Birdsong Beat Box

Sound Art Project  to Promote Conservation Awareness

The SkyIslandBeatbox project is a collaboration between musician Ben Mirin from New York, photographer PrasenjeetYadav from Bangalore, and V. V. Robin,a bird ecologist from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) to take bird songs to a larger audience.

Ben uses beatbox to create music with bird song and Prasen plans to make a video that will include images of the rare birds around us to convey the wonder and the beauty of these birds to us, who can see these birds in our backyards.

BEAT BOXIn the Western Ghat mountains (right next to where we live), there are many birds that are found only here and nowhere else in this world. Our recent research (link) indicates that some of these birds are very special, especially those that live only on the tops of mountains – areas called sky islands. These mountain-top habitats are fast disappearing because of deforestation and climate change. Whileall of us appreciate birds for their unparalleled singing ability,we don’t usually associate these songs with the unique bird species that live around us, and are affected by deforestation (link) and local extinction (link).

In these workshops, participants will make original music using a combination of bird song and ‘beatbox’ as a means of creating awareness about birds and their conservation. The music will be mixed with high-quality photographs and footage of these birds to create a video linking birds responsible for the sounds in the composition.

They have been gathering quite a name for themselves (link) and take a look here for more information on the workshop (link)

Date: 12th September 2015
Time – 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM, Entry fee- Rs 200/-
Venue – Place to Bee, 176/A, Club Road, Ooty, 0423-2449464
For more information please write to contact@nnhs.in or call Prudhvi – 9442619577