STEREO ST-620
Whale songs have probably been
such, ever since man began to me
of whaling alone there are many accounts of strange, ethereal
sounds, reverberating faintly through a quiet ship at night, mystifying
sailors in their bunks. Long after such experiences were first
mentioned, scientists were able to explain what caused them ...
If the idea of whale “singing” seems odd, the cause may lie in the
several meanings of the word “song.” Quite apart from any esthetic
judgment one might make about them, the sounds produced by
Humpback whales can properly be called songs because they occur
in complete sequences that are repeated. Bird sounds are called
songs for the same reason. Birds sing songs that are repeated
fairly exactly and Humpback whales too
are very faithful to their own indi¬
vidual sequence of sounds.
Humpback whale songs are
far longer than bird songs.
The shortest Humpback
song recorded lasts six min¬
utes and the longest is more than thirty
mi, lutes. The pauses between Hump¬
back songs are no longer than the
pauses between notes within the
song: in other words, they are
recycled without any obvious
break. Again, in contrast with
birds, who complete a song
before pausing, it doesn’t
matter where in its song
the Humpback starts
or stops ...
STEREO, ST-620
DR. ROGER S. PAYNE, whose work pro¬
duced this record, has spent the last fifteen
years doing research in biological acoustics
and is currently at The Institute for Research
in Animal Behavior operated jointly by the
New York Zoological Society and The
Rockefeller University. His studies began
with work on the directional sensitivity of the
ears of bats, which he did while still an
undergraduate at Harvard University. He
later received his doctorate in biology from
Cornell University for brilliant work on the
ability of owls to find their prey in complete
darkness by hearing. He then did equally
important work on moths, discovering their
ability to judge the direction of bat sonar
and thus evade capture. When asked how he
reached the decision to do research on
whales Dr. Payne replied, “The decision
reached itself really. It was something I had
wanted to do for a long while. Certainly, I
wasn’t first led to it through any particularly
inspiring encounter with whales. I've had
any number of wonderful days among wild
whales since, but at the time I decided to
study whales I hadn’t even seen one. In fact,
the first whale I did see was a dead one and
the encounter was anything but inspiring.
“I was working in a laboratory at Tufts
University one March night during a sleet
storm when I heard through the local radio
news that a dead whale had washed ashore
on Revere Beach. I wanted to see it so I
drove out there. The sleet had turned to
rain when I reached the place. Many people
had come to see the whale earlier but there
were only a few on the beach when I
arrived and by the time I reached the tidal
wrack where the whale lay, the beach
was deserted.
"It was a small whale, a Porpoise about
1, eight feet long with lovely subtle curves
1 glistening in the cold rain. It had been
f mutilated. Someone had hacked off its
flukes for a souvenir. Two other people had
carved their initials deeply into its side, and
someone else had stuck a cigar butt in its
blowhole. I removed the cigar and stood
there for a long time with feelings I cannot
describe. Everybody has some such experi¬
ence that affects him for life, probably
several. That night was one of mine.
“At some point my flashlight went out, but
as the tide came in I could periodically see
the graceful outline of the whale against the
white foam cast by the waves. Although it is
more typical than not of what happens to
whales when they encounter man, that
experience was somehow the last straw, and
I decided to use the first possible oppor¬
tunity to learn enough about whales so I
might have some effect on their fate."
Side One
■ f
Solo Whale
This is a portion of a recording (as well as
bands 2 and 4) made by Frank Watlington
of the Columbia University Geophysical
Field Station at St. David’s, Bermuda. His
underwater microphone (called a hydro¬
phone) was in water about 1,500 feet deep,
with a cable leading ashore to the recorder
in his office. One day a whale happened by
and remained throughout the afternoon,
singing its song over and over again. Two
songs have been selected for this record;
they have been slightly edited by cutting out
parts of two long repetitive sections. Except
for these deletions, the sounds have not
been altered in any way—there is no
speeding up, slowing down, or other modi¬
fication of the sounds made by the whale.
Presumably, this is the way the songs would
sound to other whales.
The loudest sounds are followed by a
series of echoes from the surface and the
bottom. You can hear the propeller noise of
a large freighter passing far away; it is
audible only as a very faint, high-pitched,
wavering sound. You can also hear, in addi¬
tion to this whale, the occasional soft,
low cries of a distant whale.
Near the end of the band, there are two
rumbling explosions. These were probably
made by dynamite being used in acoustic
experiments. The whale apparently did not
respond to these sounds, for its song is the
same as it was in other recordings when
there were no explosions.
With the exceptions noted above, every¬
thing here is the song of a single whale.
The sound that follows the first two cries—a
noise that sounds to many like a motor
running —is part of the whale song. It is
made up of a series of rapidly repeated
low pulses.
Slowed-Down Solo Whale
This recording consists of two short sections
of very high notes from the songs of the
previous selection. They have been slowed
to one-quarter of the original speed. This
drops the pitch two octaves and spreads the
sounds out over a period four times as long
as the natural sounds took. The intermediate
loud, low sounds have been deleted from
this version. When slowed down this much,
the low sounds would be too low for most
loudspeakers to reproduce.
The echoes are very noticeable in this
slowed-down version, because the echoes
of the earliest sounds overlap the later
sounds in a very intricate and beautiful way.
This technique has been included to dem¬
onstrate the fantastic complexity of the
highest tones in the Humpback songs.
Tower Whales
These songs are from recordings at normal
speed of the whales that Dr. Payne and his
wife heard on many occasions.
The songs heard are noticeably different
from the songs on many of Frank Watling-
ton’s tapes. The Paynes are beginning to
suspect that different herds or family groups
of Humpback whales may have different
song patterns or dialects. When one group
is moving through an area, its songs would
then be most frequently heard. The Paynes
hope to gather further evidence to test this
hypothesis on future trips.
