1 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:06,700 The song of the nightingale - 2 00:00:06,700 --> 00:00:10,591 one of the most beguiling sounds in all nature. 3 00:00:13,070 --> 00:00:17,620 Its haunting musical quality has inspired generations of artists 4 00:00:17,620 --> 00:00:19,121 and musicians. 5 00:00:20,990 --> 00:00:23,720 The latest is David Rothenberg. 6 00:00:27,980 --> 00:00:30,650 He's a New Age philosopher and jazz musician, 7 00:00:30,650 --> 00:00:32,570 and he makes the ultimate claim - 8 00:00:32,570 --> 00:00:35,620 that birdsong doesn't just sound like music, 9 00:00:35,620 --> 00:00:37,640 it IS music. 10 00:00:37,640 --> 00:00:40,310 It has the formal properties of music 11 00:00:40,310 --> 00:00:42,890 and, like human music, 12 00:00:42,890 --> 00:00:45,654 it's motivated by pleasure. 13 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:52,260 But his idea that birds sing for joy has been scorned by scientists, 14 00:00:52,260 --> 00:00:56,200 who favour their own, more rational explanations. 15 00:00:56,200 --> 00:01:03,190 It's a fight between two ideologies, with science in one corner and art in the other. 16 00:01:03,190 --> 00:01:07,260 I think science and art work different ways when it comes to birdsong. 17 00:01:07,260 --> 00:01:11,300 Science doesn't have the upper hand in figuring out 18 00:01:11,300 --> 00:01:16,260 what birdsong is about. One approach picks up on some things, misses out on others. 19 00:01:16,260 --> 00:01:20,340 I don't think David has thought through as to what the mechanism might be, 20 00:01:20,340 --> 00:01:21,890 if his birds sing for joy. 21 00:01:21,890 --> 00:01:26,860 He's just making some unscientific declarations 22 00:01:26,860 --> 00:01:30,420 that insult my birds, and indirectly, that bothers me. 23 00:01:30,420 --> 00:01:33,520 This is a leap right into the eagle's nest 24 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:35,910 of disagreement and suspicion, 25 00:01:35,910 --> 00:01:40,030 and we have some scientists who think I'm just an interloper, 26 00:01:40,030 --> 00:01:43,500 playing music with the careful subjects of their research. 27 00:01:43,500 --> 00:01:47,630 Now, Pied Piper David is on a mission to show music is as important as science 28 00:01:47,630 --> 00:01:51,521 in our understanding of why birds sing. 29 00:02:25,748 --> 00:02:29,218 The morning chorus is just pure joy, really, isn't it? 30 00:02:29,218 --> 00:02:32,506 You hear that bursting into life... 31 00:02:40,748 --> 00:02:43,748 Almost like a piece of music, 32 00:02:43,748 --> 00:02:47,730 it starts quietly and then builds up. 33 00:02:50,588 --> 00:02:53,728 It's never going to be the same performance twice. 34 00:02:53,728 --> 00:02:55,468 Pretty good, really. 35 00:02:58,328 --> 00:03:00,578 I love to wake up and hear that outside, 36 00:03:00,578 --> 00:03:02,498 and it's deafening sometimes. 37 00:03:02,498 --> 00:03:05,638 It really sounds like they're singing for the sake of it. 38 00:03:09,578 --> 00:03:14,588 Of all the sounds found in nature, none has proved as bewitching as birdsong. 39 00:03:14,588 --> 00:03:16,748 Dogs may bark and cows may moo, 40 00:03:16,748 --> 00:03:20,498 but it's birds that have inspired poets and composers. 41 00:03:20,498 --> 00:03:24,018 And David Rothenberg has taken the notion that birdsong is musical 42 00:03:24,018 --> 00:03:25,558 to its extreme. 43 00:03:25,558 --> 00:03:31,468 I believe that birdsong isn't just like music, it IS music. 44 00:03:31,468 --> 00:03:36,018 Science struggles to define exactly what music is. 45 00:03:36,018 --> 00:03:38,318 But David thinks he knows. 46 00:03:38,318 --> 00:03:41,408 Music is a bunch of sounds put together 47 00:03:41,408 --> 00:03:44,498 that need to be performed in a specific way 48 00:03:44,498 --> 00:03:48,388 where the meaning is just in the performance - 49 00:03:48,388 --> 00:03:50,788 you can't say what each part means. 50 00:03:50,788 --> 00:03:53,318 But it's really the root of my belief 51 00:03:53,318 --> 00:03:57,118 that each species has its own kind of music, its own aesthetic. 52 00:03:59,968 --> 00:04:04,098 Not surprisingly, the scientists scoff at his aesthetic notions. 53 00:04:04,098 --> 00:04:07,848 They believe that birds sing for two basic evolutionary reasons - 54 00:04:07,848 --> 00:04:11,408 and making music has got nothing to do with it. 55 00:04:11,408 --> 00:04:14,368 Virtually everybody in the scientific world 56 00:04:14,368 --> 00:04:19,055 believes that birds sing primarily to attract mates and repel rivals. 57 00:04:21,068 --> 00:04:24,018 David doesn't deny this, but for him, 58 00:04:24,018 --> 00:04:28,048 science can't explain the fact that some birds sing more than they need to, 59 00:04:28,048 --> 00:04:33,538 even when the mating season is over and there are no rivals around. 60 00:04:33,538 --> 00:04:39,398 It's this that makes him think they might actually sing because they enjoy it. 61 00:04:39,398 --> 00:04:43,098 Why shouldn't they be singing for pleasure? Who are we to assume 62 00:04:43,098 --> 00:04:46,158 that this kind of animal doesn't experience joy? 63 00:04:47,178 --> 00:04:49,758 Birds sing because they're alive. 64 00:04:49,758 --> 00:04:52,568 They have a million reasons to sing, 65 00:04:52,568 --> 00:04:54,348 just like we do. 66 00:04:54,348 --> 00:04:57,588 I think it's something they can do, 67 00:04:57,588 --> 00:04:59,278 something they can do well, 68 00:04:59,278 --> 00:05:01,388 and they enjoy it - why not? 69 00:05:01,388 --> 00:05:06,678 David is now setting out on a long summer journey to explore and draw out the musical qualities 70 00:05:06,678 --> 00:05:09,118 of birds. 71 00:05:09,118 --> 00:05:12,638 He will meet fellow obsessives... 