Coyote Voicings.
Essay by Dom Cooper.

When I moved to San Diego from London, I traded the sound of the fox for the sound of the coyote.
    I used to live on the edge of the marsh, and my late nights would often be filled with the piercing cry of barbed fox mating—a nightmarish sound. Now I reside on the edge of an overgrown canyon where coyotes roam. When a siren wails in the distance, the pack responds with maniacal yipping, often resembling laughter—like that of a feral choir making noise. At night, I observe them in the parking lot, scavenging for food, much like the way I used to see foxes on the streets of London.
    Coyote yipping is mainly done by two or three individuals, trying to trick you in to thinking they are a pack of fifteen or so.
    In English folklore, there is an old ballad called Reynardine. In the song, the protagonist is a werefox who tricks and lures women to his castle, leading to them to an ambiguous fate never stated. Folklore is littered with wrong-doings from the past.
    I find it interesting that the coyote is also an anthropomorphic trickster, but he often teaches lessons, unlike the self-centered werefox.
    
In a myth by the Maidu, a Native American people of northern California, Coyote finds Earth Maker in the infinite waters and calls him out. Together they sing creation into being.
    Later, after Coyote says he will introduce evil into the world, Earth Maker orders the people to destroy Coyote, but despite their best efforts, Coyote uses supernatural trickery to outwit them. In the end, Earth Maker is forced to recognize that Coyote’s power is equal to his own.

In London, I would often visit the Tate Modern gallery, where I was fascinated by a gravity-defying piece by the artist Joseph Beuys titled ‘Lightning with stag in its glare.’ In the next room, constantly looping on a monitor, was the film of the artist in a cage with a coyote, titled ‘I like America and America likes me.’ Beuys said, ‘I wanted to isolate myself, insulate myself, see nothing of America other than the coyote.’
    In 1983, he collaborated on a piece with his friend from Fluxus, the composer John Cage; it was called ‘Good morning, Mr. Orwell.’ In 1984, Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik performed a piece called ‘Coyote III’ at the Seibu Museum, Tokyo, and the Ensemble Modern also performed works by John Cage.
     We describe our presentation of Cage scores as a constellation because it is made up of orbiting sounds from each individual member.
     There is a creation myth where Coyote created our stars. One day, Black God was busy making the constellations by carefully ordering the stars in the sky when Coyote became impatient and tossed the remaining stars from a blanket into the sky, forming the Milky Way.

I was pleased to discover that San Diego and UCSD, located near my apartment, have a rich musical history. By exploring the archives at the Geisel Library, I delved into this history. Bill Perrine’s book, ‘Alien Territory,’ subsequently filled in the gaps. Among the co-founders of the Department of Music at UCSD was Pauline Oliveros, a composer whose ‘Sonic Meditations’ have become both the warm-up and foundation practice of our choir (these were also practiced in the choirs I was a member of in London, so this makes me feel at home). In the Special Collections archive at Geisel, within Pauline’s papers, I found a Buchla patch diagram with instructions by Charles Buel, titled ‘Coyote Crossing: For Pauline.’ Since I couldn’t find a recording, I have to imagine what it should sound like—warm improvised tones, rhythmic interjections, and looping tape delays.

In 1985, the author Ursula K. Le Guin wrote ‘Always Coming Home,’ an anthropology of the future in which she created a people known as the Kesh. She wanted those people to have an oral and sung tradition and subsequently asked composer Todd Barton to help her bring the Kesh to life. (Todd later taught me synthesis techniques via zoom).
    The book was released with a tape cassette, ‘The Music and Poetry of the Kesh,’ which was reissued on vinyl in 2018 by RVNG Int.
     Ursula also wrote a story based on coyote mythology, called ‘Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight,’ which begins with the line, ‘YOU FELL OUT OF THE SKY,’ the coyote said. The story is about a child who survives a plane crash and enters the Dream Time of primitive myths, where the coyote knows secrets about that world—and this one.
     There is a Shasta myth where Coyote saves the world from ten evil moons that have afflicted it with everlasting winter. San Diego’s heat must mean that the coyote is keeping the ten evil moons at bay.
     Now, I must wait for the sirens so that I too can join the coyote song.