Animals: Art, Science and Sound is the first major exhibition to explore the many different ways in which animals have been written about, visualised and recorded over time. Focusing on the British Library’s extensive natural history collections, the exhibition brings together chronologically and geographically diverse material produced over the past 2000 years, from some of the earliest encyclopaedic works on zoology to stunning high-resolution photographs of insects produced using the latest technologies.

The exhibition features over 100 objects selected from the Library's diverse collections and is divided into four main zones that cover darkness, water, land and air. As the name suggests, sound features heavily in the exhibition, both in terms of physical objects and sound recordings themselves. There are soundscapes playing in the gallery space that help create atmosphere and listening points where visitors can explore some of the more weird and wonderful recordings held by the Library. Published discs, field tapes, recording equipment and personal notebooks sit alongside historical manuscripts, paintings and printed works, and many of these items are on display for the very first time. There are objects of celebration, such as the first commercial record of an animal, but also objects of sadness, the most poignant of which is a reel of tape containing the song of a now extinct songbird.

Below are just a few highlights from this textually, visually and sonically rich exhibition.

The Holgate Mark VI bat detector which was one of the earliest portable models produced (British Library, WA 2009/018)

Greater Horseshoe Bat echolocation recorded using the Holgate MK VI by John Hooper in Devon, England, 1968 (WS7360 C10)

Illustration of the defects of a horse from Kitab al-baytarah (Book on Veterinary Medicine) by Abu Muhammad Ahmad ibn Atiq al-Azdi, 13th century (British Library, Or 1523, ff. 62v-63r)

Musical notation used to represent the songs and calls of birds, from Athanasius Kircher's Musurgia Universalis (Universal Music), Rome, 1650 (British Library, 59.e.19.) 

Second edition of Julian Huxley and Ludwig Koch's Animal Language sound book, USA, 1964 (British Library, 1SS0001840)

Bactrian Camel calls taken from disc 1 of Animal Language (1CS0070755)

An image of a 'monkfish' from Pierre Belon's De aquatilibus (Of aquatic species), Paris, 1553 (British Library, 446.a.6.)

An illustration of a fruit bat, painted at Barrackpore, India. 1804-7 (British Library, NHD3/517)

The Hip-po-pot-a-mus children's educational record published by the Talking Book Corporation, USA, 1919 (British Library, 9CS0029512)

A section in the Land zone displaying textual and visual accounts of animals appearing in countries beyond their usual geographic range.

A section in the Air zone exploring the history of recording bird voices including the first commercially released record of an animal from 1910.

Actual Bird Record Made by a Captive Nightingale (No.1), Gramophone Company, 1910

Animals: Art, Science and Sound runs until 28 August 2023. Please visit https://www.bl.uk/events/animals to book tickets and to find out more about the exhibition's accompanying events programme. Thanks go to the Getty Foundation, Ponant, the American Trust for the British Library and the B.H. Breslauer Fund of the American Trust for the British Library. Audio soundscapes were created by Greg Green with support from the Unlocking our Sound Heritage project, made possible by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and scientific advice provided by ZSL (the Zoological Society of London). 

 

Publicity shot of Sun Ra, 1973. Distributed by Impulse! Records and ABC/Dunhill Records. Photographer uncredited. Public domain.
 
Throughout his long career the pianist, composer, bandleader and Afrofuturist pioneer Sun Ra (1914-1993) released over one hundred albums, many under his own record label Saturn Records. His sprawling recorded output is matched in extent only by the longevity of his band, the variously-named Arkestra, which formed in the 1950s and still performs to this day under the leadership of saxophonist Marshall Allen - surely one of the longest-running bands in existence.

This combination has served well to preserve the legacy of Sun Ra who passed away almost 30 years ago today on 30 May 1993. His death was mourned worldwide but not more so than by his devotees from within the Arkestra as captured by an all-day KPFA memorial programme which aired in the summer of 1993. This week’s highlighted recording is from this broadcast, which forms part of the Christ Trent Collection (C833). Chris Trent is a Sun Ra historian and founder of the archive-led, Ra-oriented record label Art Yard. The programme features interviews with several members of the Arkestra including saxophonist John Gilmore, trombonist Julian Priester and trumpeter Michael Ray as well as Evidence label founder Jerry Gordon and Jim Newman who produced the Afrofuturist sci-fi film Space is the Place (1974). Whilst the majority of the interviews are anecdotal and focus on Sun Ra’s history, saxophonist Ronald Wilson’s contribution stands apart in its pertinent reflections on the future of Sun Ra’s music.