72 00:05:12,638 --> 00:05:15,968 bizarre musicians... 73 00:05:15,968 --> 00:05:18,258 and strip down for his art. 74 00:05:18,258 --> 00:05:20,698 HE COOS 75 00:05:20,698 --> 00:05:26,698 At the end of his trip, he will be granted an audience with the bigwigs of birdsong science 76 00:05:26,698 --> 00:05:29,178 to try and gain a little respect. 77 00:05:29,178 --> 00:05:31,533 Thoroughly wacky! Thoroughly wacky? 78 00:05:41,048 --> 00:05:43,528 David's journey began in 2002, 79 00:05:43,528 --> 00:05:47,088 when he went to Pittsburgh Aviary, just to see what would happen 80 00:05:47,088 --> 00:05:49,306 if he played to the birds. 81 00:05:50,328 --> 00:05:53,608 What occurred on that day was a revelation to him. 82 00:05:53,608 --> 00:05:55,718 I really didn't expect much to happen, 83 00:05:55,718 --> 00:05:59,188 but there were was a particular moment when I got the idea 84 00:05:59,188 --> 00:06:03,168 that maybe there was something to birdsong worth investigating. 85 00:06:03,168 --> 00:06:06,498 There I was, wandering with my clarinet through the aviary, 86 00:06:06,498 --> 00:06:10,628 and one particular bird - a white-crested laughing thrush - 87 00:06:10,628 --> 00:06:15,128 really seemed to respond to what I was doing, like he was jamming along with me. 88 00:06:15,128 --> 00:06:17,988 The more he blew, the more it sang, 89 00:06:17,988 --> 00:06:21,037 and the more he was convinced it was duetting with him. 90 00:06:34,108 --> 00:06:37,678 I assumed, actually, that he was either thinking I was a female bird 91 00:06:37,678 --> 00:06:41,938 or a potential rival, but the way he was responding 92 00:06:41,938 --> 00:06:44,848 was very jamming-like - very much like music. 93 00:06:44,848 --> 00:06:47,715 That was what I didn't expect. 94 00:06:50,848 --> 00:06:54,738 This inter-species jamming session so excited David 95 00:06:54,738 --> 00:06:58,777 that he embarked on a quest to commune with as many birds as possible. 96 00:07:16,908 --> 00:07:21,838 Along the way, he wrote a book about why he thinks birds are making music. 97 00:07:21,838 --> 00:07:26,848 Why Birds Sing has outsold many of the scientific books you'd find on the same shelves. 98 00:07:26,848 --> 00:07:32,618 Clearly there are thousands of us who find his claims not just credible, but deeply appealing. 99 00:07:32,618 --> 00:07:34,119 All right. Nice to meet you. 100 00:07:36,268 --> 00:07:38,988 David Rothenberg lives in upstate New York, 101 00:07:38,988 --> 00:07:42,838 where his day job is trying to teach philosophy to engineering students. 102 00:07:42,838 --> 00:07:47,478 On the side, he composes avant-garde music inspired by the natural world. 103 00:07:47,478 --> 00:07:52,541 .. A wood thrush, which you could have heard here a few months ago. You won't hear them now. 104 00:08:03,838 --> 00:08:08,058 But he doesn't stop there. In his garden studio, 105 00:08:08,058 --> 00:08:12,278 he spends hours studying the musicality of birds, with the help of sonograms. 106 00:08:12,278 --> 00:08:16,738 These are visual representations of the frequency and rhythm of birdsong. 107 00:08:20,668 --> 00:08:26,288 A sonogram is a way to objectively graph how high or low a sound is, 108 00:08:26,288 --> 00:08:30,938 against how long it is, when you hear it. You can look at it, 109 00:08:30,938 --> 00:08:34,548 and thereby have an accurate representation of what the sound is. 110 00:08:34,548 --> 00:08:39,938 David has found all sorts of similarities between birdsong and human musical form. 111 00:08:39,938 --> 00:08:46,366 To human ears, the wood warbler appears to end its song with a musical accelerando... 112 00:08:47,478 --> 00:08:49,878 ..the robin sings swelling crescendos... 113 00:08:52,448 --> 00:08:55,133 ..and the thrush, delicate diminuendos. 114 00:08:56,628 --> 00:08:59,488 There are technical similarities too. 115 00:08:59,488 --> 00:09:03,558 The hermit thrush can sing in a pentatonic musical scale, 116 00:09:03,558 --> 00:09:05,158 used in Far Eastern music. 117 00:09:05,158 --> 00:09:10,505 And the wood thrush is able to sing in a diatonic scale, the foundation of Western classical music. 118 00:09:11,908 --> 00:09:15,139 With one particular birdsong, that of a veery... 119 00:09:20,528 --> 00:09:25,458 .. David has found an even closer connection, by slowing it down to a tenth of its normal speed. 120 00:09:25,458 --> 00:09:29,348 You're going to see something that looks kind of similar, 121 00:09:29,348 --> 00:09:31,268 a little stretched out, 122 00:09:31,268 --> 00:09:36,615 but what you hear is the same structure brought down into the human scale. 123 00:09:50,018 --> 00:09:53,628 It's hard not to think it's somehow musical. 124 00:09:53,628 --> 00:09:57,288 So there's rhythm, there's organisation, there's patterns. 125 00:09:57,288 --> 00:09:59,818 It's really musical stuff going on. 126 00:09:59,818 --> 00:10:04,088 For science, the fact that birdsong can be annotated musically 127 00:10:04,088 --> 00:10:05,398 doesn't prove a thing. 128 00:10:05,398 --> 00:10:08,958 I'm not sure that I would want to use the word music 129 00:10:08,958 --> 00:10:11,488 in relation to birdsong, 130 00:10:11,488 --> 00:10:14,868 because human music is qualitatively different from birdsong. 131 00:10:14,868 --> 00:10:19,558 I don't think birds use scales in the same sense as we do, or anything like that. 132 00:10:19,558 --> 00:10:24,148 You don't want to mix up two different things which are very distinct from one another. 133 00:10:24,148 --> 00:10:28,373 Some birdsongs are beautiful to our ears, some are not. 134 00:10:28,373 --> 00:10:33,903 And we have to realise that these birds are hearing differently than we are in the first place. 