This program was made possible in part with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

♪ From the wisp of a cloud ♪ ♪ to the seed of a song ♪ that talking to you, ♪ ♪ ♪ telling you just ♪ how important ♪ ♪ it is to keep the ♪ earth growing strong.

♪ ♪ It's talking to you.

♪ ♪ Listen, ♪ ♪ pass it along.

♪ ♪ You got the message.

♪ ♪ Make it a part of ♪ this beautiful land.

♪ ♪ Pass it along, ♪ ♪ keep it healthy and strong.

♪ ♪ we've got to ♪ pass it along.

♪ (whale sounds) Lee> Crescent.

Crescent> Oh, hi.

You're up.

Lee> What was that you were doing?

Crescent> Just now?

Listening.

Lee> Listening to what?

What was that?

Crescent> Whales.

Wasn't it beautiful?

Lee> Whales?

Out here?

Crescent> Oh, of course not.

The music of the ocean.

Lee> Then how did it get out here?

Crescent> I carry it in my head, but I guess it got a little loud this time.

Sorry.

Lee> It's okay.

Crescent> Sometimes I get a little carried away.

Lee> Yes, I've noticed, but it really was pretty, though, in an eerie sort of way.

Crescent> I think it's beautiful.

Paul Winter, you know the musician.

He thinks so too.

He uses lots of animal sounds in his music, whales, otters, seals, even wolves.

He's a good man and he loves us.

Lee> Sounds like you know him personally.

Crescent> Oh, I've seen him a few times.

Lee> And did he see you?

Crescent> Once.

I was a beluga whale.

And he played a saxophone for me.

Lee> You appeared to him as a beluga whale?

Crescent> It's what he saw.

You see a child because you love children.

And he saw a beluga whale.

Close your eyes.

I'll show you.

(beluga whale sounds) I was in a Minnesota zoo when he came to visit me.

He was in my town for a special performance of his Earth Mass and to share his ideas about his art and the environment with children at the Saint Paul Science Museum.

Those kids sure learned a lot about animals and their sounds.

(saxophone plays with whale sounds) ♪ Paul Winter> One of the things we want to touch on this morning is how the instincts that we have related to our expression are very close to those that wild animals have.

And then if we can learn to use them the way the wild animals do, we can open up our expressions in ways that we've never even imagined.

(saxophone plays with whale sounds) ♪ Paul> Sometimes we think and talk so much that we don't listen.

We don't hear what's happening.

And wild creatures, can't afford to do that.

That their senses never kind of turn off.

You know how we get into a situation and we feel kind of relaxed and comfortable and we sort of nod out?

And a dog will do that, too, because dogs have been around us for a long time.

But a wild animal will not.

Their senses are always on because they have to be to survive in the environment where they live.

And they know kind of how to function in their world from their instincts.

We have to go to school and be taught various things, and that's all right, because we're new, we're a very young species.

And that idea is something that's actually very recent in human experience.

Until 20 or 30 years ago, we used to think that we were the smartest creature on the planet, and now we're not so sure.

And, that might be a very good thing for people, because I think we need to begin to, to get some humility with relation to the other creatures on the planet and find out what we can learn from them.

We're a very new species, perhaps the newest on the planet.

And we've only been here as Homo sapiens, for about... with the brain that we have now for maybe 300 thousand years.

And that sounds like a long time to us.

But you think about the wolves who have been here maybe 30 million years that's a lot longer than 300 thousand.

(wolf howls) Paul> How do wolves sing?

Can we do?

Can we sing like wolves?

Can we do that?

(Students howl) Paul> That's really good.

And you know what you can do to make it sound a little bit more like a wolf?

They have a particular quality in their voice, partly because of the way it's shaped, and maybe because of the way their head is shaped.

It all resonates a little different, and you can get a little bit more like a wolf's sound if you curl your tongue back, like that, and you go, owwww, (everyone starts howling) (wolf howls) ♪ Paul> So in 1977, I began working on an album called Common Ground, with a whole village full of friends and different musicians.

And I had by that time, I had visited Fred a number of times in Elion.

He had given me a tape of a wolf, he had recorded very close at close range, and there were four what I called super hounds, very, very beautiful bluesy expressions from a lone wolf.

And I thought that they could form maybe the basis of this piece.

And so I began experimenting, just playing on my sax, the, the melodies of those howls and then trying to imagine what kind of mood the music ought to have.

