Re: Animals and music (Leon van Noorden )


Subject: Re: Animals and music
From:    Leon van Noorden  <leonvannoorden(at)CHELLO.BE>
Date:    Wed, 2 Mar 2005 21:11:26 +0100

Brian, If you want a CD of how animals make music together with humans: "Life with the Birds" of the Maciunas Ensemble and Kanary Grand Band, 1997 Maciunas Ensemble and Het Appolohuis, Eindhoven -----Message d'origine----- De : AUDITORY Research in Auditory Perception [mailto:AUDITORY(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA] De la part de Brian Gygi Envoyé : woensdag 2 maart 2005 20:22 À : AUDITORY(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA Objet : Animals and music At 12:19 PM 3/1/2005, Philip Dorrell wrote: >Even if there is some set of sounds which some species of animal is >capable of responding to in the same way that we humans respond to the >set of sounds that we call music, it may not be the same set of sounds. >In other words, "animal music" may be different from human music, and if >so, it will be different for each species of animal. Furthermore, human >music is distinct from normal human communication sounds (i.e. speech >and a few other things), so animal music is also likely to be distinct >from normal animal communication sounds. Finally, human music is very >difficult even for humans to compose, so we might suppose that animal >music is difficult to compose, and, non-human animals being generally >less talented in intellectual fields than humans, it is entirely >possible that no animal has ever composed a single item of animal music. One of the best definitions of music I heard was from the guitarist Robert Fripp, who said "Music is quality organized in sound." By that he meant that music is sound manipulated to have an aesthetic effect. So, it is not "difficult to compose" music, it is just difficult to compose music that hasn't been done before and better. As for animal music, if we believe Kierkegaard that we couldn't understand a lion even if he was talking, since we have no idea what they would consider aesthetic, why would we be able to recognize animal music even if we heard it? And where could we buy their CDs?


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