135 00:10:33,903 --> 00:10:36,713 For the science world, 136 00:10:36,713 --> 00:10:41,776 David's ideas are just woolly thinking, but he's determined to prove them wrong. 137 00:10:44,823 --> 00:10:47,303 He's travelling to the UK 138 00:10:47,303 --> 00:10:50,123 to spread his musical gospel. 139 00:10:50,123 --> 00:10:54,293 His book is beginning to irritate British avian scientists. 140 00:10:54,293 --> 00:10:57,713 Their work is based on rigorous scientific research, 141 00:10:57,713 --> 00:11:00,716 producing a rational answer to explain why birds sing. 142 00:11:01,273 --> 00:11:06,343 When we ask the question, "Why do birds sing?", the two big ones, 143 00:11:06,343 --> 00:11:09,853 I think, are what causes it and what its function is. 144 00:11:09,853 --> 00:11:15,103 Professor Peter Slater has been studying vocal communication in birds and mammals for over 30 years. 145 00:11:15,103 --> 00:11:22,603 One of his recent publications was Ambient Noise, Motor Fatigue And Serial Redundancy In Chaffinch Song. 146 00:11:22,603 --> 00:11:26,073 What causes it - things like hormones, time of day, 147 00:11:26,073 --> 00:11:31,753 whether it's a nice day or not - all sorts of things that lead the bird to do it, that cause it to do it. 148 00:11:31,753 --> 00:11:37,043 But one can also be asking the question of what function it has - why does the bird do it? 149 00:11:37,043 --> 00:11:39,903 What's the point of it? Does it attract females? 150 00:11:39,903 --> 00:11:45,113 With the majority of songbirds, the male does most of the singing in order to attract the best female. 151 00:11:45,113 --> 00:11:48,953 The female chooses to mate with the male she thinks has the best song. 152 00:11:48,953 --> 00:11:52,233 This is known as sexual selection. 153 00:11:52,233 --> 00:11:56,313 There's plenty of evidence to show the link between songs and sex. 154 00:11:56,313 --> 00:11:59,313 Scientists have recorded correlations 155 00:11:59,313 --> 00:12:02,833 between peak song activity and peak egg laying. 156 00:12:02,833 --> 00:12:04,803 Sexual selection 157 00:12:04,803 --> 00:12:06,343 is evolutionary forces, 158 00:12:06,343 --> 00:12:09,343 which determine how males develop 159 00:12:09,343 --> 00:12:12,063 elaborate signals or ornaments, 160 00:12:12,063 --> 00:12:13,613 such as birdsong, 161 00:12:13,613 --> 00:12:16,523 or the long tail of a peacock, 162 00:12:16,523 --> 00:12:21,256 and those develop because females prefer to mate with males that possess those traits. 163 00:12:24,303 --> 00:12:28,003 Some birds have very sexually selected songs, 164 00:12:28,003 --> 00:12:32,223 such as warblers or nightingales - they have songs which are very complex, 165 00:12:32,223 --> 00:12:35,613 and females choose males which have the most complex songs. 166 00:12:37,943 --> 00:12:42,393 And do female birds ever sing? In some species, female birds do sing - 167 00:12:42,393 --> 00:12:47,083 for example, the European starling, the females sing, though not as much as the males - 168 00:12:47,083 --> 00:12:49,053 and in some species, they duet. 169 00:12:49,053 --> 00:12:52,433 Female and male will duet together to defend their territory. 170 00:12:52,433 --> 00:12:57,120 The defence of territory is the other main evolutionary function of birdsong. 171 00:12:58,143 --> 00:13:00,823 In a classic experiment, 172 00:13:00,823 --> 00:13:07,433 scientists discovered male birds showed aggressive behaviour towards speakers playing rival birdsong. 173 00:13:11,603 --> 00:13:16,623 So there we are - these are the two principal reasons why birds sing. 174 00:13:16,623 --> 00:13:20,514 Birds sing primarily to attract mates and repel rivals. 175 00:13:23,233 --> 00:13:28,903 But what of David's insistence that some birds sing much fancier and longer songs than they need to? 176 00:13:28,903 --> 00:13:31,713 It's a useful thing to have a very elaborate song - 177 00:13:31,713 --> 00:13:36,123 just like, perhaps, human beings, they don't like to be bored in conversation. 178 00:13:36,123 --> 00:13:40,713 Females have a bias towards perceiving a complex signal 179 00:13:40,713 --> 00:13:44,883 and prefer those males which have complex songs. 180 00:13:44,883 --> 00:13:48,963 There's this awful thing called habituation. 181 00:13:48,963 --> 00:13:53,983 If you tell the same funny story many times, the audience stops laughing. 182 00:13:53,983 --> 00:13:59,043 If you sing the same song many, many times, the female may habituate to it and stop being interested. 183 00:13:59,043 --> 00:14:01,763 So a male that produces a really varied repertoire 184 00:14:01,763 --> 00:14:05,513 is likely to attract a female more than one with less of a repertoire. 185 00:14:05,513 --> 00:14:08,373 We know this is the case in a number of species of bird - 186 00:14:08,373 --> 00:14:12,036 the more varied your repertoire, the more likely you are to get a female. 187 00:14:15,403 --> 00:14:18,963 As soon as you say that a song is more beautiful than it has to be, 188 00:14:18,963 --> 00:14:23,093 or that the male is singing more than he has to, 189 00:14:23,093 --> 00:14:27,783 I think you're insulting that female who has directed, silently, 190 00:14:27,783 --> 00:14:32,043 this whole birdsong feast 191 00:14:32,043 --> 00:14:35,285 that we listen to all summer long. 192 00:14:39,083 --> 00:14:43,343 So for the scientists, birdsong's function is easily explained. 193 00:14:43,343 --> 00:14:45,403 It's all about sex, territory 194 00:14:45,403 --> 00:14:48,833 and passing your genes on to the next generation. 195 00:14:48,833 --> 00:14:52,253 I'm not sure David Rothenberg is asking any of these questions. 196 00:14:52,253 --> 00:14:56,563 I think his major interest is why birdsong is beautiful, and why it's musical. 