Listen to the lovely orchestra of crickets singing at human speed [audio] [updated]
Posted by staff / November 14, 2013 cricketcricketsJim WilsonRobbie RobertsonRobert Wilson
Want to hear something magical?
Experimental director and playwright, Robert Wilson, caught a hauntingly beautiful piece of music one night, a recording of crickets.
That part is common enough, but then he stretched out the sound as much as one would have to stretch the life of a cricket to equal that of a human, and the result is truly wonderful.
UPDATE:
Thanks to the many readers who wrote in comments on this piece, we can set the record straight in terms of attribution and the history of this amazing piece of work. We apologize for the mistake, and thank you again!
The original recording dates back to a CD released in 1992 by Jim Wilson called God’s Cricket Chorus, portions of which ended up in a song from the same year called Ballad of the Twisted Hair, which Wilson produced.
Opera singer Bonnie Jo Hunt was approached by Robbie Robertson and Jim Wilson to add some human accompaniment to the stunning chorus Wilson had discovered when he’d slowed the sounds down and lowered the pitch. A strange request, but this was Hunt’s reaction to hearing the original recording, reflecting much of the enthusiasm seen in the comments.
As she explained to Alex Chadwick of Hearing Voices back in 2004:
I had these messages saying that Robbie Robertson said to get in touch with me. So we went in studio. He said, ‘I want you to do whatever you feel like. And, now, these are crickets.’ So I thought, oh, my goodness. I’m to accompany crickets, see?
And when I heard them, I was so ashamed of myself, I was so humbled, because I had not given them enough respect. Jim Wilson recorded crickets in his back yard, and he brought it into the studio and went ahead and lowered the pitch and lowered the pitch and lowered the pitch. And they sound exactly like a well-trained church choir to me. And not only that, but it sounded to me like they were singing in the eight-tone scale. And so what–they started low, and then there was something like I would call, in musical terms, an interlude; and then another chorus part; and then an interval and another chorus. They kept going higher and higher.
They were saying cricket words. I kept thinking, ‘Oh, I almost can understand them. It’s a nice, mellow tone. And they never went off pitch until one of the interludes, where they went real crazy and they got back on again to where they were. And I know that people do not know that they’re listening to crickets unless they’re told that that’s what that is…
Full story at SoundCloud via Earth Touch. Additional information at Hearing Voices, ScienceBlogs, Change the Life Channel.
Photo credit: Fotolia
[…] Want to hear something magical? Experimental director and playwright, Robert Wilson, caught a hauntingly beautiful piece of music one night, a recording of crickets. […]
wow
So let me get this straight; is this the recording with the opera singer, or is this a recording of crickets ONLY??
this is the recording without the opera singer, you can hear a version with the opera singer and hear the difference in this interview with the singer http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1838534
they said there are two tracks. BOTH crickets. one is just slowed down.
speed up the sound again, and what do you get????
NO CRICKETS…
Soooo, its a fake then
Of course you don’t get the sound of crickets! You’re not speeding up the same sound that you started with. It’s sort of like this, if this this makes any sense:
Slowing down: X/10=Y
Speeding up: Y*10=Z
um, no. in your example, Y * 10 would definitely = X.
Yea alexander, your clearly not educated in basic math. This is not the sound of straight crickets. I do Foleys (sound effects) and have recorded crickets and just slowed it down myself to a widevarying degreeees of speed and that harmony does not exist in there. This is just more fake science to try to prove some divinity through a base perception. IT doesnt happen, stop doing it.
Wow Baachus,
Surely you do have manners do you?
So tell me dude, in what speed did you shifted to, you mathematical genious? What algorithm did you use? What’s your film credits? Do you even have one on a feature film? Usually people that really do things do not even bother answering in that kind of manner. Get a life troll.
Just ckickets!
2 tracks of them… I played normal, the other played in slow motion..
Awsome, eh??
I thought the crickets sounded better before the editing!
About 12 years ago I was with a group climbing a mountain. We started at 2am and I was hearing the sound of the crickets that are of course same as what I am hearing in this recording but without the background of like a choir. This is amazing.
