Zoomusicology
Encyclopedia
Zoomusicology is a field of musicology
and zoology
or more specifically, zoosemiotics
. Zoomusicology is the study of the music
of animal
s, or rather the musical aspects of sound
or communication
produced and received by animals.
Zoomusicology may be distinguished from ethnomusicology
, the study of human music. Zoomusicology is most often biomusicological
, and biomusicology is often zoomusicological.
and animal psychology, experimenting with horses, birds and reptiles. Through to the 19th century, a majority of scholars in the Western world continued to believe that music was a distinctly human phenomenon, but experiments since then have vindicated Ibn al-Haytham's view that music does indeed have an effect on animals.
Zoomusicologist Dario Martinelli
describes the subject of zoomusicology as the "aesthetic use of sound communication among animals." George Herzog (1941) asked, "do animals have music?" François-Bernard Mâche
's Musique, mythe, nature, ou les Dauphins d'Arion (1983), includes a study of "ornitho-musicology" using a technique of Nicolas Ruwet
's Langage, musique, poésie (1972), paradigmatic segmentation analysis
, shows that bird song
s are organized according to a repetition
-transformation
principle. One purpose of the book was to "begin to speak of animal musics other than with the quotation marks", and he is credited by Dario Martinelli with the creation of zoomusicology.
, "in the last analysis, it is a human being who decides what is and is not musical, even when the sound is not of human origin. If we acknowledge that sound is not organized and conceptualized (that is, made to form music) merely by its producer, but by the mind that perceives it, then music is uniquely human." According to Mâche, "If it turns out that music is a wide spread phenomenon in several living species apart from man, this will very much call into question the definition of music, and more widely that of man and his culture, as well as the idea we have of the animal itself."
composes music for dolphins according to conventions found in dolphin music or found to please dolphins in his Music for Dolphins (Ultrasonic Improvisational Composition) for underwater ultrasonic loudspeakers (2001
).
Composers have evoked or imitated animal sounds in compositions including Jean-Philippe Rameau
's The Hen (1728), Camille Saint-Saëns
's Carnival of the Animals (1886), Olivier Messiaen
's Catalogue of the Birds (1956-58) and Pauline Oliveros
's El Relicario de los Animales (1977). Other examples include Alan Hovhaness
's And God Created Great Whales (1970), George Crumb
's Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) (1971) and Gabriel Pareyon
's Invention over the song of the Vireo atriccapillus (1999) and Kha Pijpichtli Kuikatl (2003).
The icaros (sacred healing songs and chants) sung by ayahuasca
healers, or shamanic practitioners, among Amazonian
tribes are evocative of many of the sounds of birds, animals and insects of the jungle.
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
and zoology
Zoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
or more specifically, zoosemiotics
Animal communication
Animal communication is any behavior on the part of one animal that has an effect on the current or future behaviour of another animal. The study of animal communication, is sometimes called Zoosemiotics has played an important part in the...
. Zoomusicology is the study of the music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
of animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
s, or rather the musical aspects of sound
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...
or communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
produced and received by animals.
Zoomusicology may be distinguished from ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...
, the study of human music. Zoomusicology is most often biomusicological
Biomusicology
Biomusicology is the study of music from a biological point of view. The term was coined by Nils L. Wallin in 1991. Music is an aspect of the behaviour of the human and possibly other species...
, and biomusicology is often zoomusicological.
Background
Ibn al-Haytham's Treatise on the Influence of Melodies on the Souls of Animals in the 11th century was the earliest treatise dealing with the effects of music on animals. In the treatise, he demonstrates how a camel's pace could be hastened or retarded with the use of music, and shows other examples of how music can affect animal behaviourEthology
Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior, and a sub-topic of zoology....
and animal psychology, experimenting with horses, birds and reptiles. Through to the 19th century, a majority of scholars in the Western world continued to believe that music was a distinctly human phenomenon, but experiments since then have vindicated Ibn al-Haytham's view that music does indeed have an effect on animals.
Zoomusicologist Dario Martinelli
Dario Martinelli
Dario Martinelli is an Italian musicologist, semiotician and composer.He is Adjunct Professor of Musicology and Semiotics at Helsinki University and until 2007 Guest-Professor at the Finnish Network University of Semiotics....
describes the subject of zoomusicology as the "aesthetic use of sound communication among animals." George Herzog (1941) asked, "do animals have music?" François-Bernard Mâche
François-Bernard Mâche
François-Bernard Mâche is a French composer of contemporary music. Born into a family of musicians, he is a former student of Émile Passani and Olivier Messiaen and has also received a diploma in Greek archaeology and a teaching certificate...
's Musique, mythe, nature, ou les Dauphins d'Arion (1983), includes a study of "ornitho-musicology" using a technique of Nicolas Ruwet
Nicolas Ruwet
Nicolas Ruwet was a linguist, literary critic and musical analyst. He was involved with the development of generative grammar.Ruwet was born in Saive in Belgium and studied philology in Liège...