197 00:14:56,563 --> 00:15:00,973 I think they're more questions about human beings than they are about birds. 198 00:15:00,973 --> 00:15:06,453 I think we know far more about why birds sing than we know about why humans sing. 199 00:15:06,453 --> 00:15:10,953 # If all the young ladies were blackbirds and thrushes 200 00:15:10,953 --> 00:15:15,363 # If all the young ladies were blackbirds and thrushes 201 00:15:15,363 --> 00:15:20,803 # Then all the young men would go beating the bushes 202 00:15:20,803 --> 00:15:22,913 # Fol-de-dol diddle-dol 203 00:15:22,913 --> 00:15:25,643 # Diddle-dol-day 204 00:15:26,663 --> 00:15:31,353 # If all the young ladies were ducks on the water 205 00:15:31,353 --> 00:15:36,273 # If all the young ladies were ducks on the water 206 00:15:36,273 --> 00:15:40,723 # Then all the young men would go swimming in after 207 00:15:40,723 --> 00:15:42,503 # Fol-de-dol diddle-dol 208 00:15:42,503 --> 00:15:46,543 # Diddle-dol-day 209 00:15:46,543 --> 00:15:50,946 # If all the young ladies were rushes a-growing 210 00:15:51,973 --> 00:15:56,903 # If all the young ladies were rushes a-growing 211 00:15:56,903 --> 00:16:01,403 # Then all the young men would get scythes and go mowing 212 00:16:01,403 --> 00:16:03,183 # Fol-de-dol diddle-dol 213 00:16:03,183 --> 00:16:05,720 # Diddle-dol-day. # 214 00:16:13,773 --> 00:16:18,833 For now, David's wings have been clipped by the scientific community. 215 00:16:18,833 --> 00:16:22,353 So he's off to look for moral support from Simon Barnes, 216 00:16:22,353 --> 00:16:26,904 Times sports writer and author of How To Be A Bad Birdwatcher. 217 00:16:28,913 --> 00:16:33,703 So where are we, Simon? We're out in East Suffolk, 218 00:16:33,703 --> 00:16:35,853 which is a very decent area for birds - 219 00:16:35,853 --> 00:16:39,423 an area that's mostly arable farming and rough pasture. 220 00:16:39,423 --> 00:16:42,563 We've a nice bit of copse in front of us, 221 00:16:42,563 --> 00:16:45,653 where we get a few songbirds every year. 222 00:16:45,653 --> 00:16:48,563 Why do you think birds sing? 223 00:16:48,563 --> 00:16:54,603 Yes! I... well, I loved the core point of your book, 224 00:16:54,603 --> 00:17:00,043 that there is no evolutionary reason why birdsong should be beautiful. 225 00:17:00,043 --> 00:17:03,143 And I was absolutely enthralled by that, 226 00:17:03,143 --> 00:17:05,483 because I've always loved birdsong 227 00:17:05,483 --> 00:17:08,623 for the magic of it and the complexity of it and, of course, 228 00:17:08,623 --> 00:17:10,313 for the beauty of it. 229 00:17:10,313 --> 00:17:13,263 I don't understand why scientists 230 00:17:13,263 --> 00:17:16,033 tend to believe that an animal, 231 00:17:16,033 --> 00:17:17,763 in fulfilling its nature, 232 00:17:17,763 --> 00:17:22,313 somehow should be far away from something like pleasure or enjoying the process. 233 00:17:22,313 --> 00:17:24,563 Why is that more scientific than...? 234 00:17:24,563 --> 00:17:26,903 I... I find that strange. 235 00:17:26,903 --> 00:17:32,253 I mean, to talk about the emotional life of animals, or even the cultural transmission in animals, 236 00:17:32,253 --> 00:17:37,923 puts you on dangerous ground. I understand by anthropomorphism because I'm an anthropos - a man. 237 00:17:37,923 --> 00:17:40,503 That's how you understand things. 238 00:17:40,503 --> 00:17:44,343 But scientists are terrified of that and shy away from it, 239 00:17:44,343 --> 00:17:49,123 and try and put... I mean, there are aspects of life that don't work 240 00:17:49,123 --> 00:17:54,004 in charts and pie charts and bar graphs and so forth. 241 00:17:57,943 --> 00:17:59,723 Boosted by Simon's fervour, 242 00:17:59,723 --> 00:18:02,633 David returns to his musical quest, 243 00:18:02,633 --> 00:18:06,053 determined to discover the holy grail of human-bird duets. 244 00:18:06,053 --> 00:18:10,228 He's off to the Thames Estuary to recreate a piece of history. 245 00:18:15,563 --> 00:18:21,523 In 1924, the BBC organised what was to be its first ever outside broadcast. 246 00:18:21,523 --> 00:18:26,963 It featured the acclaimed cellist and muse of Edward Elgar, Beatrice Harrison. 247 00:18:26,963 --> 00:18:32,353 What was unique about this broadcast was that Harrison set up the cello in her Surrey garden 248 00:18:32,353 --> 00:18:35,963 and was recorded duetting with that most romantic of all songbirds, 249 00:18:35,963 --> 00:18:38,393 the nightingale. 250 00:18:38,393 --> 00:18:43,503 The nightingale is the perfect bird for David to test his musical ideas, 251 00:18:43,503 --> 00:18:47,913 as it sings its repertoire of over 300 songs alone in the evening, 252 00:18:47,913 --> 00:18:50,073 when many other species are quiet. 253 00:18:50,073 --> 00:18:54,203 CELLO AND NIGHTINGALE SONG PLAY 254 00:18:59,823 --> 00:19:02,873 David has been alerted to a wood in Kent 255 00:19:02,873 --> 00:19:07,463 where he hopes to repeat Beatrice Harrison's human-nightingale collaboration. 256 00:19:07,463 --> 00:19:11,913 And this is quite an ancient woodland, 257 00:19:11,913 --> 00:19:16,273 and it's home to a particularly special bird, the nightingale. 258 00:19:16,273 --> 00:19:20,163 We've got about 15 pairs of nightingales breeding in the woodland here. 259 00:19:20,163 --> 00:19:25,563 Do you think we might hear some today? of nightingale song a minute ago. 260 00:19:25,563 --> 00:19:28,093 It's a very rich, mellow song, 261 00:19:28,093 --> 00:19:31,093 and as we get towards the end of the day, 262 00:19:31,093 --> 00:19:33,523 the song will be a bit more in stark relief. 263 00:19:33,523 --> 00:19:38,633 To complete the recreation, cellist Andrea Hess is to don Beatrice's robes 264 00:19:38,633 --> 00:19:44,594 and play her repertoire in an attempt to draw out and duet with the elusive songbird. 