WEBVTT - The First Songs 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.520 From how Stuff Works dot com. This is the stuff 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:11.399 of Life. Welcome to the Stuff of Life. I'm your host, 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:19.600 Julie Douglas. Imagine yourself as a newly hatched cicada, living 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:23.360 deep in the soil and the vast crisscrossing tree roots. 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.239 You drain the network of tree sap until you become 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:28.880 plumper and plumper, and each year that passes, there's a 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.280 mounting sense that one day the temperature will be just 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.320 so and you will know it's time to dig your 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:39.160 way to the surface. For seventeen years, you toil under 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.400 the earth for one reason, and one reason only, to 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:45.319 come to the surface and mate to find the one 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.960 who will respond to your finely tuned notes, the one 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:51.720 who will make her way through a thicket of a 0:00:51.840 --> 0:01:06.720 thousand other songs to you and only you. In this episode, 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:09.320 we turned to nature, to the songs that are all 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:12.800 around us. We take a trip to Bernbank Museum in Atlanta, 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:16.440 Georgia for the exhibit Wild Music, and we eavesdrop on 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:22.440 humans in animals in communication. The High Elephant Orchestra to 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:26.520 me is a perfect example of non music being built 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:32.600 as music, and we talked to John P. S Waddle 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:37.560 about his study on the Eastern bluebirds, birdsong increasingly smothered 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:41.520 by noise pollution. I try to see the world as 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.560 much as I can through the senses of the animals 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.600 that I study, and that's largely birds. So I think about, well, 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:50.960 how are the birds being affected by this at this time? 0:01:51.720 --> 0:02:04.280 But first human bird song? That's rus song from the 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.200 movie The Hunger Games, a four note tune, at times 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.840 signaling goodbye to loved ones and at others showing support 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:15.440 for the revolution. But this is a fictional whistle. On 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.440 the coast of Turkey, in the small mountain village of Kaskoy, 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.600 people use bird like whistles to communicate across steep hills. 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.079 The following whistle conversation is addressed to a man named 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:28.440 yak Up, and it's about how his tea is ready 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:36.160 and his sister will be home soon. He replies that 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:42.600 he's cutting hay and will be there in a moment. Amazingly, 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:47.200 these whistles, sprinkled among similar sounding bird calls, allow for 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:52.880 nuanced information to be transmitted. It's pure bio mimicry. Humans 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:57.640 impersonating nature, and while we move further and further away 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.240 from nature as a model to emulate. We can find 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:06.000 its auditory influence everywhere, even in horror movies. Daniel Bloomstein, 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.239 an expert in animal distress calls, made this connection in 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:13.680 his study, finding that nonlinear sounds like the blown out 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:18.680 vocalizations of an animal scream elicit a biologically ingreamed response 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.840 to them from us, and that horror movies often weave 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:30.639 animal screams into their soundtracks. That's the distress call of 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.239 the baby marmoset a large ground squirrel. It shares a 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:43.360 similarity with an iconic moment in a certain movie. These 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.640 are manic pieces of noise, effective tools for manipulating our 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.840 fear at a primal level. Raising the hackles of our 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:56.960 alarm systems that were deeply rooted symbolically and otherwise with 0:03:57.040 --> 0:03:59.920 the sounds of nature. Is also evident in the exhibit 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:07.160 Wild Music at firm Bank Museum. When you enter the 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.440 Wild Music exhibit, you're met with a siren call from 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:18.000 the ocean. That's the mink at whale. We used to 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.280 think of the ocean as containing vast silence, but underwater 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:28.679 microphones called hydrophones have revealed a world of sound, snapping shrimp, farting, fish, 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:41.360 underwater earthquakes, and of course other worldly whale songs. But 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:44.080 that we identify these tones as songs in the first 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:48.039 place is a thorny issue, as the exhibit explores through 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.720 three different perspectives. The first is from Steve Nowiki, the 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.000 dean of Natural Sciences at Duke University and a longtime 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.560 student of bird song. I think the question what is 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.840 music is something that we all have to answer for ourselves, 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.520 because the word music is referring to an aesthetic ideal. 