BBC_Earth_UK_-_January_2017

Animals and music

Pet sounds

Human music has borrowed liberally from the animal

kingdom over the years, consciously and otherwise: from

cuckoo-impersonating classical composers such as

Beethoven; to the rainforest-sampling jungle music producers

of the ’90s; to today’s dance music programmers, who use

electronic instruments to replicate organically occurring

sounds. Our canon is rich with nature-inspired devices, yet

there’s still so much to learn, says Sawhney.

‘For example, I had no idea of the huge range of pitch whales

can hear across – anything from 10Hz to

24kHz,’ he says. ‘That’s four octaves above

the human range, which is astonishing.

I also didn’t know that chimps feel

uncomfortable around dissonance

[clashing notes] in much the same way

that we do. That blew me away, actually.

Because the second we realise animals

can have the same emotional

response as us, it changes our idea of

what music is, what it can do.’

The programme’s findings indicate

that animals need motivation to interact

with our music. But is there evidence

that animal calls and songs can be a

spontaneous, emotive activity, rather

than the purely practical, biological

imperative that Darwin identified? Not

yet, says Professor Aniruddh Patel, author

of the book Music, Language and the

Brain. But what is clear is that different

animals appear to require equally

different kinds of motivation.

‘Some parrots, like Snowball, will dance enthusiastically

• if sporadically – to music as long as there are humans
  present, which suggests his motivation is largely social,’ says
  Professor Patel. ‘His dancing doesn’t require any food reward,
  and emerged spontaneously through interactions with
  humans. Other animals, like Ronan the seal, learned
  this behaviour through a long process of formal training
  and will only do it for a food reward.’
  In an age when global habitats and ecosystems are
  increasingly at risk from pollution, deforestation and global
  warming, the study of musical neuroscience in the wild
  promises to serve a holistic, mutually rewarding purpose. And
  as Packham points out: ‘Ultimately, anything that allows us
  to focus on what animals are saying to one another, perhaps
  even saying to us, has to be a wonderful thing.’

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Gorillas make up food songs
while they eat. Ali Vella-Irving
of Toronto zoo says: ‘Each
gorilla has its own voice.
And if it’s their favourite
food, they sing louder.’
Adult male nightingales can
out-sing younger rivals with a
200-strong repertoire of faster
and more complex songs.
Animals like consonance
(harmonious sounds) and
dislike dissonance (clashing
notes) in much the same way
we do – proving we’re more
alike than previously thought.

Did you

know?

City birds have upped the

volume of their songs over the

past few decades to compete

with noise pollution

The City of Birmingham

Symphony orchestra

performed an

animal-friendly piece

for the programme

Words: Charlotte Richardson. Photographs: iStock, Alamy, Quickfire Media.

The Animal Symphony

is available via Sky on demand