Design: Maeve Redmond.
Duncan Marquiss’ ‘Contact Call’ (2020) is a series of improvised instrumentals played on electric guitar; the result of the artist’s close study of birdcalls heard during spring and summer 2020 when Scotland was experiencing lockdown.
Birds’ vocalisations can transmit over long distances and cut through loud urban environments, but the lack of activity and traffic noise over this period allowed their interactions to be picked out more readily by the human ear. Contact calls, as distinct from birdsong, are short phrases that birds share back and forth as a way of maintaining contact whilst foraging for food. These avian dialogues, where a near call is answered by another bird at a distance, create patterns of call-and-response which are emulated here by guitar sounds and rhythms.
Duncan Marquiss, 'Contact Call' (2020). Courtesy of the artist.
Marquiss’ recordings mimic specific bird calls with the guitar, imitating phrases, high pitches or percussive sounds, and offering pauses, as birds do, that leave room for the listener’s immediate surroundings to accompany the sounds played. Some sections are clearly bird-like whilst other parts are more random musical meanders that emerged from playing around. ‘Contact Call’ is an edited selection from these experimental recordings.
Many bird calls are impossible to simulate, but this process was a starting point for improvisation and for finding a new approach to a familiar musical instrument. As a filmmaker, Marquiss often creates soundtracks with the guitar for his own moving image work and in a similar way ‘Contact Call’ can be used as a soundtrack for a walk, generating a particular atmosphere in your head.
The studied birdcalls were heard during frequent walks around Queen’s Park, Linn Park and Pollok Park in Glasgow. This piece reflects on our acoustic ecologies, and the need to share bandwidth with other species.
Project Details
‘In the open’ was available for a limited time during 2020 to listen to on Bandcamp and Podcast platforms. Each work was mastered for listening on headphones whilst walking and spending time outdoors.
Credits
Music written, performed and recorded by Duncan Marquiss.
Mastering by Stephan Mathieu /
Schwebung Mastering.
With thanks to:
Kimberley O'Neill, Mick Marquiss and Anne Marquiss.
Queen’s Park
Langside Road
Glasgow G42 9QL
Linn Park
Glasgow G44 5TA
Pollok Park
2060 Pollokshaws Road
Bellahouston, Glasgow G43 1AT
