Musical appeal
(or how to be a hip humpback whale)
Musical appeal (or how to be a hip humpback whale)WE THE CURIOUS vo.2 no.11
What is it about music? “It’s rousing, it’s calming, it’s thrillingit’s endlesslyfascinating,” says David Attenborough in his documentary
The Song of the Earth:a natural history of music
. Every human culture has music. That is, we all makesounds with the following characteristics: notes that are put together to formmusical phrases; phrases that connect to make melodies; melodies that becomethemes and that can then evolve through variation. But why should musicthiscollection of patterned soundsso readily tap into our emotions?In search of the answer, Attenborough traveled to Samana Bay in the DominicanRepublic. There, in a motorboat with acoustic biologist Katy Payne, he lowered amicrophone into the water and listened to music. They listened to the otherworldlysong of the humpback whale. On this personal journey, Attenborough was lookingfor “the connection between the sounds we make and the apparently musicalsounds that some animals make. Is there, in fact,” he wondered, “a trail of clues, if only we could unearth it, that leads from, say, a humpback whale to JimmyHendrix, from the songs of birds to the cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach?” For, if we could trace the origins of music deep into our own evolutionary history, thenperhaps we could begin to understand the power of music. As Attenboroughhimself muses, “So rather than just being a cultural phenomenon, is music part of our fundamental human nature with, perhaps, some of the same biologicalfunctions as choruses and cries and songs have for some animals that make them?”Though the whale vocalizations coming through the microphone were hauntinglystrange, they were also assuredly musical, as Attenborough soon learned fromPayne. “All the whales in the bay sing the same song made up of five or so themessung in strict sequence,” Attenborough narrates as they continue to listen. “A
whale may repeat each theme as many times as he likes, but then he must alwaysmove onto the next one in the cycle. You could write similar rules for the structureof a symphony or a jazz improvisation.”“Now is this just one whale?” Attenborough asks Payne.“Yes, you can tell by the rhythm,” she says, drawing her hand in an arc. “All onelong phrase.” The song continues. “Heard that before?” she asks with a knowingsmile. “Now we are in a long, long theme. Let’s see if it repeats.”The whales come to the warm waters of Samana Bay each year to bear their calvesand take care of them in the first months, also to breed again and to sing. Themales are the singers and their complex songs, composed of the five repeatingthemes, can last half an hour. A singer, though, says Payne, “might cycle aroundwhen he gets to the ‘end’my wordbegin again, for as much as 24 hours.”Over the course of her research, Katy Payne has listened to 32 years worth of whale songs and, in that long process, she has discovered a level of musicality thatscientists spending just a few seasons in the fieldand certainly the casual listenerlike Attenboroughwould not have suspected. For, as Attenborough explains, “thesong’s most musical quality only emerges if, like Katy, you listen over the yearsbecause slowly in a logical, musical way whale song evolves.”“Let me sing you an example,” Payne offers. And she proceeds to give aremarkable imitation of a whale song:“Ooo [low pitch], ooo [high pitch], vibrating grumble, grunt, grunt.”
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Musical appeal (or how to be a hip humpback whale) | WE THE CURIOUS vo.2 no.11
Attracting females with musical innovation--humpback whales aren't the only animals who do it.
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