2023-11-14 01:18:42
Juliette De Banes Gardonne Published on November 14, 2023 02:18 am.
In 1971, Roger Payne and Scott McVay, two American researchers, published an article in the journal Science which qualifies for the first time the emissions produced by humpback whales as songs. The vocabulary of music allows scientists to describe the sub-phrases, the leitmotifs of cetaceans by showing that these songs become more and more complex at the time of reproduction. Payne’s good idea was to record these melodious sounds on 33rpm vinyl. And the success of this record was totally unexpected! With over 125,000 sales, Songs of the Humpback Whale entered the US National Recording Registry alongside works by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson.
And these songs will become an incredible source of inspiration for composers (like Crumb, Cage or Léo Ferré in his Poor man’s opera), authors of novels, sculptors and choreographers. This record also had a diplomatic impact at the UN by contributing to the establishment of the international moratorium in 1986, banning industrial whaling.
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#whale #muse #musicians
