Musician 'Hears Mushrooms Singing'

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

(DPA) -- A noted Czech orchestral composer has revealed a secret to his success: the ability to hear mushrooms sing.
 
Composer Vaclav Halek told the Mlada fronta Dnes newspaper that he copies the beautiful music emanating from all sorts of fungal forms that he finds while walking in the woods.

Just as other people carry baskets to gather mushrooms, Mr Halek said he takes a pencil and paper to the forest to collect songs he claims to hear rising from individual or groups of fungi. "I simply record music that a mushroom sings to me," he said.
 
Mr Halek has composed about 2,000 tunes and one symphony based on the melodies heard while lying beside edible or poisonous mushrooms in the quiet forest. He's been listening to fungi for 20 years, and has used the music for his numerous film and theatre scores.
 
"Not all of them carry the same tune," Mr Halek said. "There are tones and melodies that only toadstools and mushrooms make, so that together they cannot be used to create a composition."
 
He also claims to hear music coming from rocks and trees but prefers mushroom melodies.
 
Copyright © 2003 The Sydney Morning Herald.