Planned musical joke - suggestions?

[cdef]

Here's the deal: a dear friend, a pianist, is turning 50 in a couple of weeks and is throwing a little garden party at his modest estate. Several of us got together for a brainstorming session to come up with a special treat for him, and the best idea we could muster between us was as follows:

The garden overlooks a wide creek with lots of willow thickets on the other side, where nightingales can always be heard singing at this time of year. We've often admired their efforts during summer evenings past. So what we're going to do now is get some samples of nightingales and load them into Melodyne or other pitch-editing software (which we have studio access to), then edit the 'gales to include strains of some recognizable songs in their performance. We'll do a 4 Gb mono MP3 file and load it into a cheap player, which we'll hang somewhere in the willows along with one of those tiny, battery-powered speakers. At the appropriate time, one of us will slip away across the bridge and turn the playback on (starting with silence). Then, while sipping after-dinner liqueurs, we'll enjoy the birdsong.

I'll be doing the editing and try not to be too obvious. There should be a "wth" moment at some time, but I'll try to be subtle about it, with pauses and bona-fide bird stuff in between. For songs, we've so far got 'Twilight Time', 'Deep Purple', a West Side Story medley of 'Maria' and 'Somewhere' and one of the guy's own compositions (although that might be the giveaway).

So what do you think? Good idea, or dumb? Any cautions, except the weather? Suggestions for songs?

[cheesemonkey]

that would be hilarious... i think if you don't already have a "wth" song picked i'd say do something like sweet home alabama or some skynryd song

[Ripper]

PLAY FREE BIRD!!!!!!

[mjolnir]

That, good sir, is absolutely awesome.

[Darkstrike]

Yup, subscribed!

[Marcus Johnson]

Great idea. Hopefully, by the time you play the recordings, he'll have had a few cocktails, which might cause him to question his own sanity. If you all keep on the poker face, it should be good.

[Matt Till]

THAT is amazing! I might have to rip this idea off at some point... it's just so awesome.

[Bard2dbone]

Is it cruel that I think the best part will be pretending the rest of you don't notice it?

"What do you mean, the nightingales are singing tunes? They're birds. Of course they're singing. Melodies? What are you talking about?"