NJIT's David Rothenberg Offers Ocean of Possibility to Music-Makers

From the Arctic Ocean to the shores of Hawaii, NJIT Distinguished Professor of philosophy and music David Rothenberg has long been traveling, clarinet in-hand, across the seas of the world — playing along to the tune of nature while recording the dramatic songs produced by whales from the ocean's depths.

Now, after a recent collaboration, those far-out sounds could make it into the music you hear during a night out this year.

Rothenberg has sifted through countless hours of rare whale vocalizations that he's captured from miles beneath the ocean surface using hydrophones and various underwater recording techniques, and has plucked out his "greatest hits" with a new artistic direction in mind.

He's offering up snippets of these unique acoustic sounds from the natural marine world to expand the sonic palette of creatives on the other end of the music-making spectrum: electronic music producers.

Rothenberg and his son, the experimental pop producer and sound designer Umru Rothenberg, recently teamed up to release a new sample pack of whale sounds recorded by Rothenberg on his journeys playing live with whales, recounted in his 2008 book Thousand Mile Song, as well as sounds used in his recent museum sound installation at the Natural History Museum in Bergen, Norway.

The duo has released their samples, aptly titled Whale Sounds, on Splice.com, a Netflix-style supplier of sound samples and loops for music producers.

“It is always nice when a father shares something in common with his 21-year old son,” said Rothenberg. “I got him into this electronic music thing when we played concerts together age 11, and now he’s producing songs for rising global pop stars like Charli XCX, and starting to tour the world while still in college. I am certainly proud of him and happy we could work together on this collection of whale sounds, shaped and looped to meet the needs of today’s electronic music producers.”

The sample pack features a assortment of melodic and rhythmic sounds that Rothenberg has documented — from high-pitched clicks and echoes, to guttural growling, to DJ-like rhythmic scratches, to sorrowful operatic moans, created by the likes of belugas, sperm whales, humpbacks and other species. The results are available both in raw and musically sequenced forms.

Rothenberg says the dynamic range of sounds he’s extracted from songs made by pods of whales around the globe, sometimes lasting as long as 24 hours, could interest sound-smiths from nearly any genre, from pop to indie rock, to hip-hop, to EDM. 

“Anything you need can be found in the signature whistles and echolocation clicks of a beluga whale, the range of frequencies and modulations are so rich,” said Rothenberg. “Today’s electronic music is full of very precise wild noises that would have been considered extreme just a few years ago. Today’s listeners have highly sophisticated ears, always on the hear-out for new aural experiences. These undersea cries, shrieks, songs and thlacks can spur you on to new creative depths.”

At NJIT, Rothenberg is instructing students of his spring semester "Live Electronic Music" course, STS 349, which is a hands-on training course in music composition and producing involving popular sampling techniques used in music production software like Ableton Live. 

Meanwhile, for the interested music and nature enthusiast, portions of the proceeds from Whale Sounds will be donated to Whale Trust, an organization on a mission to promote, support and conduct scientific research on whales and the marine environment.

For more info, visit: https://splice.com/sounds/splice-explores/whale-sounds and https://splice.com/blog/whale-sounds-q-and-a/.