Grooved Whale
Grooved Whale marks the beginning of my inquiry into the world of the whale through the framework of music.
In 1996 I was invited to join a research team in southeast Alaska studying the acoustics of the Humpback Whale. It was thought that with my musical background I might be able to shed light on the humpback’s feeding call.
To my musician’s ear, what struck me most was that no feeding call was ever the same twice – each whale had its individual signature “style” varying their notes like one would an arpeggio over the course of the call.
I began learning about how to analyze data and found that through careful examination subtle qualities began to emerge in the vocalizations – qualities such as overtones, cadences and rhythmic cycles that lent themselves more to terms of music and composition than pure scientific vocabulary.
My goal then became twofold: to learn more about Humpback’s system of acoustics from a purely observational point of view, listening and analyzing the sounds much like a scientist would do while at the same time playing with the inherent rhythms and phrases within the sounds to create building blocks of musical compositions.
While I wasn’t out to “prove” anything with Grooved Whale, it seemed to me that investigating these questions of acoustics through the discipline of musical composition was an extremely valuable method of inquiry for the Humpback Whale.
The album received international airplay, rave reviews and took home NAV’s 2001 Electronic Album of the Year.
I’m now working on a follow-up album and all kinds of wonderful projects that I will be sharing very soon!
In the meantime, please follow the link to purchase/download Grooved Whale .
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