Ronald Wilson interview excerpt

Download Ronald Wilson transcript

In this clip, soundtracked by the syncopated piano chords of ‘Somewhere in Space’, Wilson talks about the House of Ra in Philadelphia. The house functioned as a communal living & rehearsal space, the Arkestral headquarters and to this day is still lived in and used by the very same band. At the time of broadcast the house was overflowing with tapes which spilled out onto the kitchen sink, underneath tables and on top of cabinets and windowsills. According to Wilson, Sun Ra recorded everything that he did.

The Sun Ra Arkestra performing in Brecon, Wales in 1990. Photo by Peter Tea. Sourced from Flickr under CC BY-ND 2.0.

To me, it feels as if Ronald Wilson is not only addressing the KPFA listeners of 1993 but also those of us working in the British Library’s sound archive in 2023, as well as the musicologists and archivists of the future. Whilst it is sometimes easy to lose sight of the long-term importance of archives, Wilson’s clear-sighted appeal is a reminder of why audio preservation is needed in order to understand the lives of these artists as they unfolded and the music that came from them. Sun Ra must have shared this viewpoint himself. His explanation, as recounted by writer Robert Campbell, on how he chose which music to release on the Saturn label, says as much:

Whatever I think people are not going to listen to, I’ve always recorded it. When it’ll take them some time - maybe 20 years, 30 years - to really hear it.

Reference: Campbell, R. in  Omniverse: Sun Ra edited by Hartmut Geerken; Bernhard Hefele (Wartaweil: Waitawhile. 1994).

Today’s post was written by Gail Tasker, Metadata Support Officer.

Many of you will have seen a fictionalised version of comedian Lenny Bruce in the streamed comedy-drama The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Although the series has no pretensions to documentary accuracy, actor Luke Kirby has clearly done his research. He gives an impressively convincing and charismatic performance.

Working in the late 1950s to the mid-60s, the real Lenny Bruce was one of the most influential stand-up comedians in US history. His discursive style, based on semi-improvised routines, was a hip and exciting contrast to the tired format of traditional jokes with corny punchlines.

In the liner notes to the LP The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce, jazz critic Ralph Gleason drew parallels between Bruce’s approach to comedy, and jazz:

He is colossally irreverent - like a jazz musician. His stock in trade is to violate all the taboos out loud and to say things on stage which would get your nose bashed in at a party. But his outrage at society is not represented by shrill screams or loud protests. He does not pose. His is a moral outrage and has about it the air of a jazz man. It is strong stuff - like jazz, and it is akin to the point of view of Nelson Algren and Lawrence Ferlinghetti as well as to Charlie Parker and Lester Young.

But Bruce’s stance did not go unnoticed. In 1960s America, the establishment was in no mood to take a challenge lightly. If provoked, it would strike back. Bruce’s nightclub act, which dealt candidly with sex, drugs, politics, religion and race relations, began to attract police attention. Throughout the first half of the 1960s, up to his premature death in 1966, Bruce faced a relentless string of arrests and subsequent court proceedings, mainly for ‘obscenity’.

The first of these court appearances occurred in 1962, in San Francisco. In his defence, Bruce played a tape of his nightclub act, demonstrating the context surrounding his use of ‘obscene’ language. The judge was asked if those in the courtroom could be allowed to ‘respond naturally', i.e., to laugh, but the judge would allow no such thing, saying, ‘This is not a theatre and it is not a show’. Bruce was acquitted nonetheless.

Bruce subsequently issued the recording played in court as a 10” disc on his own label. The cover featured Bruce dressed as a policeman, and the following notice:  

WARNING

SALE OF THIS ALBUM MAY SUBJECT SELLER TO ARREST FOR VIOLATION OF THE ENDEMIC OBSCENITY LAWS; THE SOLE EXCEPTION BEING SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA (WHERE THE COMMUNITY STANDARDS MAY BE LOWER).

Here is a short excerpt from that recording, which was made at San Fransisco Jazz Workshop on 2 October 1961.

Listen to Lenny Bruce live in 1961

Download Lenny Bruce transcript

It is a measure of how times change that the sexual swearwords or expressions that saw Bruce arrested multiple times for obscenity would pass unremarked upon today, at least in a comedy context.

