Backyard Concert

I like to sit in my back yard, and listen to the great composers: Vivaldi’s “Flute Concerto #2”, the solo flutist, and Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata”, the duel between Violetta and Alfredo. And Beethoven’s “Moonlight Serenade”, that single solo piano.

The sounds of the orchestra, the flutes, the piccolos, the French horns, the bassoons, the clarinets, the oboes, the violas, the cellos, the trumpet, each instrument is beautiful music to my ear. Perhaps you like this too.

Well, you can have this in your own back yard. So next time you get a chance, grab a chair, sit down in your back yard, early in the morning, and just listen.

If you come to my place, at 6:30 in the morning, you’ll see red cardinals. They have this two-parted whistle that ends in a slow trill: “cheer, cheer, birdie, birdie”.

Then you hear bluebirds with a low pitch. It’s a warbling sound. One to three short notes.

In the distance, the wonderful, downy woodpecker. He’s beating on a drum. It’s a wonderful great rhythm. You know, I bet you Buddy Rich and Ringo Starr would be jealous.

Then, overhead, a barn swallow. They twittle, and warble, and they’re so chattery and they never stop.

High in the sky, the red-breasted hawk, soaring above, “key-aw, key-aw”, with a long whistle at the end.

You can’t mistake the sound of the crow.

And, then, quietly, you hear the dove, with great sorrow, lamenting.

So next time, before you get to work, go out in your back yard, and catch a concert before you go to work. I call it the Back Yard Concert.