Why Birds Sing: A Journey Into the Mystery of Bird Song

by David Rothenberg

Book Overview

The astonishing richness of birdsong is both an aesthetic and a scientific mystery. Evolutionists have never been able to completely explain why birdsong is so inventive and why many species devote so... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 046507135X
• ISBN13: 9780465071357
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.7" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

new territory, smart, wonderful

This book and CD are simply wonderful. Rothenberg is gifted writer and musician. Don't think twice about it. This is also an incredible gift.

This book was awesome!

I loved this book. D.R. has treated this complex subject in a thorough manner and it was a pleasure to read. Sometimes I think that people like to simplify things so that they feel they have an answer, but this fellow is okay with ambiguity and is humble enough to acknowledge that we know a lot less than we think we do about "Why Birds Sing". The breadth of sources he consults and clearly understands and appreciates is amazing. He mentions, "Over the last five years I have read far too much." Thank you. :)

Puts bird song stage center for musicians and all of us

I really enjoyed it. And it is so full of goodies. Best for me is that not since Schafer's Tuning of the World has the whole complex of natural sound and the composer been put back up where it belongs, stage almost center. Mulling over the whole business, I just thought an alternate title might be: "what should humans sing?" And next most useful advice, to paraphrase you: "Take a tip from the Mockingbird." There's enough chock full in both those snippets to keep me creatively scratching my head.

Duetting with the Birds

Rothenberg writes with an easy intimacy, but if one takes him at his word, the intimacy that means most to him comes not by means of words but of music, and less by means of music as such than by an improvisatory exchange between, usually, himself on his clarinet, and someone else on whatever instrument the other person is using. Given this driving urge, it seems inevitable that Rothenberg should want to cross the barrier between those most musical of creatures, the birds, and those with the most productive curiosity, the humans. His own curiosity leads him first to the birds and then to the human experts in birdsong. He gives vivid descriptions of these researchers' extraordinary devotion to their work. I especially enjoyed his description of the ability of the composer Olivier Messiaen to hear, transcribe, and whistle the complex songs of a bird he had never heard before. Although, like a few of the researchers - Donald Kroodsma, for example - Rothenberg believes in the innate pleasure birds take in their song, he checks his intuitive sense of their muisicality by carefully summarizing what is scientifically known about their abilities and ways of life. Yet even though he takes to heart the criticism that the romantics "listened to birds and heard only themselves," he recalls that science, too, is fallible, and he plays on the ornithologists' conclusion that not only is each species of birds unique, but so is every individual bird. "Why Birds Sing" ends in the climactic scene in which Rothenberg and a friend go to Australia to hear, see the dance of, and try to enter into a musical dialogue with the lyrebird named George, the only member, he says, of his elusive, musically gifted species who can stomach the sight and sound of human beings. The bird lights to sing just a few meters from Rothenberg's tape recorder. He hears that the lyrebird's song is composed but alien, in a human sens crazy, music. After he hears a full cycle of the lyrebird's music, he joins in, dancing, not to copy the bird's song, but to play music, in and around the song, that is worthy of the bird's acceptance. The bird seems to respond to the clarinet, dances, and disappears. Rothenberg develops this last, climactic chapter, which he calls "Becoming a Bird," with thoughtful eloquence. He feels he has given his gift and made his human offering to an animal of another singing species. But his gift is also to all of us who read him.

A Must-Have Bird Book

This book is a hoot, a tweet, and a cheerup! David Rothenberg has interwoven a personl journey of playing music with birds with a comprehensive history of bird song studies - from their poetic beginnings to their present scientific analysis. Because of his diverse talents, he is the perfect guide through these intellectual and musical forays. Why do birds sing? There are many answers, but none are as satisfying as the relentless questioning in this book. I enjoyed it immensely and found it impossible to put down. I am sure you will enjoy it too.