In contrast, Bruce’s use of various disparaging terms for ethnic minorities, disabled people and homosexuals would be highly likely to outrage many contemporary audiences. While it is an argument unlikely to persuade many today, Bruce maintained that the casual use of these terms could deprive them of their power to wound.

For those who would like to explore further we have digitised and made available online a number of Lenny Bruce shows recorded by Cecil Spiller in 1957-58. From available evidence, the venue for most of the recordings is thought to be the Peacock Lane nightclub, Los Angeles, USA. Please bear in mind that some of the language may offend.

Today’s post was written by Steve Cleary, Lead Curator, Literary and Creative Recordings.

With thanks to Kitty Bruce for granting permission to make these recordings available online.

This week's selection comes from Jonnie Robinson, Lead Curator of Spoken English.

Last month, while preparing for a panel discussion at the Modern Cockney Festival, I stumbled across a Guardian interview with John Cooper Clarke discussing his poem 'I Wanna Be Yours'. Reflecting on his career, Clarke notes he was ‘never on the sausage’, an intriguing use of Salford (?) rhyming slang for ‘dole’ (i.e. unemployment benefit). The convention with rhyming slang, of course, is that the final element – i.e. the component that rhymes with the target word – is invariably omitted. When people say ‘give us a butcher’s’ for ‘let me have a look’, they’re using the well-established rhyming slang form butcher’s (hook) [= ‘look’]; Clarke’s use of ‘sausage’ here implies sausage (roll) [= ‘dole’]. A quick glance at authoritative reference sources such as Cockney Rhyming Slang, Green’s Dictionary of Slang and Brewer’s Dictionary of London Phrase & Fable (Wiley, 2010) reveals numerous rhyming slang variants for ‘dole’, including:

Adrian (Mole)

Andy (Cole) / Cheryl (Cole) / George (Cole) / Nat (King Cole)

Billy (Joel)

De La Soul

Rock & Roll / Jam (roll) / Sausage (roll)

The term ‘sausage’ itself also occurs in at least two rhyming slang forms, each with three possible meanings:

Sausage (& mash) [= 'cash/crash/smash']

Sausage (roll) [= 'dole/goal/pole']

     Cockney ATM © Bank Machine Company. Image taken from Melik, J. (2012) bbc.co.uk

The enduring appeal of rhyming slang and the fact it’s an endlessly productive process means it remains a playful source of lexical innovation for Londoners (and others). Original forms of rhyming slang are created all the time; some are adopted enthusiastically and subsequently gain wider recognition. To illustrate this, listen to these recordings submitted in 2011 to the Library’s Evolving English WordBank by three young Londoners:

Listen to Have a bubble - clip one 

'We use some rhyming slang still not an awful lot but like having a bubble you’re having a laugh'

Listen to Have a bubble - clip two

'You’re having a bubble mate I think that came from the East End of London when they spoke Cockney some years ago'

Listen to Have a bubble - clip three

'Having a bubble means to have a laugh and I think it’s Cockney rhyming slang for having a bubble bath'

Surprisingly, there’s no entry for bubble (bath) [= ‘laugh’] in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, which suggests it must be a relatively recent coinage. It does, however, merit an entry at Cockney Rhyming Slang and features in Tony Thorne’s Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (2014), where it’s classified as a modern variation on the older form TIN (Bath). Brewer’s Dictionary of London Phrase & Fable (Wiley, 2010) includes a citation from 2007 and suggests it’s most commonly heard in the ‘sarcastically rhetorical question you havin’ a bubble?’.

It’s difficult to predict why some rhyming slang forms take hold more successfully than others but bubble (bath) [= ‘laugh’] is somehow inherently suitable as it’s an item of everyday vocabulary. It’s also a slightly frivolous object in its own right and has the added attraction of alliteration. Not only that but it requires quintessentially ‘Cockney’ phonology to work: although the rhyming component ‘bath’ is seldom actually uttered, in order for it to rhyme with ‘laugh’ we implicitly accept a pronunciation with TH-fronting – i.e. it has to end with a <f> sound as in e.g. ‘staff’. I also wonder if the success of bubble [= ‘laugh’] is also maybe reinforced by a potential association for Londoners (well, West Ham United fans anyway) with the stereotypically Cockney song, 'I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles?' Perhaps that’s stretching it a bit, but nevertheless having a bubble certainly brings a smile to my face. Or should I say boat (race)?

Follow @VoicesofEnglish and @soundarchive for all the latest news.

References:

Melik, J. 2012. Cockney Cash: Lady Godivas and speckled hens. [18 April] Available from: www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17535156

Thorne, T. 2014. Dictionary of Contemporary Slang. London: Bloomsbury.
Wiley, R. 2010. Brewer’s Dictionary of London Phrase & Fable. Edinburgh: Chambers.

 

The famously successful actor and theatre manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1852-1917) made this recording in March 1906. It was one of a set of five 10-inch discs recorded for release by the Gramophone Company. These were originally issued in a ‘special envelope’ (which we don’t have) which included the texts and a ‘character portrait’ of Tree.

Each single-sided shellac disc featured a soliloquy from Shakespeare. Here, Tree performs Falstaff’s speech on honour, from Henry IV, Part 1.

A soliloquy was pretty much all the technology of the time would allow. In the early years of commercial recording, playing times of more than just a few minutes were not technologically possible.

Note also that age of recording with electrical microphones was still two decades away. You are listening here to an acoustic recording. Tree would have been projecting his voice, with all the vigour he could muster, into the horn of the recording device.

Listen to Herbert Beerbohm Tree

Download Herbert Beerbohm Tree transcript

The presence of the famous HMV dog on the label indicates that this is a later reissue rather than the 1906 first pressing.

Somewhat unusually, the British Library also possesses an original copper matrix from which a new edition of the record could be pressed. This was one of a set presented to the British Museum by the Gramophone Company in 1906 and subsequently transferred to the Library in 1992.

This week’s ‘Recording of the Week’ was selected by Steve Cleary, Lead Curator, Literary and Creative Recordings.

Photograph of an actor on stage. Photograph by Antonio Molinari on Unsplash.

In this 2004 interview from British Library collection ‘Theatre Archive Project’ (C1142/350), sound designer Ross Brown describes the process of sound creation in theatre.

Listen to Ross Brown

Download Ross Brown transcript

Sound design is, among many things, an art of illusion. It serves a purpose to recreate familiar sounds and convey emotions. The role of the theatre sound designer is to create a sound that can fit a certain venue. The designer imagines how the sound will fill the ambient space and how the audience will receive it within that space. Sounds create another dimension to what happens on the stage.

Brown states that the role of the sound designer was not perceived as a separate entity until the modern day, when new equipment was introduced to create sounds in theatre. With the arrival of new technologies, playback became an integral part of the performance, almost similar to a cinematic experience. Naturalistic sounds could then be stretched and manipulated before being incorporated into the final products.

This new way of sampling sound needed to be marketed. In fact, this became a niche technical aspect of the staged performances. However, budget in theatre downplayed the sound designer as a professional role until very recently. Brown’s consideration made me think of the historic way of adding sound to a film as a separate track, with the final product merging two different mediums of communication (images and sounds).

Ross describes sound creation as a parallel narrative: an experimental discipline, which combines the ability to use these new technological tools with the final making of the performance or play. Some writers, Ross continues, raised objections to this new professional role of interpreting and shaping the musicality and rhythm of speech and interaction. Altogether, it was the whole experience of the audience that would be different with the sound actually abstracting from the script. Ideas could spark from attending rehearsals. An understanding of how the characters would interact with each other was an integral part of this new process of making sounds and creating the new pace of storytelling.

This week’s post comes from Giulia Baldorilli, Sound and Vision Reference Specialist.

The mechanics behind bird flight have fascinated and inspired humans for centuries. From Leonardo da Vinci to the Wright Brothers, this seemingly effortless process has captivated and influenced some of the finest scientific and engineering minds in history.

Wings aren’t just for flying though. For some species, wings are also an integral part of courtship displays. The White-collared Manakin (Manacus candei) is just one example of a bird that uses its wings for more than just getting around. The mating dance of this colourful neotropical songbird includes a series of crisp wing snaps and buzzes produced by males as they flit between branches around the edge of their designated display arena. These birds are particularly finicky when it comes to selecting and preparing their personal dance floors. First, their chosen patch of forest has to be free from foliage; nobody wants to be smacked in the face by bushes when trying to impress a potential mate. Any leaf litter, twigs or other unwanted objects are then collected and moved out of the way, leaving a bare square of forest floor. When the dance-off finally gets underway, females in the area carefully watch the performances. If a female is impressed by a particular male, she will join his dance, following him as he moves between branches. Though appearing quite romantic on the surface, pair bonds are not formed after the mating display and males play no part in nest building, egg incubation or the rearing of young.  