You heard pitch shifted crickets? Seems unlikely.
Hi, Captain. I believe he was saying “I hiked in an early morning, and heard something like the Normal speed cricket track of the two concurrent tracks played here.” for him this was a memorable and exciting experience which he was sharing. He ventured no thoughts about the “the background of…like… a choir”… so. I think you and he agree about what he could have heard. cfn.
I thought it was amazing! Then I looked at my cats and saw that they were freaking out a lot so I had to stop it. My cats are still looking around wondering what was going on. I’ve never seen this type of reaction from them while listening to anything before. Very interesting!
my dog is not phased..lol
Gotcha. Neither is mine.
My cats just did the exact same thing. They are still wandering around the room searching. Obviously this has some special interest for them as well.
I live with six cats — and they just rushed in from outside and are here in my study with me, listening to this.
I am so moved by this music. All I can think is that it must mean something. There is more to their little lives than I, at least, had imagined: they know sorrow—and hope, which must station them.
I think the person above meant the crickets, not the cats.
cynicalmuch?
who barfed in your cereal?
lighten up.
way to ruin the moment.
is your heart beating?
hmm what else….
wrong side of the coffin today?
bullying is not cool, dude.
ok thats all I got.
Oh neat cricket music, Thanks for that I would have never known that it sounded that way. Eye-opener for sure.
Have a pleasant day existing.
Shut your hole, you 13 year old stooge. If I could get hold of you, I’d throttle your little insignificant frame into oblivion. You have no business speaking, if that’s the best you can do, you pathetic neanderthal.
SlayerOfVirginz needs a hug.
“All I can think is that it must mean something. There is more to their little lives than I, at least, had imagined: they know sorrow—and hope, which must station them.”
It’s hard to be more stupid than that.
LOL…….internet threats..
I was thinking the same thing Im going to play this for my parakeets in the morning.
This is so moving! Practically brings me to tears! So touching & hauntingly beautiful! I bookmarked the page too! THANK YOU for making & posting this!!
If heaven had a soundtrack THIS would be on it! I’d love to download this for myself!!!! I cannot Thank You enough for this!<3 =)
Hmmmm!
All the earth shall sing His praises!
Amen!
God has an ovipostor, an exoskeleton, and long, segmented antennae! Hallelujah!
God is great, God is good, God can jump 20 times His own body length!
Our God Antenna is broken or blocked….to sing on grass.
Yes yes. Praise to the Creator. Let all creation sing!
Now the rocks, now the trees.
Amen! Praise Zeus!
Praise Allah!
Hail Satan!
Yes .. it’s HIS magnificence everywhere !!!! Praise GOD !!!
Actually, it’s digital manipulation. So it’s fake.
No wonder you like it.
Stunning… but what is the ratio of cricket life to human life?
I was wondering too, because it’s quite an easy experiment to do with any sound processing software and I’d like to, according to Ask.com the life span of most crickets is 8-10 weeks.
A cricket living 9 weeks would live 90.720 minutes, a human being living 80 years would live 42.048.000 minutes, so you’d have to slow down the cricket sound A LOT, one second of cricket cree-cree sound would produce almost 8 minutes of “moving choir”. Rate around 1/473.5 (if I did not make any math mistake 🙂
I have kept a cricket as a pet for as long as several months. I had an empty 10 gallon aquarium and caught one in my home going into winter. Didn’t have the heart to put him out in the cold so I fed him raw potato and he lived for a very long time. I understand their life span is supposed to be short. I love this. So beautiful!
me too. i love keeping pet crickets. my crickets live sometimes as long as four months. treated properly, they will make beautiful music and be much more entertaining than fish!
sounds like one of the latest songs of ANOUK: ‘Birds’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPDYbuaXlA8
Reminds me of the Handel chorus recording of the Crystal Palace 1888. Very beautiful.
Robert Wilson, I believe…..he is always up to something GOOD.
is there a way to listen to it without the original cricket sounds overlay?
i was wondering the same thing!
if the chours is removed it will be something you listen in spring night at your garden with out any sound interfiranes ….
