Acoustic encounters of a fin whale
Jan 13, 2023, 11:21 AM
"This piece features a fin whale's journey through the polar soundscape. Due to its enormous size, the fin whale (the second longest whale on the planet) produces a very low frequency (20 Hz) pulse, reaching the lower end of the human hearing range. Based on the recording of a fin whale, a tune was composed, revolving around the reoccurring low frequency pulses.
"The inspiration for this piece of music was taken from the long distances traveled by fin whales in combination with the huge diversity in marine species in polar regions. The repeating low frequency pulses reveal the fin whales point of view whilst encountering a diverse acoustic environment. Recordings from polar regions comprising sounds of various cetacean species like killer whales, Ross seals, bowhead whales, sperm whales, leopard seals and high frequency sounds produced by sea ice, present the listener with an idea of the acoustic diversity in the Arctic and the Antarctic. A synthesizer playing chords based on the sounds produced by the sea ice is the only purely artificial sound in the piece - all other sounds are taken as recorded and only slightly altered.
"The piece is a celebration of nature's diversity and beauty in yet another realm."
Fin whale reimagined by Vincent Kather.
Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds.
IMAGE: Aqqa Rosing-Asvid - Visit Greenland, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
"The inspiration for this piece of music was taken from the long distances traveled by fin whales in combination with the huge diversity in marine species in polar regions. The repeating low frequency pulses reveal the fin whales point of view whilst encountering a diverse acoustic environment. Recordings from polar regions comprising sounds of various cetacean species like killer whales, Ross seals, bowhead whales, sperm whales, leopard seals and high frequency sounds produced by sea ice, present the listener with an idea of the acoustic diversity in the Arctic and the Antarctic. A synthesizer playing chords based on the sounds produced by the sea ice is the only purely artificial sound in the piece - all other sounds are taken as recorded and only slightly altered.
"The piece is a celebration of nature's diversity and beauty in yet another realm."
Fin whale reimagined by Vincent Kather.
Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds.
IMAGE: Aqqa Rosing-Asvid - Visit Greenland, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons