Zoomusicology
Zoomusicology is the study of the musical aspects of sound and communication as produced and perceived by animals. It is a field of musicology and zoology, and is a type of zoosemiotics. Zoomusicology as a field dates to François-Bernard Mâche's 1983 book Music, Myth, and Nature, or the Dolphins of Arion, and has been developed more recently by scholars such as Dario Martinelli, David Rothenberg, Hollis Taylor, David Teie, and Emily Doolittle.
Zoomusicology is a separate field from ethnomusicology, the study of human music.
Zoomusicologists in a wide range of fields including music, semiotics, philosophy and biology conduct zoomusicology research. This is because the field of zoomusicology is so broad and reaches many disciplines. Musician and zoomusicologist Hollis Taylor has conducted an extensive study of the Pied Butcherbird over the past 15 years, including interdisciplinary research with philosophers and scientists. Clarinetist, and philosopher David Rothenberg plays music with animals, and has written books on the relationship between bird, insect, and whale song and human music. Composer Emily Doolittle has written numerous pieces based on animal songs, and has published interdisciplinary music-science research on the hermit thrush and the musician wren. Heavy metal bands such as Hatebeak, Caninus, Naegleria Fowleri, and Boar Glue have released music fronted by a grey parrot, a pit bull, an Amazon parrot, and a guinea pig, respectively. Susan Belanger has also contributed to the field of zoomusicology, with her work on soft song in the Asian corn borer moth and its relationship to the initiation of mating behaviour. Researcher Patricia Gray has examined the music that can be seen in whales and songbirds. David Teie has composed species-specific music for tamarin monkeys and cats based on his theory of the emotional origins of music. This list is by no means all encompassing, but simply lists some notable members of the zoomusicology research community.
Human-animal interactions
There have been several musicians over the years who have performed with or for animals, hoping to elicit responses. Examples include: the song "Seamus" from Pink Floyd's 1971 album Meddle featuring Steve Marriott's Border Collie Seamus howling along to an acoustic blues song. The performance was repeated in "Mademoiselle Nobs" for the film Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii with a different dog, Nobs. Paul Horn played flute to Haida, an orca living at Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria, British Columbia on his album Inside II, though the response was merely spyhopping. Paul Winter played his saxophone for both wolves and gray whales on his album Common Ground. Composer Jim Nollman plays guitar and wooden flute to such species as whales, wolves and turkeys. David Rothenberg, a clarinetist, has played to humpback whales, cicadas and birds with no apparent response.Composer David Sulzer, under the name David Soldier and the Thai Elephant Orchestra, built giant percussion instruments for the elephants at the National Elephant Institute at Lampang to play, with minimal human direction.
Composers have long evoked or imitated animal sounds in compositions, including Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons , Jean-Philippe Rameau's The Hen, Camille Saint-Saëns's The Carnival of the Animals, Jean Sibelius's The Swan of Tuonela, Frederick Delius's On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, Ralph Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending , Ottorino Respighi's Pines of Rome and The Birds, Ferde Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite, Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue of the Birds, George Crumb's Vox Balaenae , and Pauline Oliveros's El Relicario de los Animales.
Some modern composers have included recordings of animals in their scores, including Alan Hovhaness's And God Created Great Whales, Einojuhani Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus, Gabriel Pareyon's Invention over the song of the Vireo atriccapillus and Kha Pijpichtli Kuikatl.
In 1960 American engineer Jim Fassett put together an album of slowed-down and re-arranged bird songs called Symphony of the Birds. Novelty songs pieced together from the sounds of dogs or cats enjoyed brief popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. Field recording expert Bernie Krause in 1988 released a single and an album of songs composed of animal and nature sounds. The Indian zoomusicologist, A. J. Mithra composed music using bird, animal and frog sounds from 2008 until his death in 2014. In that same year, New York beatboxing artist Ben Mirin began incorporating animal sounds into his beats.
Music produced by animals
Birds
The most well-known form of music found in non-human animals is birdsong. Birdsong is different from normal calls. For example, a call will usually simply function to communicate a direct message. For instance, a bird call could be used to direct attention that a predator is near. Meanwhile, a song contains more repetition and usually will have distinct structure to it, with a specific beginning, middle, and end. In many species of songbirds, songs seem to be used both as a way to attract potential mates, as well as to mark and defend one's territory. It has been observed that young songbirds acquire their ability to produce song from imitation of adult birds. There seems to be a critical period for song learning. In one experiment, they compared birds raised in isolation,, with those raised in a colony, without these forms of isolation. Using an fMRI scan and the blood oxygen level dependent as a measurement of brain activity, it was found that birds raised in the isolation condition did not appear to show a preference between their own songs and a repetitive song. Meanwhile, colony-raised birds showed a stronger reaction to their own song being played back.Mimicry
Several species of birds can mimic the songs of other birds, or even mechanical sounds. These include, with varying degrees of success, starlings, mockingbirds, thrashers, crows and ravens, parrots, myna birds, blue jays, lyrebirds, Lawrence's thrushes, Acrocephalus, marsh warblers, and others. Mozart kept a starling that could mimic some of his music.Functions and effects of music on animals
Mammals
Snowden and Teie performed an experiment on Cotton-top tamarins to determine if music would lead to behavioural changes, and whether music made by other species would elicit similar behavioural responses as the music of one's own species. This experiment involved two separate categories of music - one was affiliation-based, the other was fear/threat-based music. Within the two categories, the experimenter varied whether the music was produced by humans or tamarins. During the experiment, a baseline behaviour measurement was established, proceeded by the experimental condition, which was a piece of music that was played for 30 seconds. Following this, behaviour was analyzed for a total of five minutes. This analysis was made by an observer who was unaware of the true hypothesis of the experiment, and simply noted different behaviours which they had witnessed. The experimenters found that the tamarins altered their behaviour specifically when listening to tamarin music. For example, when music from the affiliation condition was played, the behavioural response of the tamarins involved a decrease in overall movement and an increase in both social and foraging behaviour. This contrasted the behaviour observed when the fear/threat based music was played. During this condition, the tamarins were more likely to move around and show anxiety-based behaviour, as well as, an increase in social behaviour similar to that seen in the affiliation condition. Although the tamarins did not show behavioural changes to human music as clearly as they did to their species-specific music, there was some behavioural change. The tamarins showed decreased movement when listening to human fear/threat based music and a decrease in anxious behaviour when listening to human affiliation music.Humpback whales are capable of the production of complex songs. These songs are amongst some of the longest measured in animals. Only male humpback whales perform these vocalizations; it was initially hypothesized that these songs may be a part of the sexual selection process. This point however, is unclear. It has been found that males only began their song after joining a group where pairs of mother and calf were present. Although the reason behind this behaviour is uncertain, some have hypothesized that the songs produced by male humpback whales may be a part of escorting, or accompanying females. Singing can be a costly behaviour, because it can lead to more attention being drawn. In the humpback whales' situation, their singing can attract other competing males. Yet, the singing behaviour continues and therefore, it is assumed that the songs are critical to the courtship behaviour of the humpback whales.