I wouldn't have thought it possible to compare the songs of the English
blackbird and thrush. Okay, the thrush is pure and beautiful, but there's
something just a touch passionless there, to my mind, like the voice of an
English cathedral choirboy -- and apologies to people who haven't heard one
of those either! It'll be something to do with the overtones -- I don't know
nearly enough about acoustics and the science of sound.
The English blackbird's voice has more resonance; this is, comparatively, a
lyric soprano's voice. Part of the bird's song seems to be echoed in the
opening theme of last movement of Beethoven's violin concerto.
joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Vincent" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 11:14 PM
Subject: help--translation query (J Skinner)
> Here is Jonathan Skinner on bird sounds - I mean his letter gets factually
> serious part way down - a serious and, I suspect, helpful student here.
>
> From: Jonathan Skinner <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 16:44:16 -0500
>
> Also, I'd like to hear back from Joanna Boulter, re the English blackbird.
> I've long been curious about this bird and its song(s). One of the great
> poets of birds, in a Messain-like intensely Zukofskian manner, Ronald
> Johnson, begins his early Book of the Green Man with an evocation of the
> English blackbird:
>
> "Tchink, Tchink. Tsee!
> Then low,
> continuous warbles
>
> pure as a Thrush."
>
> I was shocked at the comparison with the thrush, since our (American)
> blackbirds are hardly so musical (CONK Laree!) though they can be great
> mimics. (They have more in common with grackles.) Of course, "musical"
> must be a fairly subjective term . . .
>
>
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