Over My Head

First came the concert then the CD. In the late fall of 1986 I received a commission from the Museum of Nature to present a concert to celebrate their forthcoming bird exposition. I decided it would be best to concentrate on the birds I knew in my own backyard, the Gatineau Hills of western Québec. My neighbour, Michael Bostock, was an avid birder and I had been with him on many birding outings. I remember one day ditching the car twice in search of a Boreal and Saw Whet Owls. But the problem was by late November most of the birds had flown and I had already decided that I should follow the seasons and their birds. Fortunately for me, a local bird enthusiast and recorder, Monty Brigham, allowed me the use of some his field recordings, others were purchased through the sound library at Crawley films. In some cases the recordings were taken intact but in many of the pieces on this recording they were labouriously looped and recorded on tapes that sometimes extended across the recording studio and then back to circle around the head of an old Tandberg. Each loop was done this way and placed into the mix. In the case of "Knock on Wood", for example, I composed the piece around the percussive hammering of a Pileated Woodpecker. Once the pieces were written and the loops were in place we rehearsed the pieces with the loops and then headed to the concert. Marty Jones was in charge of the loops and in some cases we had to play to them, in other cases he had to start the loop at exactly the right bar and stop it at the right time or we were sunk! As I recall the concert went well and it was recorded CBC radio by Richard Patterson. Requests came and Phil Bova and I were encouraged enough to take the project back to the studio. The album was recorded in less than a week. Since that time Over My Head has sold close to 100,000 copies.