Oftentimes the opportunity and inspiration to make music exists where you’d least expect it, from the shockwaves of a Tesla coil to a vacuous black hole billions of miles away.
Meanwhile, Benn Jordan set out to determine whether ducks could make music. On the surface, it seems like a fowl proposal, but with an Arduino tethered up to three aluminum containers filled to the brim with duck feed, Jordan was willing to test his hypothesis.
Despite the odd feeding arrangement this flock didn’t try to duck the opportunity to get their bread. Around a dozen ducks gathered around the food, digging in feverishly and triggering various drum and percussion loops as they gorged.
Initially the output of the ducks’ feeding process was cacophonous, off-beat, and sure to ruffle some feathers for the average listener. However, Jordan tipped the scales a bit and refined his approach by introducing auto-quantization. Like magic, the ducks’ music was seemingly release-ready.
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Jordan’s MPC, connected to the Arduino, generated a sample sound through detecting changes to the input-output voltage threshold as the ducks ate. The renowned electronic artist, who as MusicTech notes has produced under various pseudonyms including The Flashbulb, Human Action Network, and 66x, shared his blueprint to Twitter, so don’t be surprised if we see a wave of bird-authored tracks flying onto the internet in the near future.
