Nature

Bird Clef

Composing With Nature Over a hundred years ago, F. Schuler Mathews wrote the book, Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music.  It was a shocking kind of bird book: the author wrote out the notations of the bird songs on sheet music paper. Just like he was copying down a ditty that he had heard at the park and wanted to remember it. There were clef notations, key signatures, tempo indications, and even rhythmic markings.   Birds were to...

A Strange Tail

There is something magical about being somewhere for a period of time.  A long enough period of time to be able to know things about where you are. I once had a job in my biology teacher’s lab.  I measured seaweed.  A certain kind of seaweed. He was studying the effect on its growth by the warm waters being evacuated from the nuclear power plant on the coast. And as the summer drew along, with only the company of the classical...