TITLE: The Orcas at Night

DESCRIPTION: We choose the orcas as the subject of our musical experiment in interspecies communication because, in contrast to almost all other dolphin species, orcas vocalize nearly all the time at a frequency range within the confines of human hearing. They vocalize so loudly we hear them minutes before we see them swimming our way, although still a mile from the cove. TBiologists call these Vancouver island whales "residents", which means they live here as surely as I do. These residents feed primarily on salmon. We play with these animals only at night. During the day there's simply too much boat traffic roaring through the strait to record well. Orcas talk among one another in two distinct modes: the frequency modulated whistle and the pulsed click train. "Frequency modulated" means melodic. A pulsed click train is rhythmical. In other words, orcas use musical concepts to communicate among their own kind. To hear orcas call to one another, and then to interact with them, Interspecies.com has assembled a sound system with underwater recording and transmitting capabilities built in a boat anchored in seventy feet of water. A single switch powers up a keyboard, a few microphones, an electric guitar all of which run through a fifty watt amplifier and are output to the underwater speakers. This system is basically a telephone line to the whales. If we like the conversations we hear, we tape them for posterity. (from The Charged Border by Jim Nollman [Holt]).