265 00:19:45,623 --> 00:19:48,483 That's it. That's more or less it. 266 00:19:48,483 --> 00:19:52,183 I'm very curious about birds and intonation, 267 00:19:52,183 --> 00:19:54,533 because they never seem to sing out of tune. 268 00:19:54,533 --> 00:19:56,643 How do they do it? 269 00:19:56,643 --> 00:19:59,683 Musicians struggle always to be perfectly in tune, 270 00:19:59,683 --> 00:20:01,708 and birds do it so effortlessly. 271 00:20:03,203 --> 00:20:06,063 Not to be left out, 272 00:20:06,063 --> 00:20:11,643 David has also dressed in Beatrice's magical robes, as part of the plan to lure out the nightingale. 273 00:20:11,643 --> 00:20:16,233 Meanwhile, in tribute to Beatrice Harrison's most famous patron, 274 00:20:16,233 --> 00:20:19,430 Andrea plays some Elgar to warm her and the birds up. 275 00:20:28,432 --> 00:20:31,856 Initially, there's no response from the nightingale. 276 00:20:34,902 --> 00:20:37,622 She has now been playing 277 00:20:37,622 --> 00:20:41,602 for nearly two hours, and Andrea is ready to put down her bow 278 00:20:41,602 --> 00:20:45,129 and give up the ghost, when suddenly... 279 00:20:47,132 --> 00:20:50,044 TWITTERING RESPONSE 280 00:20:52,242 --> 00:20:55,905 The nightingale is actually responding to the cello. 281 00:21:14,792 --> 00:21:17,512 What I'm really trying to say is birds make music - 282 00:21:17,512 --> 00:21:19,572 they're singing pieces of music, 283 00:21:19,572 --> 00:21:23,462 and that we cannot explain it away by just saying what it's for. 284 00:21:23,462 --> 00:21:27,402 Take the song of the nightingale - many different phrases, 285 00:21:27,402 --> 00:21:31,102 many different rhythms. When it comes to complicated birdsongs, 286 00:21:31,102 --> 00:21:35,612 scientists have been counting the wrong things. So far, what scientists tend to do 287 00:21:35,612 --> 00:21:38,892 is count the number of different syllables and sounds you hear. 288 00:21:38,892 --> 00:21:41,429 But they stop there. 289 00:21:44,092 --> 00:21:48,362 What I'm interested in is how they're put together in a structured way, 290 00:21:48,362 --> 00:21:50,652 like a piece of music. 291 00:21:50,652 --> 00:21:55,351 MUSIC: Cello Concerto in E minor, Opus 85, by Edward Elgar 292 00:22:10,252 --> 00:22:14,052 I think the creative potential of birdsong as musical material 293 00:22:14,052 --> 00:22:16,392 is endless. In each generation, 294 00:22:16,392 --> 00:22:19,302 we have different ideas of how human music works. 295 00:22:19,302 --> 00:22:23,142 We're going to hear different things as being musical. 296 00:22:23,142 --> 00:22:26,562 I think today, with the world of electronic music we live in, 297 00:22:26,562 --> 00:22:30,032 strange sounds being increasingly appreciated, 298 00:22:30,032 --> 00:22:34,202 a song like the nightingale's opens up new possibilities for us. 299 00:22:34,202 --> 00:22:37,535 It starts to sound like a DJ scratching records. 300 00:23:00,182 --> 00:23:04,112 And these rhythms are not limited to the music world. 301 00:23:04,112 --> 00:23:06,882 The nightingale has also inspired the rustic poetry 302 00:23:06,882 --> 00:23:08,662 of John Clare. 303 00:23:08,662 --> 00:23:14,052 Clare brought an almost forensic accuracy to the depiction of the nightingale song in his poems. 304 00:23:14,052 --> 00:23:19,632 It is this blending of science and art that has drawn David to Northamptonshire 305 00:23:19,632 --> 00:23:22,965 to meet poet and Clare expert, Paul Farley. 306 00:23:23,992 --> 00:23:27,602 So, Paul, here we are wandering through John Clare country. 307 00:23:27,602 --> 00:23:33,512 Yes. This is the wood where Clare came to listen to the nightingales sing - the very wood. 308 00:23:33,512 --> 00:23:37,442 Birdsong seems to have been quite important for Clare. 309 00:23:37,442 --> 00:23:40,492 I think so. Clare's very different 310 00:23:40,492 --> 00:23:44,482 from the other Romantic poets. He's often routinely bundled in 311 00:23:44,482 --> 00:23:49,492 and called a Romantic, but in fact there's lots of differences between Clare's poetry 312 00:23:49,492 --> 00:23:52,262 and that of somebody like, say, John Keats. 313 00:23:52,262 --> 00:23:56,762 Um, Clare was much more interested in not just the song of the bird, 314 00:23:56,762 --> 00:24:00,842 but the whole universe surrounding it, its habitat, 315 00:24:00,842 --> 00:24:03,422 a description of the bird's nest and its eggs. 316 00:24:03,422 --> 00:24:07,732 In a funny kind of way, he puts the song of the bird back into the bird's mouth. 317 00:24:07,732 --> 00:24:09,182 The more I listened 318 00:24:09,182 --> 00:24:12,842 And the more each note seemed sweeter than before 319 00:24:12,842 --> 00:24:14,992 And aye so different was the strain 320 00:24:14,992 --> 00:24:17,712 She'd scarce repeat the note again 321 00:24:17,712 --> 00:24:20,622 Chew chew, chew chew 322 00:24:20,622 --> 00:24:22,502 And higher still 323 00:24:22,502 --> 00:24:24,652 Cheer cheer, cheer cheer 324 00:24:24,652 --> 00:24:26,392 More loud and shrill 325 00:24:26,392 --> 00:24:28,782 Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up 326 00:24:28,782 --> 00:24:30,752 And dropped low 327 00:24:30,752 --> 00:24:33,792 Tweet tweet, jug jug jug 328 00:24:33,792 --> 00:24:35,722 And stopped. 329 00:24:35,722 --> 00:24:42,330 John Clare's birdsong-inspired poetry was almost more scientific than Romantic, 330 00:24:42,330 --> 00:24:48,290 combining phonetic and poetical language, rather like an early literary form of the sonogram. 331 00:24:48,290 --> 00:24:52,600 Clare was way ahead of both scientists and composers and musicians. 