Can you repost this without the regular-speed track?
indeed i would like to hear it
I would like to hear it without the usual cricket sound.
I agree, re-post without the overlay…
It sounds like i am siting near church in the evening under tree .but if the over lay is removed it will surely be in the garden of you house in spring time ,which is wonderfull!!!!!
Turn down the left speaker. The regular-speed crickets seem to be mostly on that channel.
They’re the same.
I would Love to believe this…but considering the way of the world today and (that I’ve grew up around a lot of crickets and NEVER heard them sounding like a choir) how everyone has agendas and don’t mind using trickery to achieve it. I have to say….haven’t we been “played” enough?
You didn’t grow up listening at this speed.
Or following instructions.
It’s one thing to be skeptical and doubt the authenticity of this video, it’s another to outrightly accuse it as a fake.
“N” is entitled to his opinion. I actualy recognize this piece of music. You really thought Crickets could moudlate in unison between keys? And that they would sing in ABABCAB form? I get the point this piece is trying to make. I also get the point about not believing everything you hear.
You “recognize” this piece?
What?
I have been a professional classical singer for many years, and I have never, EVER heard anything like this.
I think what you mean to say is that you have heard the I-IV-I-IV-V5-IV-I chord progression before (though, the V7 then goes back to a IV which breaks some rules of earlier music theory…still pretty though)…
I am slightly skeptical of this and would like to verify on my own as well, however my guess is you haven’t heard this song before, just the chord progressions.
You are so right, it’s fake. If you speed up the sound again you should hear crickets…… but you don’t. lots of people believe everything you say and the religious people are in aw……. Homo Sapiens the dummest mammal on this planet. years ago they did the same with dolphins and proved they speak english…..
*dumbest*
Also, They also dropped it down in octaves… so you can’t just “speed it up”
I gather you also raised the pitch?…not just the speed. If you had read the intro properly you’d see that that is how this was produced. You do know what pitch is right?
Sort-of debunked. Real recording mixed with human opera singer Bonnie Jo Hunt. http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/10/13/weekend-diversion-is-this-an-amazing-chorus-of-slowed-down-crickets/
If you listen here, you can hear after a bit an example of the recording with her vocals. It actually sounds quite a bit different.
http://hearingvoices.com/webwork/mcvicar/snd/gmv_BonnieJoHunt.mp3
Opra singer Bonnie Jo Hunt is humming with this tract. Beautiful, but would like to hear an unadulterated version.
Thank you for your research!
Wow..I have no words. Not to sure how I feel about faith anymore, but it is like Gods chorus. An incredibly large miracle, from such a tiny source. Beautiful..seems to be to huge an understatement. The beauty of the very small, the infinite largeness of creation. You really can listen to God. I’m smiling the smile of human irony…we never thought to listen for it here.
Except if you read above, it’s fake
Not fake did you even listen to her interview?
This is incredible…. they’re outlining an E-flat major chord and A-flat major… I-IV-I…. which is known as the “amen” cadence.
Why do you have faith in god? genuine question, I envy people with faith, you are all very happy.
We are all created by God and for God. The longing in your heart is His call for you to ask Him to introduce Himself to you. Read His holy word the bible and talk to Him like a liitle child. Just a glimpse of knowing who He is will bring joy inside of you and you will never see the world around you the same again. All His creation sing for Him!
Faith is a gift from God. Sometimes, you have to ask Him for it. And, if you do ask Him with sincerity, He will always answer you.
Actually we are all little bits of God, we have just forgotten that. If you can imagine it, you can do it. only believe, all thins are possible if you only believe. Trouble is we have mainly been conditioned from birth not to believe that. Remember happiness is a state of mind and what you think about you attract- Universal law.
Sorry, but this is rather a I-V-I so if it´s E-flat major, than it correspondes to h-flat (I think in English it´s called B-flat-major) Tonika – Dominante – Tonika. it has nothing to do with the “amen”- concept of one of the hundreds of man-made beliefs, anyway. It´s far beyond that: it´s about the beautyful existence and cosmic vibration of nature itself.
