|
Animal Music
Thai Elephant Orchestra
(with its own devoted webpage: go
here)
Zebra
finches
Marsh Fugue
Music with zebra
finches
Songbirds sing for pleasure among other reasons: will
they play musical instruments too?
At least for the zebra finch, I found that songbirds
will play instruments if they are provided with an
ergonomic means to trigger and if they like the sound -
they like brass instruments and hate distorted rock
guitar. This system uses triggers on levers they peck
with their beaks. They will play hundreds of times a
day: there was no training or other reward than hearing
the music. These birds were caged, and would sometimes
play intensively for hours and then take breaks for
hours before going back to it.
playing
brass samples
big
band samples
gamelan
samples
I suspect somesongbirds will play instruments in the
wild, if the instruments were very simple for them, such
as landing on rope triggers. Hard to try where I live
except with English sparrows, but possible for someone
living in the country....
Pygmy chipmanzees
The late physicist and neuroscientist Gordon Shaw and I
began to coach pygmy chimps at the San Diego Zoo to play
simple instruments: this was in part the idea of
"enriching" their lives in the zoo environment. We
didn't have a chance to record what they played, which
was mostly waving handbells. The matriarch, Lana, loved
listening to me playing for her and curled up on my leg
for more than an hour, but I think that was for social
reasons, not simply for the sound.
Gordon passed away after a short illness in April,
2005. He was the promulgator of "the Mozart effect",
which uses music to help children with abstract
thinking, and his MIND Institute continues their
teaching program.
Marsh
Fugue (2004)
Recordings of crickets, fish, frogs, and nightbirds from
Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi I arranged in a
fugue structure, emulating a night walk in the swamp. I
used to live in a swamp outside of Gainesville, Florida
with an enormous alligator in the backyard (and three
legged dog).
Fruit Flies on Love and Drugs
Recordings o fthe common fruit fly Drosophla
melanogaster, courtesy of the neuroscientist Jay Hirsh
at the University of Viriginia
Fruit
fly courtship song
Fruit
flies on crack cocaine (aerated in their jar)
|
