Clarinetist Jams With Whales

It's one of the great existential questions, posed by that great existentialist Karen Carpenter: Why do birds suddenly appear?

In the case of New York musician David Rothenberg, the birds appear because he brings his clarinet. A jazz man by training, Rothenberg became infatuated with birdsong after a friend invited him to the National Aviary in Pittsburgh and suggested he bring his axe. (The clarinet, people.)

That fine, feathered collaboration led to the 2005 publication of Rothenberg's book 'Why Birds Sing.' Now, having looked skyward for inspiration, he's after a literal ocean of sound. The clarinetist's newest project is 'Whale Music' -- a CD of the same name, and a companion book called 'Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound.' Traveling to Hawaii and Russia to track beluga and humpback whales, the musician dropped a speaker and microphone as deep as a quarter mile below the surface and recorded "live interspecies jams" with the whales.

Getting too close to whales is actually illegal, he notes on his website. Still, for those who "can't be stopped," he offers a diagram of the recording process, as well as a bit of aesthetic advice: "Listen more than you play. If you can't hear the whale, you're playin' too much."

So where was this guy when John Bonham bludgeoned 'Moby Dick'?

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