♫ tudo que tem folego de vida, louvara o Senhor
Incrível …é lindo ♪
I love it tears in my eyes so glorious…makes me want to praise and thank God to God be the Glory…let all nature praise the Lord…how great is our God…Thank you for sharing..I have always for as long as I remember loved falling to sleep listening to the crickets sing..now I know why..
Sounds like a beautiful lullaby.
first six notes Jesus Christ super star.
The planet is singing and we cannot hear it…
it is all a matter of vibration, raise your spirit and you will hear.
I believe the sound of God is the joy of the soul
If Earth is making a sound I’m certain it is weeping.
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/10/13/weekend-diversion-is-this-an-amazing-chorus-of-slowed-down-crickets/
maybe this will help.
This makes perfect sense:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24078179
Did you know that if you play whale sounds backwards, they are exactly like bird songs? God is the creator of all.
If whales can swim backward swim backwards -will that change their tune? Maybe God can make that happen too 😉
Citation needed. On that entire statement.
I very much wish you hadn’t dubbed the regular cricket track back over the top of this =/
I can’t stop listening to this… it’s magical. Mystical and wondrous. Truly nature is more in tune with God than we are.
Nonsense.
So incredibly beautiful. My mom always told me that crickets were special creatures when she was alive..and I have always let them live if they were in my home. Now I know why. Thank you for this.
Is this by the same Robert Wilson, the stage director who works w/ Phili
p Glass…also created a stage work/opera aka the CIviL WaRs??…reminds me of Henry Cowell’s work w/ the songs of humpback whales that he incorporated in to some of his compositions…pretty cool
Please point me to the humpback whale compositions!!
It’s ethereal sound brings tears to my eyes…. The sound of the universe….thank you….
And nearly the key pitch of the universe, Bb, or so I once heard. Actually, it’s somewhere between Bb and B. Nonetheless, this requires a serious scientific analysis of key and scale. Do and re are repeated as a kind of cadence but also as links to higher pitches. I would like to know frequencies of the pitches to detemine how the crickets’ scale differs from the common tempered scale.
Sorry y’all, this is not by Robert Wilson, but a guy named Jim Wilson. Robert Wilson may have used it, but he did not make it. CD available here: http://www.constancedemby.com/godscricketchorus_f.html
I see an image of a cricket but there’s no play button or anything to hear a sound with.
Quick Henry! The Flit!
my cats are freaking out lol
my dog is crying as he hears this
Get him on the news quick, because dogs don’t actually do that.
The wonderful and mystical way God works is a marvel to man and shows there he is truly a good and kind creator ……
Which has nothing to do with the manipulation of an audio track, but thanks for stopping by.
Will this be recorded to an audio CD to soothe us all throughout the day…?
Natural or over-dubbed, it’s still awfully pretty!.And to God be the glory of the beauty.Thanks for sharing.
Not Robert, but Jim Wilson
http://www.constancedemby.com/godscricketchorus_f.html
Sounds like angels….
How do you know?
Please share the version without original sound: only stretched one !!
BTW, this sound is very similar to Russian people’s choir as it chanted people in early USSR and before it.
Listen for example Varshavianka (1905 – 1917): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2UlNtNU-Tc&list=PL810B966B45296322
If you believe this, I have some ocean front property in Arizona I’d like to sell you. COME ON! Crickets singing like choir boys? It’s about as believable as a god.
People are so desperate to believe in something that they’ll believe in anything.
Nature is the best artist! I love EVOLUTION! We have so much to learn about the animals in this world that it would take thousands of years to just touch the surface.
It is Jim Wilson who recorded the crickets and created the chorus for an album he was producing. He was a friend. He passed away in 2012. I posted a tribute story about his “cricket chorus” on my blog and it went viral quick, but with some media/bloggers/re-posters giving the credit to Robert Wilson (not doing any research). http://changethelifechannel.blogspot.com/2013/10/audio-crickets-audio-recording-slowed.html
Their are two tracks – 1) the sound of the crickets slowed down to match and mirror the length of the average lifespan of a human being – 2) the natural sound of crickets chirping. The angelic chorus you hear accompanying the sound of the crickets is NOT a synthesizer or a chorus singing. It’s the crickets themselves (slowed down) creating the effect.
