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Learning to Sing from a Blackbird
Aspiring to the Red-winged Blackbird’s vocal skills.
© Jen Goellnitz
Many years ago, when writer and musician Ray Young Bear was training his singing voice, he took a kind of vocal lesson from the blackbirds. “They have the most complicated song in the world — high pitches and low notes, and then it smooths out, then it kicks up again,” he said. “I would listen to them and try to imitate their singing.”
BirdNote®
Learning to Sing from a Blackbird
Written by Conor Gearin
This is BirdNote.
[Red-winged Blackbird song]
Author Ray Young Bear has a special bond with a Red-winged Blackbird in his backyard on the Meskwaki Nation’s land in Iowa.
Ray Young Bear: The Red-winged Blackbird is very friendly and it's the first time that's ever happened in my life. I've asked it in Meskwaki, [speaks in Meskwaki] I've got some food here, please wait. And the bird will listen. And then, you know, I'll just get the bird feed and he takes it and off it goes. And that's the first time in my life in 71 years that a bird has approached me that close.
But it’s not the first time he has interacted with these birds. Many years ago, when he was training his singing voice, Ray Young Bear took a kind of vocal lesson from the blackbirds.
Ray Young Bear: In order to hone my skills with music — I'm a singer of Native songs —I'd go out into the field, way out in nowhere, and scream my lungs out, my throat out. And oftentimes the birds that I would hear in the woods were the redwings. And I would listen to them and try to imitate their singing.
[Red-winged Blackbird song]
Ray Young Bear: They have the most complicated song in the world — high pitches and low notes, and then it smooths out, then it kicks up again. And I used Red-winged Blackbirds in my self-training of music. And they were instrumental in developing my voice to where it is today.
[Ray Young Bear singing in Meskwaki]
Learn more about Ray Young Bear’s music and writing on our website, BirdNote dot ORG. I’m Ariana Remmel.
[Red-winged Blackbird song]
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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Red-winged Blackbird ML 209310 recorded by Julia Ferguson.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2022 BirdNote November 2022/2024
Narrator: Ariana Remmel
ID# youngbearr-02-2022-11-07 youngbearr-02
Conor Gearin
Writer
Ariana Remmel
Writer NarratorSights & Sounds