332 00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:55,880 He was turning human language towards nightingale sounds 333 00:24:55,880 --> 00:25:00,380 when he wrote down in his notebook, "Chew cheer cheer cheer chee chee." 334 00:25:00,380 --> 00:25:05,120 He really took this song seriously long before music was able to do, 335 00:25:05,120 --> 00:25:07,270 long before science was able to do, 336 00:25:07,270 --> 00:25:13,090 because scientists would not take the study of birdsong very seriously until they could record it, 337 00:25:13,090 --> 00:25:16,740 and then print it out and turn it into data to be rigorously analysed. 338 00:25:16,740 --> 00:25:20,210 In fact, the history of the scientific study of birdsong 339 00:25:20,210 --> 00:25:23,490 has shown ever more accurate ways of quantifying it. 340 00:25:23,490 --> 00:25:28,270 Well, originally, birdsong was studied very informally, 341 00:25:28,270 --> 00:25:35,120 very qualitatively, because we didn't have the equipment to record the song nor to analyse it. 342 00:25:35,120 --> 00:25:37,840 Now we can measure frequencies very precisely. 343 00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:40,280 We can measure rhythms very precisely. 344 00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:42,530 We can measure form very precisely. 345 00:25:42,530 --> 00:25:45,670 There are a lot of tools we can use which allow us to quantify, 346 00:25:45,670 --> 00:25:49,460 which is one of the major things about science. If you quantify, 347 00:25:49,460 --> 00:25:52,980 then you can answer scientific questions to a much greater extent 348 00:25:52,980 --> 00:25:56,359 than if you just wave your arms around and don't count things. 349 00:26:02,210 --> 00:26:08,360 One man who knows a thing or two - or three - about counting is Professor Donald Kroodsma. 350 00:26:08,360 --> 00:26:10,180 A wise owl of birdsong science, 351 00:26:10,180 --> 00:26:14,780 there is little he doesn't know about collecting and recording birdsong data. 352 00:26:14,780 --> 00:26:20,366 Kroodsma lives amongst his beloved birds in the forests of Massachusetts. 353 00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:35,920 To capture these songs, I love to use what's called a parabolic microphone. 354 00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:40,610 It's just a precision instrument that takes sounds and directs them 355 00:26:40,610 --> 00:26:43,230 off this parabola back to the microphone. 356 00:26:43,230 --> 00:26:48,580 It's like when you aim that parabola at a bird and put the headphones on, 357 00:26:48,580 --> 00:26:50,640 suddenly you are there. 358 00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:53,780 The bird is right there, singing in your face, 359 00:26:53,780 --> 00:26:56,453 so loud and crisp, and it's magical. 360 00:27:08,310 --> 00:27:13,240 There are about 4,600 species of songbirds. 361 00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:18,440 It's a remarkable number, a remarkably successful group. 362 00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:20,460 Some sing beautiful, varied songs, 363 00:27:20,460 --> 00:27:23,180 some sing the same little phrase again and again. 364 00:27:23,180 --> 00:27:27,350 Almost everything to do with birdsong varies from one species to another. 365 00:27:27,350 --> 00:27:31,940 Oh, one of my favourite birdsongs, I think, is the wood thrush, 366 00:27:31,940 --> 00:27:37,570 to slow down, to really get a feeling for what's going on in these birds, 367 00:27:37,570 --> 00:27:42,440 because it gives you a glimpse of what's going on in those voice boxes, 368 00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:44,271 as the bird is actually singing. 369 00:27:53,830 --> 00:27:58,620 We humans have just one voice box, and it's at the top of our windpipe. 370 00:27:58,620 --> 00:28:02,410 But birds, extraordinarily, can sing a duet with themselves, 371 00:28:02,410 --> 00:28:04,520 because they have two voice boxes - 372 00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:09,210 down at the bottom of the windpipe, it branches off to the two lungs, 373 00:28:09,210 --> 00:28:13,900 and at the top of each branch is an independently controlled voice box. 374 00:28:13,900 --> 00:28:16,430 But when you slow that song down, 375 00:28:16,430 --> 00:28:19,854 you see those two voice boxes at work. 376 00:28:31,850 --> 00:28:35,280 The double voice box certainly impresses the ladies - 377 00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:39,170 yet more evidence for the role of song in attracting females. 378 00:28:39,170 --> 00:28:42,490 It's the female, I'm convinced, who's doing all the listening, 379 00:28:42,490 --> 00:28:43,850 and making decisions, 380 00:28:43,850 --> 00:28:48,030 because you have all these females paired to males, 381 00:28:48,030 --> 00:28:50,420 and they're paired monogamously. 382 00:28:50,420 --> 00:28:54,360 But yet there's so much more going on in these monogamous pairings, 383 00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:59,230 because once you do the DNA fingerprinting of the babies in the nest, 384 00:28:59,230 --> 00:29:06,310 you realise that these females are mating not only with their own social monogamous partner, 385 00:29:06,310 --> 00:29:09,870 but they're also mating with other males in the neighbourhood. 386 00:29:09,870 --> 00:29:12,030 In this clip from The Life Of Birds, 387 00:29:12,030 --> 00:29:16,340 two male sparrows, Alpha and Beta, are vying for the attentions 388 00:29:16,340 --> 00:29:17,790 of one female. 389 00:29:17,790 --> 00:29:20,890 But she has got her eye cocked. 390 00:29:20,890 --> 00:29:25,532 Beta is still in the hedge, calling quietly to her. 391 00:29:31,620 --> 00:29:36,640 She joins him, and now, while Alpha is preoccupied with feeding, 392 00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:39,030 she and Beta get together. 