Jim Nollman: He Jams With The Animals

Peter writes: “Here’s Jim Nollman in action, playing guitar to a killer whale off the coast of Russia. An artist and environmental activist, he’s founder of Interspecies Inc, an organization promoting the artistic interaction of humans and animals. Nollman got his start in interspecies music-making in the early 70s, jamming with 300 turkeys for a Thanksgiving Day radio piece. Blowing on his clay flute, he was able to induce the turkeys to gobble on key and on beat to his songs. He has since recorded interspecies music with wolves, desert rats, deer, elk, whales and dolphins. The Interspecies Inc website has various recordings of his gigs with whales and dolphins. My favourite is his early “Orca Reggae”, which I believe he recorded by playing a waterproofed guitar while sitting in a kayak equipped with an underwater speaker. As Jim points out, the whale does seem to have the chord changes nailed, and he could be right that it recalls “the way that Miles Davis soloed during his Bitches Brew Period”. You should check out the other underwater animal loops here - some solo, some interacting with instruments. I like the (Rock) Lobster and the Weddell Seal, which might make a cool bass drum sound.”

Posted by Tommy.

Comments:

actually i have been doing this musical contact with animals, primarily with toothed whales, for almost 30 years. this work has been filmed many times, and is now providing some very rich source recordings for a music project involving many composers from 10 countries. check out the music from this project at:
http://interspecies.com/pages/belly%20songs.html

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:56 pm

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:57 pm

why do I suspect some creative editting on these recordings? It might be my mistrust of anything resembling new age. I once visited a Holistic Health fair where people were paying $100 for 15 minutes of "talking" with dolphins on a laptop, they typed things and then a speech synth "translated" the dolphins...
the thing was just a CDROM.

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:44 pm

To attempt musical communication with another species is Newage? No one has ever described my musical research that way before. Your accusation of creative editing is incorrect and arrogant.
The only editing I permit is cutting the longest silences. Some of these recorded interactions take place over several hours or even days, so I edit to the places where the jamming between species is occurring. Otherwise, what you hear is precisely how it happened out in the water. ALL the recording is done through hydrophones. I have never worked with captive animals.

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:01 am