BEAUTY OF BIRDSONG
The wonderful sound of birdsong has long inspired creative minds, and for Orcadian violinist Fiona Driver, it has served as the basis for her new album, discovers Cal Flyn
Musician Fiona Driver is inspired by Orkney's feathered friends
Orcadian violinist Fiona Driver is no stranger to the recording studio, with two albums and books of fiddle music to her name. But her latest release is a little different to all that has come before. This time, she has drawn inspiration from the natural world and compiled a compilation of captivating birdsong from across her native islands.
Her freshly launched album Orkney at Dawn is 48 minutes long, and comprises seven recordings that are full of life. Named according to the local dialect – ‘Tirrick’, from the Orkney word for tern; ‘Wrannock’ for wren; ‘Mallimack’ for fulmar – each track immediately conjures up for the listener the watercolour skies and the crashing of the waves against the cliff’s edge, as the avian orchestra tunes up for the morning concert. The album, the first of its kind made in Orkney, was three years in the making. ‘The idea came out of my being a musician,’ says Fiona. Having taught herself to play on her great-grandfather’s fiddle as a teenager, she has made a successful career as a performer, composer and tutor.
But having never studied formally, she recently decided to undertake a part-time degree in applied music through the University of the Highlands and Islands. Through the course, she learned the art of how best to mic up and record her violin.
‘And then I just wondered what it would be like to record the birds outside,’ she said. ‘I did a lot of research into the best equipment to use, and started crawling around through the heather to get closer to the birds. That first year I was just making test recordings, but it all felt so promising and so exciting that I got a bit obsessed.’
Once the idea of an album had solidified, it then took another two years as Fiona’s recording sessions were repeatedly stymied – most often by the wild and windy weather of the archipelago, but sometimes too by noisy neighbours. More than once she inadvertently captured the pitch-perfect likeness of a neighbour’s vintage scooter or the far-off hum of a boat engine. ‘The equipment is extremely sensitive,’ she says.
Often when she played back what she expected to be a flawless recording, the distant drone of a ferry, plane or wind turbine could be heard underlying the entire track – sometimes from as far as ten miles away. Even the movement of the breeze was enough to distort the delicate strains of the skylark.
‘When I finally got the recording right on day three, I cried’
So the project was not without its technical challenges. She cites as an influence the Bafta award-winning sound recordist Chris Watson, who has released four solo albums of selfdescribed ‘lightly orchestrated’ field recordings, and whose immersive soundscapes are featured semi-regularly on Radio 4.
The intention, says Fiona, is to present a natural soundscape, having made very few editorial fiddles. ‘But the hope is, my tracks sound like you just happened to be there, in the right place at the right time. There are a few very subtle edits, but the gaps between the birds are totally unaltered. Very natural-sounding, just gorgeous.’
Recording a neighbourly blackbird in her own garden at Rendall took several attempts, each earlier than the last, and many educated guesses as she attempted to get ahead of the ‘blackie’ and set up the microphone in advance of his arrival. ‘When I finally got the recording right, on day three, I cried. It was perfect.’
Elsewhere on the album, she travels further afield: to the spectacular cliffs at Marwick Head, the wind-dashed shore at Aikerness, and the waterfall at Woodwick House – all familiar sites from Fiona’s upbringing on the island. After compiling the tracks, and making a few lighthanded edits, she turned to Tim Dean, local ornithologist and author of The Orkney Book of Birds, to confirm her identifications. (Dean has given the album his stamp of approval, describing it as ‘almost better than the real thing’.)
Fiona’s unusual childhood fed her fascination for birdlife. Her father, Dr Peter Michael Driver, was a zoologist and ornithologist – and, somewhat scandalously, a teacher at her mother’s school. ‘Mum was 17, he was 47,’ she tells me. ‘They ran away together, and raised four children – all home-schooled.’ The star-crossed couple initially eloped to the mountainous island of Hoy – where Fiona spent her early years – and later moved to an off-grid farmhouse near Stromness, on mainland Orkney, where the family lived without a bathroom or mains electricity for many years.
‘Dad did his PhD in the Canadian Arctic in the late 1950s, where he spent two summers
in a tent, acting as a mother eider as he studied the behaviour of ducklings. His experiences later appeared in the 1974 book In Search of the Eider. Later he worked at the observatory on Bardsey Island for 15 years, a period at the Department of Zoology and Psychology at Oxford, and helped to set up Birdland, at Bourton-on-theWater. He loved birds, and we picked a lot up from him. I’ve been surrounded by these sounds all my life.’
A passion for the environment certainly runs in the family: Fiona’s half-brother, from her father’s previous marriage, is the director of Rewilding Britain, Prof Alastair Driver, while another halfbrother – Chris Whitehead – works for Martinmere Wetland Centre. Younger brother Merlyn, wellknown as a folk musician, helped out on this project as executive producer on Orkney at Dawn.
The launch of the album has, in fact, coincided with Fiona’s departure from her home island. The rest of her family having scattered, she and her husband, Shetland fiddler Trevor Hunter, made the decision to move to Inverness earlier this year.
‘I was very sad to leave, as I spent 20 years planting a wildlife garden at my house in Rendall. We left half as tufted grass, to attract the Orkney vole, which in turn attracted short-eared owls and hen harriers.’
So many, in fact, they then went on to attract the BBC Springwatch team in 2015. ‘I’ve kept the house, which has a beautiful view overlooking all the isles. You can hear the fulmars on the cliff when the wind is in the right direction.’
A big change, then, to be in the city, but closer to the mountains, which is where she likes to be on her day off. So much so that her next birdsong album in the series, already now in motion, will be Cairngorms at Dawn. ‘That’s where you’ll find me next spring; crawling through the heather again, trying to get close to the grouse.’
But if she ever feels homesick, she knows what to do: pop the CD in her player, close the blinds, and immerse herself in the sounds of the Orcadian sunrise.