This recording, also known as a full CD “God’s Cricket Chorus” (selling on Amazon), was created by Jim Wilson as an extended digitally remixed and mastered version taken from the original 1992 recording entitled “Ballad of the Twisted Hair” from the album “Medicine Songs” by David Carson and Little Wolf Band (Jim Wilson) produced by Jim Wilson and released on Raven Records.
http://hearingvoices.com/transcript.php?fID=142 is also on Robbie Robertson: Music For Native Americans.
Bonnie Jo Hunt, Native American Sioux opera singer, talks in a National Public Radio Interview about singing with crickets for Jim Wilson and Robbie Robertson (April 2004) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1838534
She says clearing, in this and another broadcast (Hearing Voices), that she listened to the pre-recorded cricket tracks while taking direction from the album’s music co-producer/director Robbie Robertson. His direction in the sound studio was to sing differently than the crickets… which is easy to hear on the final recording and mix of the song “The Ballad of Twisted Hair” Hearing Voices http://hearingvoices.com/transcript.php?fID=142 …
“The Ballad of Twisted Hair” song for the album “Robbie Robertson: Music For Native Americans” is it is very different than the album “God’s Cricket Chorus” … but both produced by Jim Wilson.
Hope that helps.
– LIsa
Is there any way to hear just the slowed down track, without the normal cricket chirping?
It helps a lot! Thank you, Lisa. I think we will hear beautiful music like these crickets singing, in heaven. There is a hymn that starts out “For the music of the spheres”….and ends up, “Lord of all, to Thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.” That is what the crickets were doing, singing praises to God. The old devil just hates it when people sing praises to God.
Lies
I IV I IV I IV….. V!! V!!! I!!! V!!! V!! I!!! I IV I IV I IV…….
You musicians out there will get it.
I’m a hundred percent sure that crickets know what music is.
Just wonderful…
[…] Angelic Voices […]
This is ridiculously upsetting…. Guys, don’t lie to people like this…. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=61ytg60AwOE
^the actual track on YouTube.
Not sure what you are upset about. The Robbie Robertson piece you linked to was on the album Music For Native Americans released in 1994. The cricket sounds were recorded by Jim Wilson in 1992. Robertson used the cricket sounds as background along with the added vocals of an opera singer in the song Twisted Hair, and Jim Wilson is given credit.
this made my 11 year old son cry. “That’s really beautiful,” he said.
E flat is such a jubilant, stately, and elegant key. kind of like a royal blue or dark violet.
Sorry to be a buzzkill, but if we are comparing the month or two of a cricket’s life to the 70-80 years of a human lifespan, there is absolutely no way that the music in the recording is cricket song slowed down to human scale. We’d be looking at something like an 800x slow down. If he sampled crickets at 192Khz (which is the maximum that all but the most specialized hardware can accomplish) and with the highest fidelity scientific microphones manufactured today, then the highest frequency his normal speed recording could contain is 96Khz. If you divide 96Khz by 840 (the ratio of 1 month to 70 years), you get a MAXIMUM frequency of 110Hz, which is WAY below what is represented in the cricket song. If you give the benefit of the doubt to the composer and cut that ratio in half, the highest possible frequency in the slowed down cricket song would be 220Hz, which is still well below the bulk of the harmonic content in the song. The ‘composer’ is taking you for a ride. I doubt his methodology. I think he slowed cricket song down to speeds that were harmonically and melodically convenient and then constructed this ‘song.’ That’s fine and interesting, but not as represented in the description.
If the methodology is as described, then what you are hearing isn’t cricket song, but aliasing noise. You’d need to be sampling at rates in excess of 500Khz and with microphones of otherworldly sensitivity for there to be content in the original recording that could possibly be slowed down to sound like what is presented here.
Thank you. I love what they did, it is truly beautiful. But I really dislike when someone makes a statement that with a bit of knowledge is easily shown to be false. Simply stating the truth, that the sound was slowed to the perfect pitch that the composer liked would have been far better. Thank you for your “buzzkill”.
