Speaking of Whistles

I had to let this piece o’ work incubate for a couple weeks, as a good word bird does. And speaking of whistles…

I’ve been reading bird-sound expert Donald Kroodsma’s book, “The Singing Life of Birds”. In it he politely critiques the idea, posed recently by some scientists, that tonality in birdsong suggests a human musical sensibility. Many continue to claim that bird songs contain elements common to western music, including notes from diatonic scales (doh ray me…), major, minor, and diminished triad chords, and major, minor and perfect intervals (frequency differences between two notes), etc.  He doesn’t really provide a clear example to pick apart, so it is hard to say whether he’s right or wrong; but his principal argument is that the claimers are engaging in confirmation bias, i.e. cherry-picking. It appears if you look at a sonogram, or graph charting the different frequencies in a bird’s song, matches with traditional music notes and scales are, in my words, co-inkeedinkal. What we might cite as a minor third in a bird song is likely slightly out of tune, or a major exception to most bird note intervals. I am kinda putting words in Dr. Kroodsma’s mouth. He does point out that scientists fail to back up their claims with evidence from sonograms, and instead designate fragments of particular bird songs (like that of the Hermit Thrush) as musical scale intervals, stating “that’s a fun exercise, but it remains important to realize that one could do this with any series of notes and conclude that the intervals are also found in our music.”

The apparent problem is that the fragments used in scaling these bird songs are not simple stable notes, instead modulating or shifting pitch, like someone trying for the first time to play a slide melody on a ukulele with a full coffee cup.

This has been my general sense of things as well, although it seems that if there is some kind of innate foundation for appreciation of musical intervals in people, as would appear reasonable, it isn’t a stretch to suspect birds have this too.

          Kroodsma points out that there are plenty other similarities between bird and human songs we can hang our hat on, even if advanced tonal theory isn’t one. As with the ukulele example, people modulate their tones all the time, trembling and skipping their way from the notes on a written score, and if me, you can be perfectly happy playing out of tune for a couple hours, missing that middle C note by some prime number of vibrations per second. Unlike many people, birds can hold fast to a tempo and rhythm for extended time.   

Similarities Dr. Kroodsma specifically gives include musical themes or motifs, accelerandos, ritardandos, crescendos and diminuendos. Countless examples of musical themes are crucial in allowing us to distinguish one species-specific sound from another. Themes are constancies that help make a song a song, like repeated notes or phrases, peculiar voicings (like the lilt of an Eastern Wood-pewee, the metallic nasal-ness of a Blue Jay, and the insect-like trill or tremolo of a Chipping Sparrow), preludes and flourishes (like those of a Wood Thrush), or distinct admixtures of these signatures. Think of leitmotifs, or different characters represented by particular instruments, moods, or melodies in a classical symphony, like in Peter and the Wolf. The thrushes (Wood Thrush, Hermit Thrush, American Robbin, Bluebirds, Common Blackbird, etc.) are a family of birds that share an affinity for ethereal melody and a flute-like quality. They demonstrate what a songbird can do, using their two voice-boxes (syrinxes) in self-harmony and rapid alternation. A Black-capped Chickadee is an example of one who can transpose his simple but distinct “Marco! Polo!” song, much like a musician picking a different key for a favorite tune to suit a show.

Accelerandos and ritardandos are the gradual speeding and decelerating of a musical pattern respectively. The example of an accelerando Kroodsma provides is the song of a Field Sparrow, which, like most of the examples I’ve given, is a bird native to the Eastern U.S. Yes, perhaps I harken too often to the land of hydrogenated peanut butter. An accelerando is like a loose bouncing ball set to music. The Canyon Wren of the Southwestern States, on the other hand, does just the opposite, like the musical celebration of fading drips from a faucet. It is almost as though the orchestra Field Sparrow symphony conductor decided to send his coloratura soprano into reverse, which rarely happens in human orchestras. Northern Cardinals, (mostly Eastern North America and some islands) can do both ways or neither, depending on the exact song he or she chooses (birds rarely heed their conductors).

Crescendos and diminuendos are gradual increases and decreases, respectively, in volume over a musical movement. Both are quite common among birds that can hold a song for a second or more. Not invoked by Kroodsma here are musical articulations like glissandos and de-glissandos, referring to glides up and down in frequency, much like a slide whistle or slide ukulele. Glissando can also refer to interconnecting ascending or descending notes, like when you drag a finger over piano keys. This relates to modulation mentioned above, though simple gradual glides from one note to another can really jump out, like in the slurred pees and wees of the aforementioned Eastern Wood-pewee. I think one could call the unsteady glide of birds like the Canyon Wren ‘legato’ or ‘portamento’. One of the reasons I’m even writing about this business is I’ve discovered a bird of Hanoi that exemplifies a very pleasant aggregation of simple music qualities named the Plaintive Cuckoo. The male’s song bares no direct reference to his name, unlike the clock-ready Common Cuckoo Species, now prepping to populate the northern reaches for the toasty months. Nor does he register as plaintive in my mind, though perhaps ever on the verge of cuckoo. His song is an example of accelerando, as well as staccato, with brief glissando. He follows a gradually descending scale with intervals smaller than typical Western musical tones.

Why all these birds speak Italian I don’t know. On the other hand, duets are also quite common. In the U.S., Carolina Wren males and females duet, as do Northern Cardinals sometimes. This is more common among tropical songbirds though, where females are more likely to sing and defend a territory. Singing between males and females among these species is thought to strengthen bonds and help birds track one another in dense tropical foliage. The ability for a bird to duet with his or her mate may keep him or her from being attacked as an intruder.

A most striking example of a song for two however is the North American Barred owl’s courtship duet. Here the male and female trade and weave all sorts of sounds in a most haunting cacophony: hoots, caterwauls, cackling from the male, and hums and distinct vibrato from the female.

I remember arriving with friends at a campsite late in the night in the deep forest of the Washington Cascades a few years ago. Not much human life had been stirring in the area for quite a while, as the bolt on the gate that guarded the path was encrusted beyond budging, and after this obstacle was a large fallen tree. As we took turns taking a handsaw to this snag in the road, some of us carried camp supplies from the car up to the site. It was pitch black as we set up tents, when we heard a banshee duet above our head. It sounded like five of them.

“Now I know you suckers think that’s the ghosts of grandparents come back to terrorize you like they did in life” I said, “but those are actually two owls doing their courtship duet.”

Such is the wonderous world of bird music. There’s something special about getting the chance to hear such phenomena in auditory solitude from the motoring multitudes. Not that I’m against urbania or human sounds – I make plenty myself.  

“Man’s desecration of his environment by noise is the most pervasive and gratuitous of his many outrages against nature.” E. A. Armstrong. 1969.

See also here.