393 00:29:39,030 --> 00:29:43,342 Twirling her tail is an invitation, and in a split second, they mate. 394 00:29:46,910 --> 00:29:49,060 So why do males sing? 395 00:29:49,060 --> 00:29:54,080 Well, I think they sing, and they sing so much more than we would think would be necessary - 396 00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:57,038 they sing because females are always listening. 397 00:29:59,710 --> 00:30:06,030 Donald Kroodsma is one of the best-known field biologists 398 00:30:06,030 --> 00:30:08,050 working on birdsong, 399 00:30:08,050 --> 00:30:12,500 and most of his work is collecting song in the field and analysing it. 400 00:30:12,500 --> 00:30:17,140 I would say that the one thing missing from Don's analysis is 401 00:30:17,140 --> 00:30:20,520 he just hasn't given music that much thought, 402 00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:22,820 and I think if you take music seriously, 403 00:30:22,820 --> 00:30:25,820 you will then take birdsong more seriously. 404 00:30:25,820 --> 00:30:28,580 I'm not sure anybody knows what music is! 405 00:30:28,580 --> 00:30:31,770 It's, er... I suppose as a scientist, I might say, 406 00:30:31,770 --> 00:30:36,550 well, it's any series, any pattern of sounds that strikes us as somewhat pleasing, 407 00:30:36,550 --> 00:30:39,930 but not all human music is pleasing to me, 408 00:30:39,930 --> 00:30:42,970 so I don't know what human music is. 409 00:30:42,970 --> 00:30:47,521 I really don't know what bird music is, or whether birdsong IS music. 410 00:30:51,180 --> 00:30:56,150 David's work has this veneer of rigour, because he talks about scientific work, 411 00:30:56,150 --> 00:30:59,190 and yet to me it's unscientific, 412 00:30:59,190 --> 00:31:05,100 and in that sense it undermines the agenda many of us have, to make the world more scientifically literate. 413 00:31:05,100 --> 00:31:07,350 I'm interested in birdsong as music. 414 00:31:07,350 --> 00:31:12,561 Why do so many birdsongs sound musical to our human ears? 415 00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:32,573 # Una verdad se inventa 416 00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,467 # Con suma precision 417 00:31:37,310 --> 00:31:41,060 # Y la labor inmensa 418 00:31:41,060 --> 00:31:45,980 # De la imaginacio-on... # 419 00:31:45,980 --> 00:31:50,110 The song La Verdad, which means The Truth, 420 00:31:50,110 --> 00:31:56,150 well, actually, its lyrics don't have pretty much to do with birds, 421 00:31:56,150 --> 00:31:59,150 but the way I build up the music, it has. 422 00:31:59,150 --> 00:32:02,210 # Yo no quiero desganos 423 00:32:03,420 --> 00:32:07,310 # Ni falta de pasion 424 00:32:07,310 --> 00:32:10,920 # Yo no quiero estar en manos 425 00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:20,170 # De un gran simulado-or 426 00:32:22,450 --> 00:32:26,620 # No-o... # 427 00:32:26,620 --> 00:32:30,610 'I was playing that song outside my house,' 428 00:32:30,610 --> 00:32:35,860 and these birds sang there, like, "Qua-ka-ra-ka....!" 429 00:32:35,860 --> 00:32:38,770 And that was a long, long time ago, and that day, 430 00:32:38,770 --> 00:32:44,670 I said, I want this cascade, like a waterfall of birds. 431 00:32:44,670 --> 00:32:50,390 I started to loop different lengths of music, 432 00:32:50,390 --> 00:32:53,020 so I have a pattern going one loop, 433 00:32:53,020 --> 00:32:56,300 and a different pattern going in another loop. 434 00:32:56,300 --> 00:33:00,942 # Ka-ka, ka-ka-ka-ka-ka... # 435 00:33:14,390 --> 00:33:18,008 SECOND LOOP OF SOUND DEVELOPS WITH SCAT SINGING 436 00:33:50,870 --> 00:33:52,880 Music is everywhere. 437 00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:54,710 We live in an ocean of sound. 438 00:33:54,710 --> 00:33:59,910 I was playing this show in Italy on top of a hill one evening, 439 00:33:59,910 --> 00:34:02,590 and I heard this very cool brand-new part, 440 00:34:02,590 --> 00:34:08,260 then I realised I was singing a duet with this little owl. 441 00:34:08,260 --> 00:34:13,980 And I thought, I could die right now, cos life does not get better than this! 442 00:34:13,980 --> 00:34:16,560 I'm singing a duet with an owl! 443 00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:22,420 JARVIS COCKER: It's kind of like the original Andean music, birdsong, isn't it? 444 00:34:22,420 --> 00:34:25,280 It's like it generates itself. 445 00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:27,430 I mean, I suppose as a listener, 446 00:34:27,430 --> 00:34:33,150 you affect it a little bit, as in if you make too much noise, they'll shut up and fly away. 447 00:34:33,150 --> 00:34:38,827 But if you sit there, and are quiet, then it just happens. 448 00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:01,519 David knows he'll eventually have to face the music with the science world, 449 00:35:01,519 --> 00:35:06,582 but before he does, he's biding his time with a kindred spirit. 450 00:35:09,629 --> 00:35:12,489 HE WHISTLES 451 00:35:12,489 --> 00:35:16,989 In New Jersey, Joe Sodano has been impersonating birds since he was 4. 452 00:35:16,989 --> 00:35:21,019 He combines this hobby with running a business transporting turkeys. 453 00:35:21,019 --> 00:35:25,570 OK, who's going to market? HE GOBBLES AT THEM 454 00:35:29,179 --> 00:35:31,716 Your turn, buddy. 455 00:35:32,739 --> 00:35:35,559 It's your turn, buddy. 456 00:35:35,559 --> 00:35:39,120 It's your turn. Somebody wants to eat you. 457 00:35:42,309 --> 00:35:45,399 So what kind of birds can you imitate? 458 00:35:45,399 --> 00:35:47,419 Oh... 459 00:35:47,419 --> 00:35:50,039 a lot of birds. 