I also get a kick out of those what talk about the crickets singing worship to god. The same people probably curse the little songsters outside their bedroom window on a summers night! I, for one, love the sound, crickets and frogs and “peepers”!
Thank god! Someone Objective!!! 😀 Thanks a Lot!
@Frank: You’re on to something. Find the COMPLETE story of what was done here: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/10/13/weekend-diversion-is-this-an-amazing-chorus-of-slowed-down-crickets/
Still – pretty amazing, I’d say. And if for nothing else, I gladly give the “composer” credit for the original idea of a) recording crickets and b) doing something creative with it. And bear in mind that people LOVE being lied to. So he’s still all cool in my book. 🙂
Now I know why I have always been drawn to crickets at night when they begin chirping. I always tell my grandson to listen to them. I love the fact it is in the key of the amen cadance. So I say Amen, Amen, Amen!!!
I’m just wondering how it would sound if you play Rachmaninov’s Vespers to wrong direction
It would say, “Paul is dead” 🙂
I meant backwards
Am I the only person horribly distracted by the regular chirps included? It ruins it for me! This would probably be great without that constant chirp chirp chirp distorting the singing.
I do wonder if this is what the crickets are actually hearing, though…
Just one problem, Orchestras don’t sing, orchestras are purely instrumental, they play, unless accompanied by a choir. The title of this article, highlights the human attitude towards other life forms, we see them as a thing, an instrument, and not as a being. Sorry to get all heavy, it’s just psychologically interesting, the unconscious divisions we erect in everyday simple ways, such as this article.
The temperature of the air causes chirps to be closer together when hot,
and very slow when it is cool, or cold. This is feasible, and I have heard crickets chirping this fast in unison on extremely hot summer nights.
Did anyone else mention this air and body temperature of the crickets?
It’s a strongly manipulated/composed recording.
I sped it up again, and this is how it sounds:
https://soundcloud.com/jgoss/sped-up-crickets
Crickorian Chant! — Geoffrey Sea
wow what a wonderful sound…
[…] down. pretty awesome, and another reason I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. enjoy y'all Listen to the lovely orchestra of crickets singing at human speed [audio] [updated] – Holy Kaw! __________________ "Everyone capable of thanksgiving is capable of joy and eternal […]
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Mesmerizing and incredibly beautiful. I just listened to the entire 1:03:05! I want a CD of this that I can play while I sleep.
I bought the CD on Amazon.com. I’m hoping it’s exactly what we heard here, without the woman speaking, of course.
I received the CD “God’s Chorus of Crickets” by Jim Wilson. Unfortunately, it’s not the same. It’s close, it may even be the same recording, but it’s definitely not as good. On the CD, the cricket track is only 23 minutes long. The CD doesn’t have the low, backing chorus that kicks in from time to time on the recording here on this site. By the way, there is nothing religious or divine about these recordings. A human being recorded crickets and slowed the speed of the recording, and it just happens to sound very beautiful. Total coincidence. Nothing Godlike is going on here. There is no God.
This recording is so relaxing. I listened to the whole thing.
[…] Today, I heard this recording of cricketsong. […]
Soooo many years ago mama used to tell me the crickets sing us to sleep each night, that they sang the night song. It’s too bad I can’t share this with her now, the song is much more beautiful than I’m sure she imagined
[…] Crickets Chirping Slowed Down […]
Barn.
What is even more amazing is that these choirs sound exactly like the psychophony choirs we had 25 years ago in Italy, working with a medium and a short-waves radio at the time… and the most amazing is that in these sessions, before we would hear the choirs, it would start with the sound of… crickets! One more mystery to add to the lot…
It sounds like there is also audio of “real-time” crickets. Are the “human-time” crickets layered with the “real-time” crickets?
Yes, did you not listen to the beginning of the track where that was explained?
In my country the name of this little insect is “popac” what could be translated as “small Pope or small priest”
What is the frequency shift on this track? An interesting thing would be to play the shifted track while speeding up until it once again sounded like crickets.
Another question – is the frequency shift directly proportional to the time shift or is there digital processing isolating the two parameters?
