Filming a live musical performance outside presents many challenges: can't really control the lighting, can't really do anything about ambient noise, can't really stop the bugs from crawling up your pant legs, etc. But if you embrace the necessary spontaneity of a shoot like this, you just might capture something beautiful. We certainly did when Moda Spira joined us in the Box Canyon and performed Playback:
“Playback” is a new song by Moda Spira (Latifah Phillips; joined in the Box Canyon by Jordan Hamlin on banjo). The song title also serves as an unintentional reference to that scientific research paradigm—the "playback experiment"—which examines the responses of animals (particularly birds) to recordings of unfamiliar sounds. In other words, if you start making music in the woods, then you should expect that birds will reciprocate. Listen closely beginning at about the 2:20 mark, and we think you’ll find that a real musical link gets established between Moda Spira and a resident Box Canyon bird who must have liked what it was hearing so much that it simply had to join in.