Derek Greene, an education specialist from the Bloomington Parks and Recreation department oversaw a table at Griffy Lake. Sitting on the table were four cases of frogs.
“We’ve got an American toad right here — that’s the most common frog in Indiana,” Greene said. He pointed to another. “This one is a bullfrog, the largest we’ll see around here.”
Greene was at Griffy Lake with the frogs he’d caught as part of a new concert series called Nature Sounds. Bloomington Parks and Recreation came up with the idea, and J.L. Waters, an outdoor outfitters store downtown, sponsored the concert. Thursday, the concert focused on listening to frogs and correlating their sounds with the sounds of a specially chosen music ?ensemble.
Greg Jacobs, the community events coordinator, said he thought the experience would be educational.
“If we stop talking,” Jacobs said, before leaning his head and pausing, “we can hear a lot of different sounds. Geese calling, birds in the background, and the frogs we’re teaching people to listen for. We’re encouraging people to enjoy the parks in a different way — a quieter way.”
Greene’s table of frogs was meant to inform listeners of the differing sounds between the amphibians. Greene said he wasn’t formally trained with animals, but usually worked with all kinds for his job in the department.
“I’m kind of the critter guy,” Greene said. “I know a lot about the slippery, slidey animals.”
To his left, metal folding chairs were aligned in a half-circle, filling with passersby for the concert. The featured band was Daily Bread and Butter, a trio of musicians playing instruments as unusual as the accordion and bagpipes.
Before they began playing, Jacobs explained why the band was there.
“They’ve been chosen specifically for the pipes in their instruments,” Jacobs said. The idea was that through listening to music that came from sound being pushed out through an inflated sack — like with bagpipes — listeners would understand a frog’s vocal system as well, because the processes were similar.
Scott Higgins was skeptical. He said he came to the concert after hearing about it from his wife, who works in the Parks and Recreation Department as well.
“This connection is tenuous unless they get all (the frogs) to sing in unison,” ?he said.
Higgins said the concert series was fairly different from all the events that he’d been to hosted by the parks department.
Wolfgang VonBuchler had come with his dog, Rosie.
VonBuchler said he and his wife had recently moved back to Bloomington to retire. They had met and married in the town, but life had taken them elsewhere ?until now.
“We’ll definitely be going to the next concerts,” VonBuchler said. “There’s so many things to do in Bloomington you have to pick and choose. I like this music a lot. I like this music, I like IU’s music, Player’s Pub.”
After each concert, audience members are invited to go on a nature walk to listen for the sounds they have just been tuned to hear.
The next Nature Sounds will be May 21 and will focus on bats.