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise The Lord.
Let everything that has life and breath sing of HIS Praises. 😀 <3
Does it mention anything about that singing needing heavy manipulation of pitch? Because that would be impressive.
This is extremely amazing, a beautiful gift to us all from nature.
So beautiful, regardless as to whether it’s real or fake.
“And those who danced were thought to be mad by the ones who could not hear the music.”
There’s nothing all natural about this- there’s obvious human noises from the opera singer! How do we hear the crickets WITHOUT human accompaniment?
Speed it up again and you should hear crickets…. but you don’t…..
My autistic daughter won’t let me turn it off.
[…] VIA […]
Is there a way to hear this sound track without the crickets in real time?
Love it !!
Cute sure, however if you play it backwards the way crickets actually hear it, you can clearly hear them saying;
“Soon now we will strike and the homo-sapiens will be our slaves. Those that resist, we will eat!”
I for one welcome our Cricket Overlords
Beauty is beauty, however achieved!
If you look for the good you will surely find it!
(and if you look for the bad you will surely find it as well.)
Come on, find the goodness!
[…] http://www.alltop.com/viral/listen-to-the-lovely-orchestra-of-crickets-singing-at-human-speed-audio […]
so where is the audio? i see no links, no play button, just the text and a static picture of a cricket
The universe is also a great composer. Although it`s not actual sound picked up by mics..
data streams from from the stars were assigned musical algorithms and the music generated via a pc. You can hear it @ youtube. here
[…] CJ: Slowing cricket calls down to the frequency range of human voices makes for some trippy tones. And it looks like a virus that has been killing hundreds of dolphins off the U.S. east coast may […]
How could people not hear the opera singers in the background??!! Really?? Wow.
when i was in the pantanal in Brazil years ago i was blown away by all the surrounding layers of animal/bug/bird call n responses revolving over n over all around me, especially at sunset. it was the closest thing i’ve heard to techno music.
[…] Listen to the lovely orchestra of crickets singing at human speed […]
I first heard this concept in an Australian film called ‘One Perfect Day'(2004). If you like the music and you’re a bit of a tripper you should have a watch. One of my favourite movies!
https://soundcloud.com/vcfxrecordings/crickets
if you listen closely you too can hear the angels this is what they sound like thank you lord
Beauty of sound made by those we think of the least.
Can you see/hear the good Lord through all of this.
Noise can indeed be beauteous !
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/files/2013/10/audio.mp3
sorry folks
Sounds hauntingly beautiful. But everyone who works with sounds should be able to realize instantly that the ghostly choir you hear beneath the chirping crickets are of course human singers. Their track has been manipulated in some form as well, that’s why it sounds so ghostly. But it’s still very recognizable as human voices.
Here’s a possible explanation:
“There is a (real speed) field recording of crickets. Under that field recording is a recording of a (human) choir that has been slowed down, reversed and run through some reverb. It’s a beautiful technique to get harmonic texture, but most definitely human in harmonic structure and cadence.”
Quote taken out of one of the reader comments on:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/10/13/weekend-diversion-is-this-an-amazing-chorus-of-slowed-down-crickets/
I’m a Audio Engineer and I can tell you right now that’s not what that is. It’s a simple church choir with a couple of tracks of actual crickets at normal speed. Its a hoax!
Cynicism galore in the comment threads. Just enjoy it for what it’s worth, the beauty and joy of music. Was it soothing? Did you enjoy it? Would you dissect a story being told by your granddaddy? Just shuddup and listen.
It was not soothing, I did not enjoy it — especially the hoax part — and what if your granddaddy was a rapist? Seeking truth is realism not cynicism.
I enjoy it a lot more if people would stop implying it’s the actual sound of angels or God or Alalh or whatever.
I wonder with what hardware was the recording made. CD quality requires sampling at about 44KHz. If you stretch the sound ~100 times to scale cricket to human lifespans, the sampling frequency would become 440Hz, i.e., central A. Anything with that or higher frequencies would be spurious.
What about Robbie Robertson?
You need a narrator without a speech impediment.