This recording of a White-collared Manakin was made in Costa Rica’s La Selva Biological Reserve on 13 March 1986 by Richard Ranft (see full catalogue record).

White-collared Manakin wing snaps and buzzes

White-collared Manakin (photo credit: Mick Thompson on Flickr / CC BY-NC 2.0)

The wing snaps and buzzes produced by the male are clearly audible, though the bird itself was hidden from the recordist's view by the dense forest foliage. Several other species of manakin also incorporate wing snaps into their courtship rituals, a trait inherited from a distant common ancestor that, luckily for sound recordists, has stuck around.

Follow @CherylTipp and @soundarchive for all the latest news.

The British Library recently launched a new online learning resource, Voices of the Holocaust, as part of Unlocking Our Sound Heritage. The new website features a curated selection of audio clips, pulled mainly from four collections of oral history interviews with Holocaust survivors held at the British Library’s sound archive. Alongside the interview extracts, the resource features biographies of the interviewees as well as historical context provided through themes and articles.

Many audio clips featured in the new Voices of the Holocaust learning resource speak to how difficult it was to escape Nazi-occupied countries and find a new home. In an interview with Herbert Levy, Peter Rickenback speaks about leaving Nazi Germany and spending several years travelling Europe and beyond, bouncing from job to job to evade immigration authorities returning him to Nazi Germany as an illegal immigrant.

Until 1941, official Nazi policy was to encourage Jewish people to emigrate, but they made it incredibly difficult and dangerous to do so. Throughout the 1930s, the Nazis enacted over 400 antisemitic laws that systematically impoverished and restricted the lives of Jewish people. The ‘Decree on the Registration of Jewish Property’ forced them to surrender their property to the state, and the ‘Reich Flight Tax’ taxed them heavily for attempting to emigrate. Numerous laws also prevented Jewish people from earning a living: in 1933 they were excluded from government roles, in 1936 Jewish teachers were banned from schools, and in 1938 the ‘Decree on the Exclusion of Jews from German Economic Life’ closed all Jewish-owned businesses. On top of this, other countries’ immigration policies were unforgiving. For a visa, some required immigrants to secure a sponsor, pay hefty fees, and queue up on a daily basis to retrieve multiple documents, all under threat of public harassment and abuse.

In the mid-1930s, Peter Rickenback’s family struggled financially under the conditions in Nazi Germany, and were not able to emigrate together. He was able to leave on his own after being offered a hotel catering job in Sweden on a training permit. After his permit expired, Peter and his family exhausted all of their resources keeping him out of Germany for several years. His father helped him to get a work permit for France where he had a series of hotel jobs. Whilst there, he met two English men who offered him a job and permanent residence in Britain. In this clip, he talks about his attempt to get to Britain and take up this opportunity.

Listen to Peter Rickenback discuss being a fugitive in Europe

Download Peter Rickenback transcript

Above: Peter Rickenback. Photo copyright © USC Shoah Foundation.

As he describes, the laws changed before he arrived in Folkestone, making his paperwork insufficient and requiring him to return and apply for a visa. This sent him back to Boulogne, where he was warned he would be in danger, and from there he fled to Paris and then to the Netherlands with a forged work permit. After police caught up with him, Peter got a job on a boat to West Africa, which eventually returned to Hamburg. Once there, it was too dangerous for Peter to get off the boat, but the Gestapo gave permission for Peter’s family to board for an hour, where he was able to meet with his parents one last time. He was forcibly returned to the Netherlands, and during his time there, his father helped him to get an affidavit for entry into the United States. Peter appealed to the Jewish Aid Committee to get a transit visa to Britain, and received some help from his employer to pay for it. He arrived in Britain two weeks before the start of the war, and settled there. His sister was able to get to Britain on a domestic work permit, but his parents stayed in Germany and did not survive.

Peter’s story is one of many that reveal just how difficult it was for Jewish people to escape the Nazi regime for good. This collection item is featured in the new Voices of the Holocaust online resource, which includes 87 clips from oral history interviews with Holocaust survivors and Jewish refugees, contextual articles, and biographies of the interviewees.

This week's post comes from Georgia Dack, Web Content Developer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage.