instead of the blue, but nonetheless seems relevant here:

    The author [David Rothenberg] played clarinet in accompaniment with a singing male humpback whale off the coast of Maui. A sound spectrogram suggests that the whale may have altered his song in response to the clarinet. This observation is consistent with the fact that humpback whales rapidly change their song during breeding season from week to week. A male humpback whale may be able to quickly match new pitched, musical sounds it has never heard before---a result different from those of most humpback whale playback experiments. This experiment suggests that interspecies music-making might be a valuable tool in helping understand the complex communication strategies of humpback whales, as well as in extending our own music making beyond the human realm.

    http://www.leonardo.info/isast/journal/toclmj18.html

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