The Origins of Music: Preface - Preface

Particular selections and sequences are passed as learned traditions from

generation to generation.Constituent notes are all drawn from a simple

specieswide repertoire of six note types,each with a range of within-type

variants (figure 3.3).With the right combination drawn from this species-

wide note-type set,one can describe any natural swamp sparrow song,

just as one can describe the speech patterns of any language with the

right combination of phonemes and syllables drawn from the universal

set to which all humans have potential access.But whereas different

words have different symbolic meanings,different swamp sparrow songs

all carry the same basic message,modulated only by whatever nuances

are conveyed by individual differences,local dialects,variations in loud-

ness,and completeness of the song pattern.

The swamp sparrow is a simple case.For others,such as the familiar

call of the chickadee (Hailman and Ficken 1987;Hailman,Ficken,and

38 Peter Marler

Figure 3.3

Sound spectrograms of songs of the swamp sparrow.Songs are composed of six basic sound

categories (bottom),each with some degree of within-category variation.Rules for assem-

bling note types into song syllables vary locally,as shown in the samples for New York and

Minnesota birds (top).Note types,which recur in similar proportions in different popula-

tions (middle boxes),can be combined into many different patterns,with up to six notes

per syllable.This is a clear case of phonocoding.(From Marler and Pickert 1984.)

Fig.3.3

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