In my opinion this is almost true 🙂
this guy did a good job here:
https://soundcloud.com/jgoss/sped-up-crickets
Three questions to the audio engineers who say this is fake. 1. Where did you get a version of this without the normal spoed crickets? Without that, rule out any comment that has “I speed it up and it didn’t sound like crickets”. 2. Who said this was digitally recorded and slowed down? This claims to be from 1992. Was there no analog methods to record and slow in 1992? 3. Can one of the audio engineers record and slow crickets using analog equipment so this can be put to rest?
[…] Cricket Chorus: http://www.alltop.com/viral/listen-to-the-lovely-orchestra-of-crickets-singing-at-human-speed-audio […]
[…] via Alltop; Golden Cricket by Julianna Swaney; Cricket Playing Fiddle by Jeffrey Richter […]
Can they do it with cicadas too,i wonder if it makes the difference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wvPe9OA1qA#t=85
Sounds of the Universe
What does the universe sound like? NASA scientists have taken one step in the direction of finding out by converting gamma rays into a musical score…and you know what? It sounds pretty good.
Thanks to the Fermi Large Area (LAT) telescope, we can now ‘see’ gamma rays (high frequency electromagnetic waves) in the universe. Gamma rays are comprised of photons (elementary particles), each of which have their own energy and frequency. The higher the energy, the higher the frequency. By measuring their frequency, we can convert rays into musical notes.
Gamma ray bursts are some of the most powerful explosions in the universe. A particularly explosive number back in 2008, the GRB 080916C, was captured by the LAT and is the basis for the musical track. During the brightest part of the explosion, the LAT detected 100s of gamma rays from the extremely-distant explosion. NASA converted the data to music and slowed the rates down by a factor of 5x to hear the individual gamma rays better. Each was then represented by a different instrument (harp, piano etc) and along with the accompanying animation, illustrate the explosions journey.
It’s an impressive project and great to see something so unbelievably complex represented in an accessible manner. So sit back, relax and listen to the universe!
Thanks. That was beautiful.
[…] Nature’s Song, sung by Crickets. Enjoy! […]
Every night I sleep with this melody. Beautiful.
Maybe is their way to tell that everything is ok. Like a big “alarm/awareness” system; they play nice harmonies to communicate that there’s no danger. Maybe if something is menacing somewhere in the swamp, like a group of frogs attempting to attack them, they go like in Jaws “dun DUN dun DUN … dunDUNdunDUNdunDUNdunDUNdun ..”. Well you get the point.
Amazing……tears in my eyes……
[…] FROM MY ROOM IN ISTANBUL, I LONGED FOR MY BALCONY IN THE BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS OF VIRGINIA. It was then, through the Internet that connects the world, I received an email with a link that informed me how a man, an experimental director and playwright, had recorded his yard’s crickets, then lowered the pitch and stretched out their chorus of sound as much as one would have to stretch the life of a cricket to equal that of the average human being (just over an hour). To my poet’s brain, that maneuver appeared quite technically advanced—and I wondered why no one has ever done that with bugs before. We could learn a lot. Take a listen: http://www.alltop.com/viral/listen-to-the-lovely-orchestra-of-crickets-singing-at-human-speed-audio […]
This is how I imagine heaven will be like! Like a chorus of Angels singing praises to our father in heaven. So divine! Love it. Fake or not. Truly beautiful. Amen 🙂
I’m sorry to be a buzz kill but it’s not only crickets. If you read various other reasearch projecst based on this recording by musicians and scientists, they were not able to duplicate or come even close.in conclusion, it’s believed that the sound is of crickets but it was altered by Wilson by adding a melody. This is all over internet. Feel free to reasearch. A musician on soundcloud named vFX came close to it but he was still nowhere as beautiful as Wilson’s.
BEAUTIFUL ! isn’t gods creations beautiful. Every day we see and learn something new. I’m truly impressed.by your harmonic skills. I tried to intrigue my kitty by the chorus of singing crickets but she was too involved in watching the tasty treats of lizards outside.
Sure did enjoy the sound of the crickets as well as the broad spectrum of comments.