The first whale you hear makes some very
low sounds. They follow directly after two
high squeals. The basic notes of this low
sound are actually complex pulses of sound.
The low rate at which the pulses follow one
another creates the effect of a very low-
frequency tone.
Various creaks, groans, and sounds of
ropes rubbing are heard, particularly near
the end of this segment. These noises are
from the Twilight, the sailboat towing the
hydrophones. They must be typical of the
sounds that a whale hears as a sailboat
passes nearby.
In fact, the Twilight is an unusually quiet
sailboat. The Paynes found that their early
recordings were cluttered with bangs and
bumps that synchronized with the rolling of
the ship. They found that even the tiniest
item free to roll slightly in its place on the
ship could create noises that carried
through the sea to the hydrophones. Even
ropes slapping against the mast produced
distinct noises on the recordings.
“We spent hours hunting down various
bumping noises," says Dr. Payne. “We
wedged small items—batteries, cans of oil,
and so on—into place until finally only one
loud bang could still be heard. It occurred
only in rough weather and was clearly syn¬
chronized with the roll of the boat. We
searched from stem to stern, but could find
nothing that was not secured. At last, one
day we discovered that the rudder stock
was slightly loose in its housing. As each
wave rolled beneath us and tipped the boat,
the stock swung from one side to the other
of its housing like the clapper of a bell,
causing the bang. We had to learn to live
with this sound. You will hear the bang of
the loose rudder stock on this recording,
because the day on which the recording was
made was very rough.
Distant Whale
These lovely, mysterious sounds are prob¬
ably from a very distant whale. There is also
an interesting, high-pitched tone that comes
from the “singing” of a far-away ship’s
propeller. Acoustic engineers use the term
“singing" to describe a constant loud
note produced by the resonant vibration of
some propellers. Other propellers, of only
slightly different design, do not "sing.”
Propeller making is a subtle art, and the
phenomenon of “singing” is one of its more
obscure aspects. Trial and error remains
the best method of building a quiet propeller,
though we are beginning to understand
some of the conditions that cause the noise.
Side Two
Three Whale Trip
There are three Humpback whales singing at
various times on this selection. There is also
a lot of ocean noise. The winds had been
strong the day before this recording was
made and during the day the sea was still
running high. Both of the Twilight’s hydro¬
phones were located near the ocean
surface, where wave noise is loudest. After
a few moments of listening, however, you
will learn to hear much as a whale probably
does, ignoring the background noises and
focusing on the whale songs.
Dr. Payne made this recording from a
sailboat near Bermuda during his studies of
the Humpbacks there. "We found one spot,”
says Dr. Payne, “where the sounds of
whales blended in a very lovely way. We
occasionally stopped there to listen while on
our way to make recordings at other loca¬
tions. The Three Whale Trip’ was recorded
at that favorite listening spot on an occasion
when the whales sang all day and all night.
We have deleted some repetitive sections.
The material on the record is actually made
up of four separate sections of our original
recording spliced together. You will gain
some idea from this side of the variety of
whale sounds.
“As you listen to this recording, I wish
only that it could convey to you the pleasant
circumstances under which we made it.
Through the whole night we listened to the
whales, taking turns at the headphones in
the cockpit, lulled by the smooth rolling of
the boat. Far from land, with a faint breeze
and a full moon, we heard these lovely
sounds pouring out of the sea.”
Although there is no way to bring you the
sensations of that Bermuda night on a sail¬
boat, we have found that the use of stereo
headphones comes the closest to creating
the beautiful, mystical mood that Dr. Payne
describes.
As you listen, you may notice a strange
effect, particularly on the higher notes. A cry
is heard softly at first; a moment later
exactly the same sound repeats itself much
louder. The first cry is probably traveling
directly to the boat. The sound ray moves
just beneath the surface and is soft because
much of the sound energy has been de¬
flected downward through the water. The
second repetition is probably caused by
sound rays reflected from the bottom and
traveling directly to the shallow hydro¬
phones on their first bounce. Because of the
peculiar acoustics of this location, we have
the unusual situation of an echo that is
louderthan the original sound.
The title of this side refers to more than
the day’s trip on which the recording was
mad#or the voyage of the three whales who
paused off Bermuda to sing that day. By
playing on the contemporary meaning of the
word “trip” as a mental voyage, this title
also acknowledges what has been discov¬
ered time and again by people who have
listened to the whales sing: the songs pro¬
duce an extraordinary inner experience for
anyone who lets them into his mind.
The songs seem to have a universal
appeal. Dr. Payne has played whale songs
for many thousands of people in a wide
variety of circumstances—at lectures
throughout the United States and elsewhere:
at the home of influential statesmen with
guests invited to hear the songs; in the
living rooms of performing artists; at
colleges; in concerts; in a dozen other
situations—and always, whatever the occa¬
sion, the people who listened have been
affected, often profoundly moved, by the
songs Folk singers have begun to sing
about whales. Works of orchestral music
have been composed with whale songs.
Finally, through art forms and through
television, radio, newspapers, magazines,
lectures, and meetings of all kinds, people
have begun to tell each other that the mag¬
nificent whale, now in peril of virtual ex¬
tinction, must be saved. The world is
“turning on” to whales.
A Production of CRM RECORDS —
Notes and artwork selected from materials:
Copyright ©1970 by Communications/
Research/Machines, Inc.
Manufactured by Capitol Records, Inc., a subsidiary of Capitol Industries, Inc., Hollywood and Vine
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This record has been engineered and manufactured in accordance with standards developed by the Recording Industry
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