{"id":2943,"date":"2011-05-31T15:40:49","date_gmt":"2011-05-31T21:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/?p=2943"},"modified":"2011-06-04T18:07:34","modified_gmt":"2011-06-05T00:07:34","slug":"describing-what-you-hear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/archives\/2943","title":{"rendered":"Describing What You Hear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently a friend alerted me to a post<\/a> on the “ID-Frontiers” listserv by Christopher Hill<\/a> in which he made a statement very dear to my heart:<\/p>\n

In this day and age, I’m always surprised at the contrast between the level at which many advanced birders discuss plumage cues and the much more primitive way a lot of us approach sounds. I doubt I could convince many people on this forum of the identity of a vagrant by saying “but it looked just like the picture in my field guide!” (maybe if I repeated it?) but that type of argument is offered much more often, even routinely, in discussions of sounds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He then apologizes for sounding like a preachy blowhard.\u00a0 (Hoo boy!\u00a0 If those are the words of a preachy blowhard, then I’ve got a lot to apologize for!)<\/p>\n

I couldn’t agree more with his argument, which neatly summarizes the raison d’etre<\/em> of this entire blog.\u00a0 I also wrote a Birding<\/em><\/a> magazine article a few years ago that created a conceptual framework intended to help people describe sounds better.\u00a0 But reading Chris’s comments, I realized that a conceptual framework may not be of immediate use to people hearing bird sounds in the field.\u00a0 What they need are a set of instructions<\/strong>.\u00a0 So I decided to write a few.<\/p>\n

How to Describe A Bird Sound in Six Easy Steps<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. If you can, make an audio<\/span> recording.<\/strong> Use your cell phone.\u00a0 Use your camera on the video setting.\u00a0 Use a cheap voice recorder.\u00a0 Use your laptop.\u00a0 Use any device that can possibly record sound.\u00a0 If you don’t have one, that’s OK — but if you have any audio recording capability whatsoever, don’t proceed to Step 2 until you’ve done Step 1!<\/li>\n
  2. Count<\/span> the notes.<\/strong> (If they are too fast or too many to count, make a note of that.)<\/li>\n
  3. Figure out which notes are repeated<\/span><\/strong>, if any. (Remember: trills are made of notes that are repeated, too fast to count.)<\/li>\n
  4. Write down nonsense words that sound like what the bird is saying (that is, onomatopoeia<\/span>).<\/strong> Try not <\/em>to use real words or phrases, as you’re likely to get closer to the original sound if you let yourself break the rules of English.\u00a0 Spend some time on this, and try to get the transcription as close to the original as possible.<\/li>\n
  5. Compare the sound you’re hearing to similar<\/span> sounds.<\/strong> These could be bird sounds or non-bird sounds — for example, “like a robin song, but without any pauses”; “like the squeak of a shoe on a gym floor”; “like an electronic video game.”\u00a0 Spend some time on this also — come up with multiple comparisons if at all possible.<\/li>\n
  6. Sketch<\/span> the sound.<\/strong> If the pitch of the sound goes up, draw a line that goes up.\u00a0 If it then goes down, draw a line that goes down.\u00a0 You get the idea.\u00a0 Put each note on the page, the way it sounds to your ear.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, for the record, that’s<\/p>\n

      \n
    • A<\/strong>udio<\/li>\n
    • C<\/strong>ount<\/li>\n
    • R<\/strong>epeat<\/li>\n
    • O<\/strong>nomatopoeia<\/li>\n
    • S<\/strong>imilar<\/li>\n
    • S<\/strong>ketch<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Or ACROSS <\/strong>for short.<\/p>\n

      OK, I know, that’s cheesy.\u00a0 But seriously, these are the steps to follow in the field.\u00a0 Don’t just settle for one of the steps — do them all!\u00a0 Try them with common birds.\u00a0 Try them with birds you don’t know (I’ll be happy to help you identify the results).\u00a0 Try them when documenting rarities.<\/p>\n

      You don’t need to know any fancy terminology, have any musical training, or use any “conceptual frameworks” when describing bird sounds — you just need to sit down and take the time to do each step carefully.\u00a0 It will change the way you listen, and it will change the way you talk about what you hear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      You don’t need to know any fancy terminology, have any musical training, or use any “conceptual frameworks” when describing bird sounds — you just need to sit down and take the time to do each step carefully. It will change the way you listen, and it will change the way you talk about what you hear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-describing-sounds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2943"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2949,"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943\/revisions\/2949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}