My only problem with this theory of dropping half an octave and ta-da you've
got a night parrot is that Bell Miner's don't have an exact starting pitch to
begin with. I've spent a lot of time transcribing bird song into standard
notation and graphic music notation but the reality is, it pretty much can only
be put into graphic notation due to the fact birds don't follow our western
harmonic rules of equal temperament. A Bell Miner even more interestingly
changes its pitch. A brief listen might present a Bell Miner as a constantly
resounding F natural when in fact Bell Miner's sing every degree within a F
such as obvious divisions of quarter notes but even to finer degrees than that.
This is same reason that eastern harmony in particular Hindustani classical
music can sound "out of tune" to our ears when in fact, those cultures just
divide notes much finer than us lazy westerners.
Bell Miner's are interesting. I think there pitch is slightly sharpened or
flattered due to a whole bunch of reasons such as age, sex, season etc. But to
western ears, it all sounds like "F".
Birds don't follow equal temperate and will sing whatever they bloody want. So
by dropping "half an octave" (one of the most general interval changing terms
I've ever heard in my life) simply won't get you the pitch of a night parrot
call let alone anything close to the exact.
Last year I recorded a bunch of birds and then altered the pitch of call by
1/12th and 1/8th of a degree. The pitch was so finely changed, but the birds
new about it. Birds such as eastern and crimson rosellas wouldn't want a bar of
this minutely altered pitch. However other birds were unaffected.
The only thing I actually think could be gotten out of bell miner comparison
call is perhaps the thickness of a note, the very width of a sound. But that's
all I really presume.
All the best,
James Mustafa
0400 951 517
www.jamesmustafajazzorchestra.com
> On 2 Mar 2015, at 12:09 pm, Peter Shute <> wrote:
>
> I've made a mockup of the call, if anyone's interested to listen to it:
> https://soundcloud.com/petershute/synthesised-night-parrot-call
>
> John said they call very rarely, and might only call once, so you could
> listen all night and miss it because your foot crunched in the gravel at that
> moment.
>
> Before anyone complains that this could be abused, it's actually two Bell
> Miner notes. If people want to try to get a Night Parrot to respond to Bell
> Miner calls, I don't think they're going to have much luck.
>
> Peter Shute
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Birding-Aus
>> On Behalf Of Peter Shute
>> Sent: Monday, 2 March 2015 8:28 AM
>> To:
>> Subject: [Birding-Aus] John Young's Melbourne Night Parrot
>> talk last night
>>
>> 1. John mentioned that the description of the call in P&K is
>> spot on - "A far carrying two note whistle". I was under the
>> impression that we'd been told that this description wasn't
>> correct, but I could be wrong. John said that we should
>> imagine the call as two Bell Miner notes, about half a second
>> apart, with the second note half an octave lower. I think he
>> said half an octave - can anyone confirm that? John said
>> there's also a four note call, but didn't describe it.
>
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