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Friday, July 4, 2014
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Native Americans and ancient Chinese culture believe that crickets are a symbol of luck. They are wise and bear good fortune. Jim Wilson,
a composer, recorded crickets chirping from his backyard and for some
reason decided to slow down the recording. The result was an amazing
track that sounds like a choir of humans singing. The most amazing part
is that the crickets are in perfect harmony!
‘I
discovered that when I slowed down this recording to various levels,
this simple familiar sound began to morph into something very mystic and
complex……..almost human,’ Jim Wilson.
There are two
versions of the track: an original version with the crickets chirping at
normal speed and a slowed down version that is said to match the
average lifespan length of a human being. The sounds are explained in
the liner notes of one version of the track:
“Though it
may sound like a synthesizer or a chorus singing; it’s the crickets
themselves slowed way down, creating the effect of a choir of human
voices. The sound created is a simple diatonic 7-note scale chord
progression and melody with a multi-layered structure.”
The chirping sound from crickets is made when they rub their wings together. One wing has a smooth side while the other has a jagged side, creating the distinctive tone. The males, according to cricket-breeding.com, use the chirps to attract females. They also chirp during fights with each other.
The recordings
have become a viral sensation even though made in 1992. Most people
however, doubt its 100 percent accuracy. The composer may have done some
additional arrangement that resulted in the beautiful harmony.
Jim Wilson included the original recording on the track “Ballad of the Twisted Hair”,
on the album Medicine Songs. In 1994, the cricket track got featured on
the soundtrack of “The Native Americans”, a TBS documentary miniseries
as the track “Twisted Hair”. Opera Singer, Bonnie Jo Hunt, was also
featured on the track singing an additional melody over it. This is what
Ms. Hunt had to say about the recording in a 2004 interview:
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| Image source:www.sott.com |
“Jim Wilson
recorded crickets in his back yard, and he brought it into the studio
and went ahead and lowered the pitch and lowered the pitch and lowered
the pitch. And they sound exactly like a well-trained church choir to
me. And not only that, but it sounded to me like they were singing in
the eight-tone scale. And so what–they started low, and then there was
something like I would call, in musical terms, an interlude; and then
another chorus part; and then an interval and another chorus. They kept
going higher and higher.”
“God’s Cricket Chorus” is also an extended version of the track that does not have Ms. Hunt’s vocals or the narrative.
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I'm Sreekanth. I am a Android Developer in Mobile IT Compny, and I am enjoying by creting blogs and sharing useful information.
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