A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC – Singing With Insects

Folks have been staying home and cultural venues shutting down during the pandemic of 2020. Yet, still, these sultry mid-summer nights are awash in music. And I’m not talking one of these ensembles we’re seeing patched together on Zoom.

No, I’m hearing this music right now, tonight, in the flesh—no social distancing involved—emanating so bright from the shrubs and trees that it illuminates the darkness.

For most of us, I’m afraid, it’s a sound that may be so ubiquitous, so deeply set in memory, that, like the constant background hum and hiss of the rest of city life, we don’t even notice anymore.

        One can quite accurately estimate the
        temperature from the frequency of the
        snowy tree cricket’s pulsing chirrs.

But hey, I’m the wonder guy; I can’t not notice. In fact, this summer of COVID, under the pall of tragedy, fear and uncertainty, I’ve decided life’s too short not to engage Nature’s night music, sit with it a while…and really listen. And here’s what I’m hearing:

MULTI-PART HARMONY
You know how, in most musical pieces, the rhythm acts as a sort of pump that impels the notes? The heartbeat of my night music is the bright, pulsing performance of the snowy tree cricket. Synchronized like a fine symphony orchestra’s string section, it emanates from low bushes, wrapping me in its crystalline tone.

Snowy Tree Cricket - PHOTO: www.BugGuide.net

              
This delicate, pale green cousin of the stockier, brown or black house or field cricket is elusive; I’ve never run into one without purposely looking. Hiding, often under the branches, it’s the one sometimes called the “thermometer cricket,” because one can quite accurately estimate the temperature from the frequency of the snowy tree cricket’s pulsing trills.*

Trig - PHOTO: www.SongsOfInsects.com

The second track of tonight’s audio mix, about an octave higher in pitch, is laid in behind that of the snowy tree crickets. It’s a subtle, constant whistle, so high and thin that it’s nearly consumed in the evening’s man-made ambient sound. This might be another of the many species of tree crickets found in Minnesota, or perhaps another cricket cousin called a trig.

Then there’s a back beat, a kind of rolling, rasping syncopation falling in threes between the others’ notes. This crafty musician is likely a katydid, with its eponymous Kay-tee-did…she didn’t song.

Common Katydid - PHOTO: SongsOfInsects.com

Also blending in are some sweeter, truer voices, about the same pitch as the snowy tree crickets, but in shorter, more distinct chirps. I’m guessing these are either the field or house crickets.

         It’s like some far-out Latin jazz guy sitting
         in with a little improv on the güiro.

Rounding out the multi-part harmony—or at least the parts these ancient ears can still make out—is a deeper, woodier rasping with an irregular rhythm. It’s like some far-out Latin jazz guy sitting in with a little improv on the güiro. Another type of katydid? Or maybe a mole cricket?

(For a sampler of these and other night insect sounds, check out SongsOfInsects.com

Every summer, I find a few experiences so wonderful, so precious, that I resolve to preserve their memory, like canning fresh fruit, to be opened and savored in the cold, gray depth of a Minnesota winter. The concert I’m hearing tonight will be one of them. Which of summer's sweet blessings will you be putting up?

* The calculation is (for Fahrenheit): count the number of trill pulses in 14 seconds and add 40. (I’ve done this many times over the years—as recently as tonight—and have always come within a degree either way of the actual temperature.)