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:11.640 Some of us might define that quite narrowly. If we 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.599 were interested only in, say, classical music, then we'd throw 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:20.000 out Stravinsky and and certainly John Cage modern rap in 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.720 a whole bunch of other popular music. Others of us 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.760 would define music is anything that triggers our own personal 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.680 aesthetic response. I listen to bird songs a lot, and 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:35.880 I consider that a kind of natural music, or a 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.240 wild music. I'm willing to put the word wild or 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.159 natural in front of that, because I understand that musicians 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:45.640 would maybe take exception to broadening it that much. But 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:51.440 when I'm out in a marsh at dawn and the 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:55.320 sun is just rising, the world around me is filled 0:05:55.400 --> 0:06:04.760 with a symphony of sounds, and that marsh Nowiki is 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:09.760 picking out a melody, and in that melody emotion, it 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:16.279 all comes together for me in a very esthetically overwhelming package, 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:20.920 and I consider that a kind of natural music. It 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.840 gives me a kind of emotional response that is in 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.040 the same vein as the response I might get from 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:40.200 listening to Beethoven's Ode for Joy. Nowiki also points out 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.320 that while most people would consider bird song as musical, 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.159 not all would say that it is actually music. Something 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:51.880 musicologist Elizabeth Tolbert of Johns Hopkins University isolates in the 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:56.800 Thai Elephant Orchestra on the elephants, if I had been 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:00.360 trained to play, I guess or at least make sounds 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:05.080 with Thai traditional instruments. And when you hear it not 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:09.880 knowing that it's elephants making the music, it sounds one way. 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.360 And when you hear it knowing that it is elephants 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.840 making this music, it sounds another way. And I think 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.440 that when you hear it within the expectation of it 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.120 being music, in a way, it is music at that 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.480 point because a human has recorded it and presented it 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.680 as music. But if you think of it in terms 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.320 of what the elephants are trying to do. It's not 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.600 music in that sense, And I think this shows you 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.560 how impossible it is to hear a sound. Just as 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:41.800 pure sound, there's always some sort of interpretation going on 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:48.720 in the background. Tuna McIntyre, a Central Yupick Eskimo artist, 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.240 echoes this idea that it comes down to us as 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:58.280 the interpreters. Music is a search. In my estimation, what 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:00.800 we're trying to say is it's a search for emotion. 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:06.160 That's why from ancient times we call it yokun. The 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:11.000 reason for looking or searching a duck is the act 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:18.400 of singing. It essentially means you dawn on your search 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.880 your music. You put it on, almost like a piece 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:26.800 of clothing. So do animals truly make music? For Tolbert, 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:31.360 it's not likely these sounds can be interpreted as if 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.480 they were made by people or made by some kind 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:39.800 of supernatural beings that have human like intentions and thoughts. 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.719 But we shouldn't attribute that kind of thought process to 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:46.679 a bird that is making these sounds. But for McIntyre, 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:50.160 animal song and our interpretation of it are one and 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:55.080 the same. Well, take the raven. The raven is one 0:08:55.160 --> 0:09:00.640 of our most important birds in our ancient and even 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:06.640 today's mythology, and we sing his songs, songs that are 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:12.080 born of him. We vocalize and we sing some other 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:19.160 humans and understand what he's singing about. Chicken dah, a 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:25.199 chicken dah, A chicken kicking chick. That's one of those 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.800 little diddies that we sing of the raven when he's 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:33.040 jumping about and you know, just being sure of himself 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:38.080 and picking little leaves or grass from the ground. When 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:46.280 animals sing, they aspire through our abilities to interpret music, song, 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:51.200 or dance. In essence, they sing through us. We become 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:57.000 the interpreters. We become the vehicle of these aspirations for 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:00.319 the animal kingdom. It's almost like we're doing this in 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:05.480 concert together, and after all, we all exist in the 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:19.439 universe together. It's impossible to know if animals have the 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:22.480 same kind of search for emotional meaning and song that 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.120 we do, but it is possible to demonstrate that they 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:30.600 have a very visceral response to these melodies. You can 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:34.760 show that a female birds reproductive system will change when 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.360 she hears a male