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• Just For Fun •

Track 02 – Song Bird Song Songs

Posted onMay 29, 2020June 23, 2020 No Comments Yet
Home  >  • Just For Fun •  >  Track 02 – Song Bird Song Songs

Writing Songs Just For The “Trill” Of It

You’re in the woods and hear a bird singing. It is a long, held out trill. What is it? Unless you have perfect memory or pitch, you may have to put a little thought into it. 

What’s the best method for distinguishing the call of let’s say a Pine Warbler from a Chipping Sparrow, Worm-eating Warbler, Junco, or other birds that sometimes make a similar trill? Obviously, the easiest way to tell what you are hearing is to get eyes on the bird. But if you can’t get a visual ID, the next best thing to think of is LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION.

pine warbler

While there are subtle audible differences in these calls, I still find myself stumped sometimes. But I always think, “where am I?…where is the call coming from?…up in a tree?…from the ground?…what time year is it?…etc”

If you live in Indiana and you hear a trill coming from your front yard in January, it is most likely that you are hearing some type of Junco call. If it is April and you hear a trill coming from the ground, you might look for that rufous cap of a Chipping Sparrow. Early on during migration, if you hear it up high in a Pine tree… well, you see where I’m going with that.

So I decided to dive a little deeper into one of these birds calls. I chose the Pine Warbler. After countless listens, I noticed that the pitch was variating throughout its trill. Being me, this started to put a melody in my head. While I tend to write songs that cover multiple genres, I was hearing something Metal \m/! After a few minutes of noodling on my guitar and an hour or so in my basement studio later… I cranked out this little diddy…

2020

#RockOn #BirdOn

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About Author

Randy Vanderbilt

Randy, an avid musician and birder, is co-creator of the Hoosier Birders on Vacation page with his wife, Lisa. While still loving to travel the country for birds, the two of them also did an Indiana Big Year two years in a row (2018, 2019).

In his earlier years, Randy toured the country playing shows with his band. He still works on music to this day, mainly writing and recording for different projects in his home studio.

Always thinking of ways to combine his love for birding, music, and creativity; he is contributing his musical talents to the Rogue Birders site.

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