And I realized that a meditative, quiet, gentle music was what I wanted to reflect, that other side of these creatures, the gentle side of these beings that have been so maligned by us for so long.

And it came out as a kind of a love ballad for the wolves.

(Paul Winter plays "Wolf Eyes") ♪ ♪ ♪ Crescent> Paul plays his song "Wolf Eyes" on the soprano saxophone.

He is standing in a special wolf exhibit at the museum.

Pictures of live wolves were shot and given to us by the world famous photographer George Wilson.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (upbeat instrumental starts) ♪ ♪ A friend of Paul's, Julie Lee brought some wild birds.

Seldom can children see birds like this at such close range.

Paul and the kids were excited about what they learned.

Julie Lee> I'm going to focus on something a little bit different than this morning.

I think you guys already know a little bit about the ecology of birds of prey.

Students> Yes> Julie> Yes, you probably know a little bit about what they do in the wild, what they eat, where they live, that kind of thing.

We just don't have time to go into all of that this morning as much as I'd like to, but we're going to focus on the sounds that they make today.

Okay.

I'm going to go get the first bird, and while I'm doing that, I want everybody to shut your eyes until I tell you that I'm back here and I want you to listen.

We made a tape recording of the sound of this particular bird, and I want you to try to figure out with your eyes closed, so you can really concentrate with your eyes closed.

Listen to that sound, try to figure out what kind of bird is making that call and what that call might mean, what that bird might be saying.

Okay.

And you can't open your eyes until I get back with the bird.

(bird sound) Julie> We don't keep healthy birds at the center if we don't have to, because our belief is that wildlife belongs in nature, where everybody can see them and enjoy them, and where they can enjoy life and do what they're born to do.

But Percy, as a baby, broke his right leg.

And you can see it's that leg that's kind of dangling down there.

And he was found and he was brought to the University of Minnesota, where they have a very special clinic, and there's people there that work just exclusively on birds of prey.

Okay.

For the next bird, we don't have any vocalizations, but if you can be patient for just one second, I will, quick, go get her.

Okay?

♪ Julie> Okay.

Okay.

♪ Ta-Da!

Hey, did everybody hear that?

How did you know that?

She's a Swainson's hawk.

♪ She's also what we call a Buteo.

Can everybody say Buteo?

Students> Buteo.

Julie> Buteo.

That's a meaning or a word that means a group of birds that have short, rounded wings.

What kinds of calls do you think she might make?

(Students making bird noises) She's got a scream.

How many of you have seen the Buick car ads?

Yeah, somebody was just doing it.

Okay, that's one scream that they make.

Why do you suppose they might make that sound?

Student> I meant... Julie> Yes, yeah, they might be warning other hawks.

This is my area.

This is where I'm going to build my nest.

So you guys stay away and find another place to move in.

That's one of the calls she'd make.

She also makes a really soft call that I call a chupping call.

It's kind of a chup, chup, chup, chup.

What do you think a call might like that might be for?

She needs to talk to another hawk, doesn't she?

And that's a soft call that's used in courtship.

That's when they're trying to set up a nesting area.

The male and the female will talk back and forth with a real soft chuping call.

And you'd be surprised how many times you hear that walking through the woods, or walking through fields and you just don't realize it's a hawk, because you think hawks should make really loud, boisterous calls.

And they don't.

They make very soft ones, too.

Do you think these guys talk for fun?

Do you think they just make noises just because they feel good?

Or do you think that most of their calls have a reason?

(Students give various answers) Julie> Most of them, I think, have a reason.

They might make some sounds that are just because they feel good and it's morning.

We don't know.

But most of their calls have a purpose.

♪ ♪ ♪ Lee> It seems like I'm always learning from you.

Crescent> You mean because I tell you about people like Paul Winter?

Lee> Yeah.

That too.

Crescent> What else?

Lee> I don't know, it... it just seems the more I learn about nature, the more I find out about myself.

You know?

Crescent> Sure.

Paul Winter knows too.

All of our friends, do.

Nature's not just in me.

It's in everyone.

Lee> How old are you?

Crescent> I can't tell you.

Lee> Why not?

Crescent> You wouldn't believe me.

Lee> Oh, well, tell me this.

Do you have a Paul Winter song in that hand of yours?

Okay, let's hear it then.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