Original Burd Song
The Concept
At the core of Burd Song is a songwriting experience that gives the writer a wonderful creative outlet and the listener inspiration and comfort. The idea is to develop personal narratives into original songs from those that have faced abuse. It's a very emotive topic and anyone taking part will be given a complete safe space to work through a creative and therapeutic process.
Birds!!!!
For a long time researchers claimed that the bird song was a male trait. In the last 20 years, scientists have figured out that male bias was potentially driving that theory and actually, the beautiful and at times complex song comes from both male and female birds
Keeping this in mind, it makes birds a fitting choice to provide inspiration in both words and melody, especially for people who have never written before.
Keep Safe and in Control
Abuse is such a hard and personal topic to discuss, therefore aligning yourself to a bird will give you security and control of your story with an anonymous way to tell it if you want it.
The Process
Each process will be unique, though we will work along a set of guidelines.
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Songwriting facilitators will guide participants to create an original song that has a connection to a bird/s.
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The facilitator will provide basic song writing tips and birds calls and descriptions as aids.
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Musicians will be available if the participant would like it to record the song.
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The participant will be the writer and will own the finish work.
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The finished song can be showcased on this site to inspire others in a similar situation.
Choose your Bird
Blackbird
Beautiful yellow beak. Solitary birds with little social interaction. They like to find their home and then they stay there for the rest of their days. They love to sing after the rain. Most of the work to make the nest is done by the female
Buzzard
The most common bird of prey. They are a adapted hunters, whether it’s sitting and waiting, moving through the trees or strolling on the ground.
They get nicknamed the tourist eagle and a flock of Buzzards is a wake
The buzzard likes a sunny day to be especially vocal and it has a mewing sound similar to a cat. It echoes around upland valleys which evokes the sound of freedom.
Gold Finch
It has a beautiful head of black, red and white. It has a very long beak and it uses it to get the seed out amongst the thistle. They are very sociable birds and they are used in superstitions a lot.
Vivaldi composed a flute concerto to imitate the Goldfinch. It has a run of incredibly short notes that bounce all over the place. They gather up as friends to sing in the treetops in autumn.
Goldcrest
They have a bright stripe on the top of their head. They are marginally the smallest of all the birds and they weigh the same as a 5p. You are most likely to see them in a pine forest.
They sing from high up in conifer trees. As our own hearing deteriorates it is one of the first birds that are lost to us.
Beautiful colours and a small creature. Common to gardens (sociable) and a fine singer. Their call is a mix of whistles, trills and friendly chirrups. When many homes used to have their milk delivered they would take the foil top off and drink the cream to give them a nutritional treat. They are very smart and are lactose intolerant but they can have the cream as it has less lactose and more cream so they know which bottles to target.
They don’t like to move far from where they hatch.