A normal person sees these birds perched on electrical wires and worries about getting crapped on. Jarbas Agnelli looks at them and sees musical notes. Maybe he’s smarter than the rest of us because the melody is utterly oh-so-sweet-that-I-could-doze-off-right-now.
Agnel explains that he was simply curious about what sort of tune he could create by transcribing the birds into musical notes. I’m more curious about what would happen if he tried the same with the freckles on someone’s back. [Vimeo via Wired]
josh
Sunday, May 23, 2010 at 6:20 PMWow everyone, way to ruin this with the fact that it’s probably fake. Douches…
Aalala
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 4:59 PMIt looks photoshopped. The clouds with the birds and without them at the end look the same.
Mike from Shreveport
Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 7:10 AMThe method used constrains the notes to only the spaces between the lines, never on the lines, which keeps chords from being discordant, but seriously limits what music can be made this way. It is also limited in that there are no accidentals, so only certain notes of a diatonic scale can be represented at all. That makes it quite a lot like wind chimes. It almost can’t help but sound more or less pleasant.
The limitations as to melody are particularly constraining. Notice also that the length of notes (and therefore the rhythm/syncopation) is left completely to the discretion of the “transcriber,” so that combined with all of the previously mentioned (humanly determined) constraints, means that most of such compositions are really of human origin, not from the birds.
Rachel
Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 7:40 AMThe reason this sounds great is because all of the birds were transcribed as being on spaces, naturally creating chords. It didn’t clash because it couldn’t. It was basically playing out various inversions of an f seven chord.
Frankiie
Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 11:36 AMthis is amazing, i love it.
gretchen
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 11:31 PMfake or not, twas awesome! good job!
royam
Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 10:41 PMYou’re all missing the very obvious point here that any random objects on five parrallel lines can make music that sounds like it should be music, because there can be no accidentals, because it is just random and not trying to be music, it is all in the key of C major and sounds like it is on purpose, but anyone or anything can make a song in C major if there is no way of indicating sharps or flats anyway.
the joy of birds
Saturday, December 4, 2010 at 6:22 AMhorray for birds! :) they are smarter than any of us :D
Steven
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 5:00 AMYeah, of course they can make good music. They can’t sit in the SPACES of the staves. Therefore they can’t make a tritone. Ever.
AllTimeBD.com
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 4:37 AMvery funny i thinks….
josh
Saturday, June 25, 2011 at 4:07 PMthe birds can only sit ON the wires. they can’t sit between them. shopped or not it’s always going to sound pretty. He’s picked a key sig, and there aren’t accidentals… It’s random diatonic bullshit. and when there is vertical harmony it’s all tertiary and therefore going to sound like a chord in the key.
Musician
Friday, July 1, 2011 at 3:46 PMYou know…why does everyone have to be so critical? I have been playing and composing music for a very long time. Westmwatson is right. And for the love of all that is good, why can’t anyone just sit back and relax to the music?! Photoshopped or not this is art in almost every sense of the word. We’re talking about environmental literacy, musical literacy, (and if it is indeed photoshopped)digital art. All this guy wanted to do was to please and everyone has to get their panties in a bunch. Relax guys, and look past your inadequacies and just enjoy such simple pleasures as creating music from crows on the lines (which is entirely possible)
Kaitlyn Beuckelaere
Sunday, July 17, 2011 at 12:20 AMI opened this video up in two pages then had them right next to each other. I paused done when it’s the picture with all the birds, and paused the other when it was empty. The clouds in the sky look exactly the same. Which would lead one to believe that it is most definitely photoshopped…seeing as clouds move.
Foxum Hardee
Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 1:55 PMit doesnt matter to me what theory goes behind this melody the voice leading or any of that stuff, this is astounding that a man could just look at the wires and do that. i think its brilliant and even though its not perfect that has such potential to be a great song. i would like to see anyone here have the creativity to do that. bravo.
Invainhisname
Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 12:04 PMWhat’s up with all the “thank God”, and “all of this points to Intelligent Design”? I understand there is a corollary between having a low IQ and believing in God, all I’m asking is that you don’t prove causation too.
Our human minds created the way we visualize and represent music, and we can very well visualize musical notes in different ways, like birds on a wire.
There are things much more miraculous or “Godlike” than looking at birds and playing a sappy lullaby.
Well...
Monday, February 20, 2012 at 9:34 AMFirst I’d like to thank you for putting up such a fun video. It was very well made. However, I’d like to point out that because the birds all are sitting on the wire, the notes will all be space notes, each 2 notes apart on the C major scale. There are five wires, so there will only be five notes. And if you take almost any random arrangement of these five notes, it will have a good kind of sound to it. Well done, but musically, it’s not unlikely to occur.