Free birds: Finch orchestra rocks out with electric guitars
London’s Barbican Centre has played host over the years to some of the world’s greatest musicians. Now an orchestra of 40 zebra finches playing electric guitars and cymbals has become the latest musical sensation to take the venue by storm.
The installation, which bears a sonic resemblance to the abstract sounds of late, great experimental guitarist Derek Bailey, has been created by French artist Celeste Boursier-Mougenot.
It features amped-up Gibson Les Paul guitars set up as perches and cymbals as bird feeders. The birds land on the strings, peck at the cymbals and even scrape the strings with twigs to create an ever-changing musical soundscape.
“What you hear could be an experimental rock band, or a band warming up,” says exhibition curator Lydia Yee.
“It could sound like experimental music. As humans we are naturally always trying to make sense of the world and if something sounds partly musical I think we put two-and-two together.”
One review of the installation, which opened to the public on Saturday, called it “an immersive exploration of nature, music and the haphazard” while Guitarist magazine said: “”It turns out these birds can rock – one even goes all Jimmy Page with a twig.”
The installation is the latest commission in The Curve, the centre’s visual art space and has already become a huge hit on YouTube.
Yee said the installation also played on the popularity on the internet of animals apparently exhibiting musical tendencies.
“I have a theory there is a whole genre on YouTube of people’s pets playing instruments, and this falls loosely within that category,” said Yee.
“In most cases it is a cat walking on a piano and it doesn’t sound that great. But some interesting sound can come from the fact that it is not intended. Celeste talks about his one-year-old son who plays with his daughter’s electrical guitar and makes some interesting noise from it.”