birds song. It actually stimulates her 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:42.440 reproductive system, It changes her hormonal profile and will lead 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.760 her to become more likely to build a nest and 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.560 lay eggs and so forth. You can show that um, 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:52.560 a male song sparrow, for example, that here's another song, 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:55.520 Sparrow's song, well within a few minutes have a higher 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:59.559 level of testosterone in its bloodstream and will become correspondingly 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:10.640 more agressive. So those are different kinds of responses than 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.240 the responses that I would feel, say, to a Beethoven symphony, 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:16.599 I mean, I hope my testosterone level doesn't rise in 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:23.959 response to, say, arousing the scared. So these discussions about 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.320 music and animals and the way we view the matter 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:31.319 because behind these songs are warnings, invitations, the buzzing of life. 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.120 But this buzzing, this background to our city parks, are 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:40.640 streets in our backyards is changing. We're seeing extinctions accelerate 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.280 at a very rapid pace, and geologists telling us that 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.360 the rate of extinction currently is perhaps even outside the 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:51.400 rate of any mass extinction event the planets ever experienced. 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:53.839 What people are going to experience in terms of their 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:58.319 own sort of connections with nature are going to be 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:01.720 fundamentally different than when I was a That's John Peace Waddle, 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:04.040 a professor at the College of William and Mary, a 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.560 biologist who studies bird communication. I was one of those 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.280 kids who, from a very young age actually knew what 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.960 they wanted to do. Even as a six seven eight 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.800 year old, I was fascinated by animals. On his way 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:20.240 to elementary school, Swallowwood passed by the house of Sir 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.800 David Attenborough. He was one of my heroes just from 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.360 a very young age, and I grew up watching his 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.520 programs all the time, and I just became fascinated by 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:34.079 what animals do. To persuade females that come close and 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.160 admire his poos, he sings the most complex song he 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.600 can manage, and he does that by copying the songs 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.400 of all the other birds he has around him, such 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:47.679 as the Kukamara. Birds aren't just sensitive to the noises 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.160 around them, but to the changing conditions as well, so 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:53.880 much so that we have the term canary in a 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.280 coal mine to describe their ability to suss out danger 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:00.880 before humans do. Birds are certainly sent an alls for 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:05.200 a lot of ecological change because birds are very dynamic 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.079 within a lot of ecosystems. They are both prey and 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.360 predators within a lot of ecosystems, and so if something 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:16.360 happens within that environment, birds are often a fairly sensitive 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:20.120 indicator of something going wrong, and we've seen shifts in 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:24.520 bird populations substantially. Just in the last couple of decades. 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.200 There have been studies about birds altering the way they 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.160 sing a relative to their environment. For instance, birds in 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:36.480 the cities sing differently than birds in the country because 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.959 of background noise. But Swallow and his colleagues wanted to 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.400 know how this was affecting the bird's behaviors, and they 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:47.079 did this by studying eastern bluebirds and exposing them to 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.920 different noise levels. Not only did they find that the 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:55.400 birds could definitely adjust their songs, but in some instances, 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.959 the birds had to shout to be heard. Birds can 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.280 change the way they saying very quickly and very dynamically, 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.679 so really just as humans do. If you've found yourself 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:10.960 in a noisy situation, you start shouting, but as you shout, 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.719 the pitch of your voice also goes up, and that's 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.679 exactly what bluebirds do as well. In the study, the 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:20.680 implications of sound pollution are starkly evident in the noisest 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:24.080 situations among the birds that we studied. The birds who 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.840 were trying to breed in the noises conditions have far 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:28.880 fewer babies than the birds that were breeding in the 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.800 quieter conditions, even though they were changing their songs, so 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.640 that comes at a cost. They're producing fewer babies, and 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.640 so there would be a fitness deficit for living in 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.920 those noisiest conditions. Okay, to bring it down human terms, 