Trunk rockers

By Andy Hughes�

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WHEN you consider the size of an elephant’s ears, compared to the size of its eyes, it seems common sense to understand that hearing far outstrips vision in the order of sensory sensitivity.

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Because elephant keepers have been keeping crowds entertained by the novelty of elephants ‘painting’ pictures, the logical progression must be to allow them to use their inbuilt sense of tonal recognition, to see if elephants can play musical instruments.

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In 1957, German scientist Bernard Rensch reported that his elephant could distinguish 12 different musical tones, even when played to her on different instruments at different pitches. The elephant remembered the tones when played again for her eighteen months later – maybe elephants really do have long memories!

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In Thailand, Richard Lair, an American expatriate with twenty-three years experience working with elephants, has combined his ideas on the subject of elephants and instruments with composer and producer David Solider.

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Together, the two have formed The Elephant Orchestra, comprising six elephants that live at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre. The elephants play larger versions of traditional Thai instruments – slit drums, gongs, and renats, a member of the xylophone family.

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They intended to let the elephants make some noise, record the results, and use the samples to dub onto existing musical background to create some new, hopefully interesting music. Having rehearsed the Orchestra,�they decided, however, to record the sounds as they were made, after discovering that the elephants created recognisable rhythms and sounds in relation to what the other elephants were playing.

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Whether or not the resultant recordings, now released on a CD album, can be called ‘music’, or just ‘art’, or either or neither, is open to debate.��The producers are keen to defer the obvious detractions by playing the music first, and identifying the source, and the ‘musicians’ afterwards.

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Profits from the CD – admittedly a pleasant dream at this stage – will be used to fund a milk bank for orphaned elephants, and a training school for elephants handlers, known as mahouts.

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Before anyone reaches for their keyboard to blast off about animal exploitation, it’s worth remembering that the elephants’ original source of working for their keep, namely logging, is now outlawed in Thailand. The elephants survive from money generated at the Conservation Centre, from tourists who watch them draw pictures in the time-honoured fashion, and from demonstrating their now unemployable logging skills.

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While�the elephants are ‘captive’ within the Centre, at least they are getting a big kick out of membership of the ‘prison’ band. ‘Jailhouse Rock anyone

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You can obtain more information about the Thai Elephant Orchestra CD by visiting the record company website at www.mulatta.org/Thaielephantorch.html.