Female-song and birdcalls

Female-song and birdcalls ©Sophia Edlund
2016
Sources: McClatchy, J.D. (ed.), On Wings of Song, New York: Random House, 2000; Gillett, Paula, Musical Women in England, 1870-1914: “Encroaching on All Man’s Privileges.”, New York: St. Mary’s Press, 2000 (p. 158; p. 185 ); Trotter, James M., Music and Some Highly Musical People, Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1878 (p. 292); Leach, Elizabeth Eva, “‘The little pipe sings sweetly while the fowler deceives the bird’: Sirens in the later Middle Ages”, in Music & Letters, 87 (2), 2006, (p. 192).

High pitch, trills and warbles…
Throughout history female singers have been likened to birds. How does the human female singing voice really compare with birdsong?
Taking the singer extraordinaire Siren from classical mythology whose corporeal origin lies in the half-bird half-human as a point of inspiration, Female-song and birdcalls is a vocal laboratory created to explore the liminal sound that connects and separates the two species.

Human vocal anatomy close-ups ©Sophia Edlund
2016 | Charcoal and pencil on paper