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.680 imagine trying to settle down and have a family all 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.920 in one night. Had allowed bar where you're trying to 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.280 shout over the music to make a connection. Well, we 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.320 humans can leave the bar and seek the refuge of 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:02.920 our apartments. Bird habitats are the bar. There's no escaping 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.800 the thumping noise. And it's worth noting that in the study, 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.480 Swaddle in his colleagues weren't even exposing the birds to 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.360 the worst of noise pollution. The noises that we recorded 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.240 here in the context of what the bluebirds had to 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.400 sing over, were nowhere near as loud as construction or 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:23.840 a chainsaw. This is largely road traffic, and you know 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:26.960 a fair distance from the roads to as well. So 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:31.720 this is more akin to say the sound of a 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:35.280 washing machine while you're in the room next door, or 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.200 something like that. It's not a really loud song. Perhaps 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:40.560 it's like the sound that's kind of noise that you 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:42.640 might experience if someone has the TV on and you're 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:46.840 trying to have a conversation. Okay, so the bird population decreases, 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:51.160 what's the harm Because the birds are connected to what 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:55.000 eats them and what they eat, and they also disperse seeds, 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:58.440 it also changes lots of other parts of the ecosystem 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:00.640 as well. To the point of the even changes the 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.800 plants that are in the area, because the birds interact 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.320 with the plants, either by spreading their seeds or by 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.200 eating things that eat the plants, and so on. So 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.400 the effects of noise on conservation biology are really quite 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.240 profound and quite unexpected to most people who just think 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:19.800 it might be a nuisance, But it's really detrimentally affecting 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.800 lots of different types of organisms. Swaddle study, which is 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.520 just a sliver of an example of all the ways 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:32.080 human activity is altering nature, demonstrate something called the cascade effect. 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:36.120 The reduction of one species can have dreadful effects that 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:40.640 spiral out and affect other animals and even the landscape itself. 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.680 These animals and biodiversity is important to us as a society, 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:49.400 and we're actually losing something substantial by losing biodiversity, And 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.040 it's another part of this whole argument about why people 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:55.560 should be more concerned about nature, more connected to nature. 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.440 Nature gave us the first songs, the patterns and melodies 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:10.720 that we replicate in instruments and our own voices. The 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.280 first songs that transcended the limits of a spoken word language, 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:18.560 giving us the ability to communicate powerful emotions immediately, The 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:22.040 first songs that gave people a sense of unity, and 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:24.880 the first songs we used as a basis for our 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:31.040 own ritual and social behaviors, including courtship. The question is 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.840 whether these first songs will persist or whether they'll continue 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:46.280 to recede into the background of our own noise. Thank 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:49.800 you to Firm Bank Museum, which is currently exhibiting Wild Music. 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.240 Wild Music is a production of the Association of Science 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.960 Technology Centers, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and the University 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:00.280 of North Carolina at Greensboro School of Music, with major 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.919 funding from the National Science Foundation and additional support from 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:08.320 the Harmon International and ec Foundation of America. Thank you 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.000 to John Swaddle for talking to us about his work 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.560 with Eastern bluebirds. The Stuff of Life is written and 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:18.040 co produced by me Julie Douglas. Original music and sound 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.560 design is by co producer Noel Brown. Editorial oversight is 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:26.600 provided by Head of production Jerry Rowland. In the next episode, 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.120 which wraps up season one of the Stuff of Life, 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:33.080 we look at how life is just a game, gets 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.280 down to defining who you are, right and like gamification 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:39.480 gives you metrics to help you to define who you are, 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.880 and we like to think that based on merit, that's 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:47.399 how we accelerate and level up. If you like what 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:49.879 we do here, visit us on Facebook and Twitter. In 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:53.960 the meantime, email us your season two episodes. Suggestions at 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.320 The Stuff of Life at how staff works dot com.