Timbrado Floreado Song

Yesterday I got a CD from Spain, and my lasting impression is, "what a big job!" I don't know how long I will last in trying to learn the endless variety of song, much less teach it. If even I can organize the basics, it will surprise me. For now, I shall continue. Jut trying is fun. Mastering,... We shall see. Just in case, if you meet someone who says that there's nothing to it, I'd be suspicious of that person!

So why are we working so hard? (well, really not all as hard as we should be). Because it's fun! No, that's not thee answer. We're doing it for the birds. Most of all our breeding program, which shouldn't be too much personal whim. The American singer is a flop because everybody is at cross purposes, even with themselves. The floreado has happened because there was a certain amount of agreement from the beginning, hundreds of years ago. It's been proven that the birds can pass on their song, because that's how the floreado came to be. A unified criteria is the best chance we have to pass on our work. If you are "a member of the club" The breed will profit. That is the reason for constant, most careful change, and constant critical observation. It's definitely a tough job, and not as scientific, I believe, as we wish. We can't see the gene arrangement under the microscope and then splice in the best ones. If you want to be convinced that it's working, listen to a superb floreado! So, let's roll up our selves, and if you enjoy it, as I do, that's an extra bonus!

Sorry, wordy again, but I want to be thorough and not too hard to follow. I hope the reading won't be too hard, because I think it's essential that you read and understand the entire message! Always, always, leave comments if you can help with this post, or If we can help you!!!
------------------------------------

The link below is absolutely essential to work with, and for me it's very tricky to work with. The fact that it's in Spanish makes it all the more difficult. I will do all I can to help you work here, although, I'm rather the blind leading the blind. Please, please leave a comment here if you are having trouble. It's going to become very basic and very essential for anyone's learning. Again, please, please leave a comment to get to the sound files that are here, especially.

Let me try to help here. First go to the page, go down 2 - 4 screens, until you see the blue message, Acceso a los archivos de canto It's in blue and underlined, and it's inside a box. It says something to the effect of "access the files of te songs". Don't click it yet. Below that, it says something like, you will have to sign in, and then it gives the sign in user name, and password in red letters. cut and paste concurso2004 and then password 2004. 2004 is to easy to remember to warrant cut and paste. Below that, I think it explains that the page won't always work, and come back at a later time if the page won't open. I don't know why, but that's true. It won't always open. When it does open, the page is different than usual, because it is a ftp page. You don't have to know that, but the page works a tiny tad differently. Please, please, please, do what you have to open that page. It contains the all important competition files of floreado birds. From this page you can also see that the floreado is alive and well in Spain. These are people who sent in sound files to be judged, and we owe them all! These are people working with the bird that I've so much fallen in love with. I hope we can all become co-workers in a way!

Once you open the page, I would tell you to download ALL the songs to your computer except the zip file. If you have a telephone line, I have no idea how long it will take. It's not that bad with broadband. These files will become our work.

To download them, if you don't already know, right click on a file, then choose "save file as" find a place to save it, probably on desk top or My documents, If you are new to the computer, the may be scary, but stay with it, it will come in handy the rest of your life. It's part of computer basics. Remember, always, I will be more than glad to help you get it. Just don't give up until you download all the files. I'm not sure we will use all of them, but why miss a chance to hear these birds!

Once you have all the files some place on your computer, you must stop to have a cup of coffee, wine, or beer. You will have made a grand accomplishment and will be ready for the next step!


I Concurso Curso de canario timbrado 2004

I think that for awhile, I shall take the week ends off, but here I am, working again.

Yesterday I worked to make a good translation from the competition, and was listening to the matching file of each one, and I was feeling hopelessly dumb, as far as identifying elements and descriptions. A good judge or critic is indeed a knowlegable person, I'm thinking, and not just someone judging the jam at the local fair! It's easy for me to feel discouraged on my learning, but each time I think I can identify something, it feels good to me. I hope we'll be able to post some soon, as that's at the heart of what I'm trying to learn.

I remember reading about chops, warbles and trills back in grade school, and that's still the easiest and most basic way to discriminate sounds when listening to a canary. We will use the words, continuous, semi continuous, and discontinues here, which are actually better terms, anyway. There are some long articles on www.timbrado.com on this, and you might look for them if you have time. This is the best place to begin learning. Canaries can do complex things that defy this breakdown, (I hope I'm right) but for the most part most of the song can be broken down with these three words.

I think I've already mentioned that this begins the division of the two types fo timbrados. With the floreado type, the continuous notes are minimized as much as possible. (Please comment whenever I'm wrong, I WANT to be corrected when I'm wrong, and it would be good for everyone). I am never sure, and that's a main reason for the blog; to polish these things out. Canary song is complex enough for individual interpretation, also. That's why it will be so helpful to get to the competition files, to see the judgments of the very best.

Again and always, I don't want to rephrase Luis' explanation, If I have time, I might post links to timbrado.com on this topic.

Luis says: Keep on studying, keep on studying. I recommend you to start by the basics, that´s to say, to difference the three main groups of notes by their emission rate. By this criterion we have continuous, semicontinuos and discontinuous notes.
Continuous when the syllaboles come so quickly that there´s almost no gap between one and other. We have two notes in Timbrado clearly continuous: rolled variations (variaciones rodadas) and metallic roll (timbre metálico)
Rolled variations: rrrrrreeeee (imperfect but quite common) rrrrrrrooooo (better)
Metallic roll: rrrrrriiiiii

Semicontinuous the syllabes come still quickly but we can realize that there are short gaps between them resulting in a "beaten like" sound.
Are always semicontinuous: jingle bell (cascabel= linlinlinlin), watery bell (timbre de agua= blibliblibli), semiconnected water (agua semiligada= bloblobloblo) . Clucks are usually semicontinuous (cloqueos= cloclocloclo)

Discontinuous the bird clearly stops between one syllable and the next, like resting. Church bell (tan tan tan) , slow water (bloui bloui bloui ) and slow flourishes ( tuiii tuiii tuiii / dulio dulio dulio....) are always discontinuous.

Good learning

Luis