I looked into synths a bit myself. I t hink that the pick ups are about Uk £400 and the box another £600. Pity really.. On the other hand you can use them to trigger pitch shifted samples. It is one of my ambitions to record birdsong and to compose melodies on guitar which immitate birdsong. I think that music is a mathematical language common between humans and birds, some pitches make sense together. I think that's very wonderful and it'd be nice to be able to jam with my avian relatives.
Song birds are described as "Oscine" meaning they have specialised vocal apparatus, most of them fall within the order Passeridae, other birds are called suboscines and are crap singers. I bet you didn't know this but some oscine birds can sing two notes at once because the two branches of their bronchi are both controlled by their syrinxes, the flaps of tissue whose torsion influences the pitch of sound created. Whillst one bronchus plays one note the other can play another, even switching it on and off.
So why do they sing? It has been argued that it demonstrates the healthiness of a bird. Song birds are territorial, if they are heard to sing from many different places they indicate to females that they defend a large territory and may be full of good genes and hence a good lay. Some say that birds sing so readily partly to give the illusion that the territory they are in is heavily occupied by song birds and this may go part way to explaining why some species have a variety of songs. Another explanation that has been posited for this is that females prefer males with wide repertoires because this memory of song repertoire is corellated to having a good memory of, for instance, where food can be found within a territory.
Blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla), Garden Warblers, Sylvia borin, Blackbirds (Turdus merula) and Nightingales Luscinia megarhynchos etc are just some of the many great european songbirds. Personally I like Mistle thrushes (Turdus Viscivorus) 'cause of their bleak whistful tone. There is a strong genetic component to the song of some birds but others such as the Marsh Warbler Acrocephalus palustris are mimics, and are truly improvising musicians like ourselves. Most are somewhere in between, male Chaffinches (fringilla colebs) which do not hear their fathers sing are comparatively crapper but then they're not much cop anyway.
Anyway, next time a bird ****s on you feel priveledged, they are the pinacle of evolution, masterpieces of adaptation and it takes millions of years to make an animal that can **** on you and sing about it without you being able to kick the crap out of it.
sorry, was that a bit of a rant or what?
If I couldn't laugh at myself how could I laugh at someone less ridiculous?
