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Here's What 'All Things Considered' Sounds Like — In Blackbird Song
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2:33
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AILSA CHANG, HOST:
While none of us will communicate with birds as well as singer Bobby Day with his "Rockin' Robin," this project just might get you close. Oona Raisanen is a Finnish programmer who built a speech-to-birdsong convertor, and it all started with a dream of a blackbird.
OONA RAISANEN: And he was talking in a human voice. And then I slowly woke up, and it was 5 am in the morning. And there was still a blackbird outside, but now it wasn't talking anymore, it was singing.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
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And listening to that song, she perceived an inflection somewhat like human speech.
RAISANEN: I think it kind of had a sort of sentence structure in its song.
KELLY: As a signal-processing geek, she thought, why not write some computer code to transform speech into birdsong?
RAISANEN: Human voice is built up of these simpler tones that are put on top of each other to make vowels and consonants.
CHANG: But the tune of many songbirds, while still complicated to produce, often consists of a single harmonic tone rather than layers of harmonics like the human voice.
RAISANEN: So if I remove all of those tones from the human voice except for the one, it should become blackbird song. And it did.
CHANG: Here's how that sounded with Oona voice.
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(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RAISANEN: At the tone, 16 hours, zero minutes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDSONG)
RAISANEN: I don't think there's any use for it, per se - some silly ideas that I had. Maybe it could be used as a children's toy or - oh, yeah - you could entertain your cats.
KELLY: Well, in case you're wondering, no, it does not work the other way around. The tool cannot convert birdsong into human speech, so apologies to all you bird scientists out there.
CHANG: Darn. But there is one more application for this technology. We could convert the daily ALL THINGS CONSIDERED broadcast into birdsong. So if I say, hi, I'm Ailsa Chang, and I host ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, this is what that would sound like in birdsong.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDSONG)
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CHANG: (Laughter).
KELLY: (Laughter) I like it. OK, I'll try. If I say, I'm Mary Louise Kelly, and I also host ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, it would sound like...
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDSONG)
KELLY: Charming, but it might make it maybe a little too hard to parse the daily news.
CHANG: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCKIN' ROBIN")
BOBBY DAY: (Singing) Tweedle-lee-dee-dee. Tweet. Tweet. Tweet. Tweet. He rocks in the tree tops all day long, boppin' and a-boppin' and a-singing his song. All the little birds on Jaybird Street love to hear the robin go tweet tweet tweet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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But the game has changed: Congress voted to eliminate funding for public media across the country. Here at LAist that means a loss of $1.7 million in our budget every year. We want to assure you that despite growing threats to free press and free speech, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust. Speaking frankly, the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news in our community.
We’re asking you to stand up for independent reporting that will not be silenced. With more individuals like you supporting this public service, we can continue to provide essential coverage for Southern Californians that you can’t find anywhere else. Become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission.
Thank you for your generous support and belief in the value of independent news.
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