The Classical Music of Evolution

Starting List of Composers and Compositions Containing Bird Songs or Calls - http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Music_p028....
How Tweet It Is: Bird Songs in Classical Music: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Music_p028....
The vocal ability of birds has inspired - http://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/songs/index.html

An anecdotal example
A Lyrebird's tale
During the early 1930s, a male lyrebird, called "James", formed a close bond with a human being, Mrs. Wilkinson, after she had been offering food to him over a period of time. James would perform his courtship dance for her on one of his mounds which he had constructed in her backyard — and he would also put on his display for a wider audience, but only when Mrs. Wilkinson was one of those present. On one such occasion, James's performance lasted for forty-three minutes, and included steps to a courtship dance accompanied by his own tune — and also included imitating perfectly the calls of an Australian Magpie, and a young magpie being fed by a parent-bird, an Eastern Whipbird, a Bellbird, a complete laughing-song of a Kookaburra, two Kookaburras laughing in unison, a Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo, a Gang-gang Cockatoo, an Eastern Rosella, a Pied Butcherbird, a Wattle-bird, a Grey Shrike-thrush, a Thornbill, a White-browed Scrubwren, a Striated Pardalote, a Starling, a Yellow Robin, a Golden Whistler, a flock of parrots whistling in flight, the Crimson Rosella, several other birds whose notes his audience were not able to identify, and the song of honey-eaters (tiny birds with tiny voices), that gather in numbers and "cheep" and twitter in a multitudinous sweet whispering. In order to mimic the honeyeaters' singing faithfully, James was obliged to subdue his powerful voice to the faintest pianissimo, but he contrived, nevertheless, to make each individual note of the soft chorus audibly distinct. Also included in James's performance was his perfect mimicry of the sounds made by a rock-crusher at work, a hydraulic ram, and the tooting of motor-horns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrebird

Do Birds Truly Make Music?
Song of Solomon 2:12
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

The Bible speaks of bird calls as songs, as most of us do. However, evolutionary theory has led some scientists to say that we are merely assigning human meanings to the calls of birds. They say that the bird calls have nothing to do with real music.

Ornithologists have known for some time that bird songs use the same musical scales as our music. Decades ago it was noted that some of Beethoven's work could be heard from the European blackbird. The music was the same as the opening rondo of Beethoven's "Violin Concert in D, Opus 61." Since these birds pass their songs from generation to generation, Beethoven could have gotten the lilting music from the forefathers of today's European blackbird! The songs of some species, like the song sparrow, follow the form of a sonata, beginning with a strong theme, then the theme is musically played with, and for a finish, the original theme is then repeated. Mozart had a starling as a pet. Once, having heard Mozart play his "Piano Concerto in C Major," the starling not only imitated it, but changed the sharps to flats! Mozart exclaimed, "That was beautiful!" When the starling died, Mozart held an elaborate funeral for it. Eight days later he wrote "A Musical Joke," which contains the same elaborate structure found in starling song.

Do birds make true music, as the Bible says? Contrary to what some evolutionists say, Beethoven and Mozart certainly thought they did.

Prayer: Lord, I thank You for the gift of music, and I await the music of heaven. Amen.

References: Science News, 4/15/00, pp. 252-254, "Music without Borders."

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Bird
• song
• call
• Pitch
• Rhythm
• Imitation
• Mimic
• Impression
• Crescendo
• Staccato
• Trill
• Lyrebird
• Eastern
• Whipbird
• Bellbird
• Kookaburra
• Kookaburras
• Yellow-tailed
• Black-cockatoo
• Gang-gang
• Cockatoo
• Rosella
• Pied
• Butcherbird
• Wattle-bird
• Grey
• Shrike-thrush
• Thornbill
• White-browed
• Scrubwren
• Striated
• Pardalote
• Starling
• Yellow
• Robin
• Golden
• Whistler
• parrots
• Crimson

[bersa888]

Full of wrong quotes... man, consult a musicologist first ;-)

[ChristiansofAsia]

The Classical Music of Creation!

[Ekrysiuk]

@MyoOfTheSnides the real story is probably a lot closer to "He liked how the bird did it and did some editing" and the fact that he's freaking mozart helped with the adapting.

[MyoOfTheSnides]

Around 1.14 "the bird not only imitated it, but changed the sharps to flats" - sharps are the same thing as flats, example, the note inbetween C and D is called D# or Db depending on it's context. The whole thing stinks.

[Folartu]

Creationism is just another created tool to blind the already blinded americans :D

[bartlettdqclb]

To grab this mp3 click to dopemp3s doht cohm.

[conuropsis]

That said, I believe birds (some birds anyway) do create music. That has nothing to do with the Bible, however, or "God" or any supernatural being - but instead with their intelligence and aesthetic sensibilities. If you doubt those qualities exist in birds, please check out, e.g., philosopher and musician David Rothenberg's book 'Why Birds Sing' or neuroscientist Aniruddh Patel's 'Music, Language and the Brain.'

[conuropsis]

The main problem in reasoning here is the preacher's confusing our human appreciation of natural sounds with the creation of those sounds. We may hear "music" in the sighing of the wind through grass or trees, or in wind chimes, but the grass, wind, and bells are not CREATING that music, any more than a digital recording device does. "Creating music" can only be the act of a conscious agent with aesthetic awareness and intention.

[conuropsis]

@bersa888 Don't know about the quotes, but this "sermonette" sure is full of over-generalizations and facile reasoning. With regard to birds singing in scales, for instance, yes, a few species do; but most don't. Birds' ability to mimic sounds also has little to do with creating music: a digital recorder can imitate musical sounds much better, but the machine is not "creating" them.