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Well put, sir. And before they say that bird song is not music, I'd
like a better definition of music than "sound using a scale" - which I
don't think anyone would consider an essential much less definitive
characteristic - and good luck with that!
There's music in the sighing of a reed;
There's music in the gushing of a rill;
There's music in all things, if men had ears:
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.
(from "Don Juan" by Lord Byron, but I first encountered it years ago on
W. Carlos' "Sonic Seasonings")
Cheers!
- Lorne
--
http://noirflux.com
On 8/16/2012 12:04 AM, Eric Siegel wrote:
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
>
> 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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>> *****************************************************************************
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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/
>>
>> Twitter: charliec53
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>> 3601 Lyon St.
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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