Jazz is notoriously divisive, but no matter how you feel about smooth saxophone and swinging piano, you can’t argue with the impact of one new entry in the genre: “Oysters Ain’t Safe,” composed and performed by students and faculty at St. Petersburg’s University of South Florida.
In a project helmed by Assistant Professor of Anthropology Heather O’Leary, the song was created to raise awareness of the threats to Florida’s oyster population. The mollusks have been declining in recent years due to overharvesting, habitat loss, reduced freshwater flow, and environmental stressors, per a university news release. But because statistics on oyster populations don’t make the most engaging reading material, O’Leary and her team decided to transform the data into music.
“You wouldn’t probably spend your Saturday morning or Friday night digging through some of these government databases, but you already have the tools in your body as a hearing person, or looking at or creating art as a visual person to perceive some of it,” she told The Guardian.
This isn’t the first time the university has forayed into “the sonification of research,” as Kate Browne, a social scientist who recently presented an award to O’Leary from the Society for Economic Anthropology, described it. “Oysters Ain’t Safe” represents the second phase of a project called CRESCENDO, which stands for Communicating Research Expansively through Sonification and Community-Engaged Neuroaesthetic Data Literacy Opportunities.
Last year, O’Leary and a team of student composers took data on harmful algae blooms that had cost local businesses billions in tourism-related revenue and turned it into two musical pieces. They were then performed by the school’s Symphonic Band & Wind Ensemble.
For this second round, the team also shaped the composition through responses from a survey about the seafood consumption habits of Tampa Bay residents. Per the release, the song reflects “both the public’s reluctance to eat oysters and the oysters’ vulnerability in the face of multiple threats.”
The creative process involved marine science graduate students working with those in the music department under the direction of professor Matt McCutchen, a collaboration that O’Leary said had value in and of itself.
“The music graduates are familiar with global warming, climate change, climate chaos, all of this, but they’ve never actually delved into the science. That’s just not the flavor of intellectual interest they have,” she explained to The Guardian. “When they’re sitting there talking with the marine scientists, who are going on dives to see and to feel with their fingers what it feels like when you know the tissue is peeling off of the coral, it’s electrifying.”
Leading up to a student performance of the song this coming January, “Oysters Ain’t Safe” is being given the MTV treatment, with themed artwork, a music video, and even an augmented reality experience that will be made available to the public.
“If you’re watching somebody sing or dance, parts of your brain light up as though you yourself are dancing or singing, and through that, deeper forms of connection are made,” said O’Leary. “These coastal threats are something we all can relate to. This makes it a lot more approachable and fun, and more about creation and less about dwelling in the anxiety.”
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