The idea of incorporating part of a musical instrument very much intrigues me. Spending an afternoon, wandering around the music store, looking at all of the different instruments, my ideas went from a trumpet to the violin, and a number of instruments in between. As I thought about the different sounds that these instruments make, I was originally drawn to the flute or piccolo, however, I couldn’t figure out how to incorporate a bird into the design, so I continued looking, when I walked into the string section, and saw the violin. At that point I could picture a violinist playing, with a bird sitting on the scroll singing along.
![Songs Base Songs Base](https://lungerfinearts.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Songs-Base-200x300.jpg)
Now that the instrument was decided on, the next step was deciding on one of the many songbirds that inhabit the rocky mountain region. I studied the different bird species, and looked at their size, their colors and listened to their songs. I felt it important that whichever bird I picked, the bird I sculpted needed to be life size. The Yellow Warbler fit the sculpture perfectly with its size, beautiful song and color. As I worked on the design I decided use only the neck, I felt that I needed a connection the violin with the Warbler. By stringing it with real violin strings it connected the song of the bird with the instrument itself.
![yellow Warbler yellow Warbler](https://lungerfinearts.com/wp-content/uploads/bb-plugin/cache/yellow-Warbler-240x300-portrait-9a5f69071ef7dc39451fdddc7f0110f6-5f7b908388975.jpg)
![Songs of Spring Yellow Warbler sitting atop a violin neck. Both the violin neck and Warbler are life size](https://lungerfinearts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Songs-of-Spring-Fred-Lunger-1024x731.jpg)