Nature's Composers

Eric Orr
The wood thrush sings in a diatonic scale, a scale of eight notes, or an octave.

To most of us, bird songs are a welcome harbinger of spring. It’s hard not to appreciate their lively melodies after months of cold dead winter. The complexity and diversity of birdsong have inspired countless musicians throughout history. The musical patterns of birds not only have influenced songwriters, but birds have actually written some of the tunes that show up in our music.

In 1787, Mozart published his divertimento for sextet K. 522, which was nicknamed A Musical Joke for its untraditionally awkward structure. Various instruments are played in different keys simultaneously, and the work seems to wander aimlessly before ending abruptly. Some critics of Mozart’s day believed that the piece was a parody aimed at unskilled composers. The late Luis Baptista, former chairman and curator of ornithology for the California Academy of Sciences, thought Mozart drew inspiration for the piece primarily from his pet starling. When his cherished bird passed, Mozart held a ceremonious funeral which included hymns and poetry. Eight days later he composed the divertimento.

The song bird owes his song to a unique two-part organ called the syrinx. Each half of the syrinx is independently controlled, so a bird can harmonize with himself or even sing two songs at the same time. Starlings are masters at mimicking other birds and have been known to imitate two species simultaneously. Baptista thought Mozart was imitating his starling by mixing up keys in his composition.

Almost everyone is familiar with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, but only a birder would recognize it as the song of the white-breasted wood wren. His Sixth Symphony incorporates the music of a quail, a yellowhammer, and a cuckoo, which may be the most common birdsong in Western music. Vivaldi makes use of the flute to render a goldfinch’s tune in “I1 gardellino.”

Czech composer Antonin Dvorak kept wood thrushes in his house and often included birdsong in his work. He was fascinated by the brilliance and intensity of avian music. In the opening theme of American Quartet, a violin chirps a melody that was written by a scarlet tanager.

Another classical composer, Oliver Messiaen, took a deep interest birdsong as a child. As an adult Messiaen sought the help of ornithologists to learn everything he could about avian music. He would often walk through the woods making elaborate notes or recordings of every bird song he heard. He even traveled from his home in France to other countries like Japan and the United States in search of birdsong. Messiaen would later transpose the melodies into orchestral form. Everything he wrote from 1955 until his death in 1992 contained pieces of birdsong.

The use of birdsong is not limited to classical music. Central American Indians based many of their folk songs on the melodies of the cenzontle, a very vocal bird native to their region.

Why are we so drawn to birdsong as to create our own art from it? Baptista suggested that it may be the similarities we find in our own musical technique and tradition. The wood thrush, for instance, sings in a diatonic scale, a scale composed of eight notes, or an octave. It’s the same foundation that most western music is built on. The hermit thrush’s music is based on the pentatonic scale, the same scale used in East Asian and Native American music.

But transposing birdsong into man’s music is like taking a snapshot of a river. Birdsong is more related to traditional mythology or storytelling than it is to western music. Just as folklore constantly evolves, so do the musical patterns of birds. Their songs are modified and manipulated by the same influences that change the stories we tell each other. Birds pass down songs from parent to child. Unrelated adults teach the young to sing. And young birds learn from their peers. As the song is passed from bird to bird, it undergoes continual modification. For this reason their vocal patterns are regionally specific. A Georgia robin, for example, has a different “dialect” than that of a Montana robin. Like an American child who grows up in France, a bird may even take on the language of other species. Some birds sing each other’s songs when competing for territory. The Lawrence’s thrush from South America imitates up to 173 other birds, as well as frogs and insects. In one instance a juvenile bullfinch was raised with a canary and learned the canary’s song. Once the bullfinch bred, his son learned the same song.

Birdsong patterns also fluctuate according to context. When blackbirds sing to each other they leave noticeable gaps in their song—space for other blackbirds to fill by finishing phrases or adding new notes. The song varies as circumstances change. Sometimes they throw in borrowed bits of other birds’ songs. It’s an informal jam session where one musician takes the lead and another builds on it. Just like people, birds seem to savor variation and novelty interspersed with repetition. Baptista made the point that humans and birds share the propensity to “tune monotony out.” Birdsong is based on themes. The song may be basically the same each time it is sung, but the musician usually alters it a little.

Not all birdsongs evolve so quickly, though. Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D, Opus 61 incorporates a birdsong that was first identified as that of a blackbird in 1953. It was again identified 30 years later, indicating that through hundreds of years of musical evolution, that particular song has remained fairly static.

It seems natural that we would identify with the music of birds and that we would borrow from it and incorporate it in our own composition. And given the tendency of birds to mimic other birds, it seems natural that they might be influenced by our sounds. The townspeople of the German village Baden-Würtenberg used to teach bullfinches to sing folk songs, and starlings have been known to imitate the sound of train whistles.

Not all birds sing, though. Some birds communicate through the use of short monotonic calls, which ornithologists say are inherited. Most ornithologists also agree that birdsong is meant for communication. Their songs usually serve to stake claims on territory, attract mates, or warn other birds of danger. Studies have indicated that female starlings are more attracted to males who sing longer and more intricate songs. Singing is such an important mating ritual that the sound of traffic has seriously threatened the breeding habits of some birds.

Although it’s obvious that birds use music like we use language, not everyone agrees they sing just for the sake of song. Eugene Morton, ornithologist at the Smithsonian Institution, doesn’t think so. He believes that we anthropomorphize birds by assuming they enjoy singing. To compare birdsong with our music, he says, is to see the world the way “humans want to perceive it.” He goes on to say that what separates bird music from human music is the fact that their song is simply a form of long distance communication. According to Morton’s theory, it saves them from having to fly across town for a conversation, a sort of avian telephone. “Human music isn’t particularly distance related.”

I’m not sure how Morton could get into a bird’s brain to make the determination, and I’m really not sure what distance relation has to do with the nature of music, human or bird. It seems to me that to undeniably rule out the possibility that birds might take pleasure in singing is just as presumptuous as anthropomorphizing them. I suppose I’ll never know for sure, but I’d like to think something as beautifully intricate as birdsong pleases the artist as much as the listener.