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Subject:
Re: Another One Bites the Dust: Birdsong Not Music, After All
From:
Jason Jay Stevens <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informal Science Education Network <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 16 Aug 2012 11:01:16 -0400
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Another conversation I have to bring my two year old into.
When she's making her wild and non-chromatic, gliss-filled "doo-doo-doooo" sounds and prancing around the room, is she not singing and dancing?

Maybe if I were in the business of transcribing such things, I'd be frustrated, too.

And Hey! If you're going to start calling thunder music, than you have to accept bagpipes as well. Really!




On Aug 16, 2012, at 6:17 AM, Stephen Uzzo wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
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> Thanks Eric -
> This truly smacks of 1800's reductionism to the extent that the conclusions drawn might as well be from Rip Van Winkle. The subtext is that much of the cognitive research that has gone on before was to prove that birdsongs were songs, when in fact most of the research has been to see if birdsong is language, which I think there is general agreement on by now. To Eric's point, there is such wide variation in the patterns of sound we call (human) music, to assume that if a birdsong does not resemble Bach it is not likely music indicates a profound level of ignorance of music. It is hard to imagine this conclusion to be less scientific. Oh, by the way, did you know that thunder is caused by little men bowling in the clouds? But is it music?
> 
> 
> Stephen Miles Uzzo, PhD.
> VP, Science & Technology
> New York Hall of Science
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> On Aug 16, 2012, at 12:04 AM, Eric Siegel wrote:
> 
>> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
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>> *****************************************************************************
>> 
>> sorry, what a load of crap that is.  This is so dopey as to raise the question of whether the science is a caricature of reductionism or that the writer of the article misinterpreted it.  The idea that bird song is not song because it doesn't fit western pitch systems (as the scientist apparently defines defines them as chromatic, pentatonic, and diatonic) is simply bizarre.
>> 
>> "But the study has convinced him that nightingale wrens do not follow Western musical scales. That doesn't mean their songs are meaningless, he says, "it's just not human song."'
>> 
>> It probably goes without saying here that there are many many human songs that do not follow western musical scales. There are many other scales and pitch systems that use notes that don't fall within the western scale system, including a considerable amount of western music (try notating the vocal part of Superbad by James Brown or Ascension by John Coltrane or using western pitch systems to notate harry partch and his many microtonal followers).  A huge percentage of the worlds music is not based on western pitch systems, and even more of it is not based on european harmonic systems. There are even human songs where the exact pitches are not really the point, but rather the contour of the pitches.  
>> 
>> As an antidote to this reductionist and misinformed article, I would recommend David Rothenberg's "Why Birds Sing"  or his most recent book "The Survival of the Beautiful."
>> 
>> This kind of thing just frosts me.
>> 
>> Eric
>> 
>> 
>> On Aug 15, 2012, at 11:31 PM, Charlie Carlson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> 
>>> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
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>>> 
>>> http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/08/birdsong-not-music-after-all.html 
>>> 
>>> The songs still sound good to me!
>>> C
>>> Charles Carlson
>>> Senior Scientist
>>> exploratorium
>>> 
>>> http://blogs.exploratorium.edu/whyintercept/
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