Hocketing

If you followed the links in my previous post you will have heard the clever wrens singing. 

A clever wren

In human music, what they are doing is called hocketing. Here's a snappy definition from Oxford Music Online:

"(Lat. hoquetus, (h)oketus, (h)ochetus; from Fr. hoquet, Old Fr. hoquet, hoket, ocquet, etc., related to English hickock, hicket, hiccup, and similar onomatopoeic word formations in Celtic, Breton, Dutch etc., meaning bump, knock, shock, hitch, hiccup; attempts at etymological derivation from the Arabic must be regarded as unsuccessful).

The medieval term for a contrapuntal technique of manipulating silence as a precise mensural value in the 13th and 14th centuries. It occurs in a single voice or, most commonly, in two or more voices, which display the dovetailing of sounds and silences by means of the staggered arrangement of rests; a ‘mutual stop-and-go device’ (F.Ll. Harrison). Medieval authors.... mentioned the existence of this practice in popular music."

If you have a library card, you can access Oxford Music Online to discover more obfuscatory explanations and listen to some examples. And please desist from any attempts to prove etymological derivation from the Arabic - you will only be ridiculed.

Here's a clip of the Dirty Projectors demonstrating it very beautifully. Feel free to watch the whole video - I couldn't manage more than 10 seconds of the incoherent young man (there seems to be something about hocketing which encourages over-elaboration) and fast-forwarded to the singers, who start at 7.17 ish.

And here's Meredith Monk and Theo Bleckmann with a longer and more complex example.

Hocketing happens all over the world - the panpipes of the Southern Andes are played that way, although the panpipes of Ecuador (where the wrens were recorded (blimey, try saying that with your teeth out)) are not.

My initial research has not revealed the originator of the practice in humans and I suspect that is unknowable, as it is so old. I like to think that whoever it was, or they were, the inspiration came from listening to the birds.

Thanks for popping in - the salon is always open.

Birdsong

No, not the Sebastian Faulks novel. I tried to read it once, but it failed to engage me, as indeed have other works by Mr Faulks, apart from Human Traces. And possibly Engleby, although I remember not a jot of it.

This is a wren. Check out what
its South American cousins do.

Anyhoo, I meant the song of birds. I've touched on birds before, but without aural reference. Birds are very quiet this time of year and I miss them.

Let's all sing like the birdies sing? Well, we can't necessarily. We produce sound through a larynx; a bird produces sound through a syrinx, which is a very different kettle of fish, anatomy-wise and means they can do all kinds of clever things.


That fact notwithstanding, the artist Marcus Coates did something wonderful a few years ago. He asked people to learn and reproduce birdsong. He did this by recording the birdsongs, slowing down the recordings and giving these to the participants. He then filmed them singing at the same speed and then altered that film to bird speed - sound and vision. The speeded-up movements are eerily birdlike. Here is a montage and here you can see more of "Yellowhammer" and hear a recording of the person at normal speed.

There is a song called The End of The World. My favourite version of it is by Andy Mackay, but it is instrumental so if you don't know the words, you wouldn't get the reference. It's on YouTube though. It's on a sublime album called In Search Of Eddie Riff, to which I lost access in The Great Music Division of 1989. I mourn it still. Well - there's a thing. I had looked for it online before and found it commanded fabulous prices. I've just looked again and there are some more reasonably priced so I've just snapped one up as an early birthday present to myself. Hurrah! Their idea of "very good" quality in vinyl had better coincide with mine...

Anyhoo, here is a version with words. It's the most well-known version, I think, although I didn't know until today that the singer was called Skeeter. In the clip, she displays curious head-bobbing behaviour (perhaps due to the weight of her hair) which is rather birdlike. It's a funny old world. As further evidence of this, here is a picture which came up when I searched Google Images for "birds". Is it me?

Thanks for popping in. The salon is now open for musings.

Birds

I like birds. I like looking at them as they go about their business. I often imagine myself as an eagle, soaring over fields and rivers, resting on mountain-tops. I never imagine myself as a wren. I admire them tremendously, but their tiny lives are fraught with danger.

Time for an educational musical interlude - hurrah! We'll have Steeleye Span singing Hunt the Wren. Gosh, I got distracted on YouTube and instead we have the Clancy Brothers (and the Furey brothers, apparently. What good value.) in a fine example of singing without breathing whilst wearing heavy sweaters. Here they are.

I once went to a zoo in France. I confess to a liking for zoos, even though it's cruel to cage animals etc. I was born and brought up in Bristol, home to a very fine zoo and, of course, the BBC natural history department, so I developed a sense of ownership in the world of looking at wildlife, in that way that is so comforting to a child. The French zoo was run-down and terrifying. There was a large enclosure containing all manner of avian life, which was open to humans. I noticed the vultures about half-way through. Part of me knew that vultures eat dead things, not live tourists, but the part of me that goes round screaming "we're all going to die!" wrestled the sensible part to the ground and propelled me, stiff-legged, to the exit. Toute suite. The zoo also had a scary bear, that rocked back and forwards, measuring the jumping distance out of his sunken home. Put me right off zoos for a long time.

Some birds are huge. Here is a picture of a jabiru:

It's massive. Adult males can be 5ft tall and can have a wingspan of 9ft. Don't panic, you are unlikely to meet one unless you live in South America. If you do live in South America, steer clear, especially if you are on the small side. Or are made of straw.

Thank you for meandering with me today. We may return to birds as there is much more to say - I haven't mentioned Sepulchrave, Earl of Groan, for instance. Well, I have now.