's Langage, musique, poésie (1972), paradigmatic segmentation analysis
Paradigmatic analysis
Paradigmatic analysis is the analysis of paradigms embedded in the text rather than of the surface structure of the text which is termed syntagmatic analysis. Paradigmatic analysis often uses commutation tests, i.e...
, shows that bird song
Bird song
Bird vocalization includes both bird calls and bird songs. In non-technical use, bird songs are the bird sounds that are melodious to the human ear. In ornithology and birding, songs are distinguished by function from calls.-Definition:The distinction between songs and calls is based upon...
s are organized according to a repetition
Repetition (music)
Repetition is important in music, where sounds or sequences are often repeated. One often stated idea is that repetition should be in balance with the initial statements and variations in a piece. It may be called restatement, such as the restatement of a theme...
-transformation
Transformation (music)
In music, a transformation consists of any operation or process that may apply to a musical variable in composition, performance, or analysis. Transformations include multiplication, rotation, permutation In music, a transformation consists of any operation or process that may apply to a musical...
principle. One purpose of the book was to "begin to speak of animal musics other than with the quotation marks", and he is credited by Dario Martinelli with the creation of zoomusicology.
Animal music
In the opinion of Jean-Jacques NattiezJean-Jacques Nattiez
Jean-Jacques Nattiez, CM, CQ, FRSC is a musical semiologist or semiotician and professor of Musicology at the Université de Montréal...
, "in the last analysis, it is a human being who decides what is and is not musical, even when the sound is not of human origin. If we acknowledge that sound is not organized and conceptualized (that is, made to form music) merely by its producer, but by the mind that perceives it, then music is uniquely human." According to Mâche, "If it turns out that music is a wide spread phenomenon in several living species apart from man, this will very much call into question the definition of music, and more widely that of man and his culture, as well as the idea we have of the animal itself."
In music
Shinji KankiShinji Kanki
Shinji Kanki is a composer who has composed music for dolphins according to conventions found in dolphin music or found to please dolphins in his Music for Dolphins for underwater ultrasonic loudspeakers ....
composes music for dolphins according to conventions found in dolphin music or found to please dolphins in his Music for Dolphins (Ultrasonic Improvisational Composition) for underwater ultrasonic loudspeakers (2001
2001 in music
See also:* 2001 in music Record labels established in 2001-Events:*January 1**Comeback of Guns N' Roses in House of Blues**Hum disbands.*January 17 – Bass player Jason Newsted leaves Metallica after 14 years with the band....
).
Composers have evoked or imitated animal sounds in compositions including Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
's The Hen (1728), Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
's Carnival of the Animals (1886), Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
's Catalogue of the Birds (1956-58) and Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....
's El Relicario de los Animales (1977). Other examples include Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness was an Armenian-American composer.His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation...
's And God Created Great Whales (1970), George Crumb
George Crumb
George Crumb is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. Examples include seagull effect for the cello , metallic vibrato for the piano George Crumb (born...
's Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) (1971) and Gabriel Pareyon
Gabriel Pareyon
Gabriel Pareyon is a polymathic Mexican composer and musicologist, who has published literature on topics of philosophy and linguistics....
's Invention over the song of the Vireo atriccapillus (1999) and Kha Pijpichtli Kuikatl (2003).
The icaros (sacred healing songs and chants) sung by ayahuasca
Ayahuasca
Ayahuasca is any of various psychoactive infusions or decoctions prepared from the Banisteriopsis spp. vine, usually mixed with the leaves of dimethyltryptamine-containing species of shrubs from the Psychotria genus...
healers, or shamanic practitioners, among Amazonian
Amazon Basin
The Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...
tribes are evocative of many of the sounds of birds, animals and insects of the jungle.
See also
- BioacousticsBioacousticsBioacoustics is a cross-disciplinary science that combines biology and acoustics. Usually it refers to the investigation of sound production, dispersion through elastic media, and reception in animals, including humans. This involves neurophysiological and anatomical basis of sound production and...
- BiomusicBiomusicBiomusic is a form of experimental music which deals with sounds created or performed by non-humans. The definition is also sometimes extended to included sounds made by humans in a directly biological way...
- BiophonyBiophonyBiophony is the collective sound vocal non-human animals create in each given environment. The term, which refers to one of three components of the soundscape , was coined by Dr. Bernie Krause...
- Bird songBird songBird vocalization includes both bird calls and bird songs. In non-technical use, bird songs are the bird sounds that are melodious to the human ear. In ornithology and birding, songs are distinguished by function from calls.-Definition:The distinction between songs and calls is based upon...
- Animal echolocationAnimal echolocationEcholocation, also called biosonar, is the biological sonar used by several kinds of animals.Echolocating animals emit calls out to the environment and listen to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. They use these echoes to locate and identify the objects...
- Vocal learningVocal learningVocal learning is the ability of animals to modify vocal signals in form as a result of experience with those of other individuals. This can lead to signals that are either similar or dissimilar to the model...
- Whale songWhale songWhale sounds are the sounds made by whales and which are used for different kinds of communication.The word "song" is used to describe the pattern of regular and predictable sounds made by some species of whales, notably the Humpback Whale...