460 00:35:50,039 --> 00:35:54,399 I love the cardinal, but this time of year, they're not responding, 461 00:35:54,399 --> 00:35:58,479 cos they're mating. The cardinal - he's a beautiful bird, the cardinal. 462 00:35:58,479 --> 00:36:00,029 He goes, like... 463 00:36:00,029 --> 00:36:02,463 PIERCING WHISTLE 464 00:36:10,059 --> 00:36:13,438 Then we have the northern mockingbird, which I love. 465 00:36:23,749 --> 00:36:26,609 We've got the American robin. 466 00:36:26,609 --> 00:36:31,342 He goes, like, "Hello, Mr Robin!" "Hello!" he says. 467 00:36:43,669 --> 00:36:48,038 Joe's not the only one in his household who can sing. 468 00:37:09,359 --> 00:37:11,384 What's your favourite birdsong? 469 00:37:12,739 --> 00:37:16,391 Birdsong? Um... 470 00:37:18,689 --> 00:37:20,519 .. like... 471 00:37:20,519 --> 00:37:21,969 I love can-can. 472 00:37:21,969 --> 00:37:26,053 HE TWEETS THE CAN-CAN 473 00:37:30,689 --> 00:37:33,459 'Birds sing because they're happy. 474 00:37:33,459 --> 00:37:39,079 'The world is going to be a very, very dark place if the birds aren't singing. ' 475 00:37:39,079 --> 00:37:41,991 CAN-CAN CONTINUES WITH BACKING 476 00:37:44,989 --> 00:37:48,319 'My whistle, it'll pierce you sometimes. 477 00:37:48,319 --> 00:37:54,459 'People complain, that have hearing aids, that it kind of does something to their hearing aid. 478 00:37:54,459 --> 00:37:56,472 'I've had a few complaints. ' 479 00:38:39,369 --> 00:38:43,169 Humans imitating birds is no rare phenomenon. 480 00:39:16,779 --> 00:39:20,339 Astonishingly, the process can work in reverse. 481 00:39:20,339 --> 00:39:24,089 Good heavens! What's the time? 482 00:39:24,089 --> 00:39:26,059 Who's a pretty boy, then? 483 00:39:26,059 --> 00:39:27,509 Say hello. 484 00:39:27,509 --> 00:39:29,109 'Ello! 485 00:39:29,109 --> 00:39:33,369 SCOTTISH ACCENT: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. 486 00:39:33,369 --> 00:39:35,479 WOLF WHISTLE 487 00:39:35,479 --> 00:39:37,409 Give us a kiss! 488 00:39:37,409 --> 00:39:39,419 Da-da-da-da-ra! 489 00:39:39,419 --> 00:39:43,449 But perhaps the most extraordinary example of a bird learning human sounds 490 00:39:43,449 --> 00:39:47,859 is that of the superb lyre bird, native of Australia. 491 00:39:47,859 --> 00:39:50,589 It's the daddy of all mimics. 492 00:39:51,469 --> 00:39:55,269 To persuade females to come close and admire his plumes, 493 00:39:55,269 --> 00:39:57,839 he sings the most complex song he can manage, 494 00:39:57,839 --> 00:40:02,059 and he does that by copying the songs of all the other birds he hears around him, 495 00:40:02,059 --> 00:40:04,175 such as the kookaburra. 496 00:40:09,469 --> 00:40:12,381 Even the original is fooled. 497 00:40:16,359 --> 00:40:19,689 He also, in his attempt to outsing his rivals, 498 00:40:19,689 --> 00:40:22,977 incorporates other sounds that he hears in the forest. 499 00:40:23,999 --> 00:40:26,209 That was a camera shutter. 500 00:40:26,209 --> 00:40:27,609 And again. 501 00:40:27,609 --> 00:40:31,181 And now, a camera with a motor drive. 502 00:40:37,459 --> 00:40:39,051 And that's a car alarm. 503 00:40:40,929 --> 00:40:44,774 The sounds of foresters and their chainsaws working nearby. 504 00:40:57,149 --> 00:41:00,709 What the lyre bird is doing is called vocal learning. 505 00:41:00,709 --> 00:41:02,769 This is the ability of an animal 506 00:41:02,769 --> 00:41:06,339 to learn and reproduce a new sound, and it makes them pretty special, 507 00:41:06,339 --> 00:41:09,297 because very few other animals can do it. 508 00:41:16,269 --> 00:41:18,379 David's decided to go to New York 509 00:41:18,379 --> 00:41:22,409 to explore the similarities between bird and human vocal learning. 510 00:41:22,409 --> 00:41:24,949 He's meeting Professor Ofer Tchernichovski, 511 00:41:24,949 --> 00:41:27,379 a man so obsessed with vocal learning 512 00:41:27,379 --> 00:41:32,783 that he's spent a solid 11 years studying the song of just one bird species - the zebra finch. 513 00:41:37,419 --> 00:41:42,009 Ofer and his research team keep 50 breeding pairs of zebra finches 514 00:41:42,009 --> 00:41:45,429 that provide a constant supply of little learners. 515 00:41:45,429 --> 00:41:47,729 In each one of those nest boxes 516 00:41:47,729 --> 00:41:49,559 you can see there are eggs. 517 00:41:49,559 --> 00:41:53,069 Those are eggs that were just laid by the female. Once they hatch, 518 00:41:53,069 --> 00:41:55,509 we are going to separate the father 519 00:41:55,509 --> 00:41:59,318 and take the mother with the chicks to another colony area 520 00:41:59,318 --> 00:42:01,279 for mothers and babies only. 521 00:42:01,279 --> 00:42:02,969 We are doing that 522 00:42:02,969 --> 00:42:06,159 because the female zebra finches, they do not sing. 523 00:42:06,159 --> 00:42:10,708 So those young animals are going to grow up without hearing natural song 524 00:42:10,708 --> 00:42:12,578 until we decide to let them hear it. 525 00:42:12,578 --> 00:42:15,538 Zebra finches are popular with birdsong scientists 526 00:42:15,538 --> 00:42:19,519 because they breed like rabbits. From being an egg to laying an egg 527 00:42:19,519 --> 00:42:21,958 takes just 90 days. 528 00:42:21,958 --> 00:42:27,635 So with four generations in a year, Ofer gets answers about song learning very quickly. 529 00:42:28,758 --> 00:42:32,129 When they're 35 days old, Ofer transfers his baby male finches 530 00:42:32,129 --> 00:42:33,958 to a soundproof box. 531 00:42:33,958 --> 00:42:37,329 Here, he uses models to train his birds to sing. 532 00:42:37,329 --> 00:42:39,398 You see this young male... 533 00:42:39,398 --> 00:42:43,338 and you can see that there is a plastic figure 534 00:42:43,338 --> 00:42:46,239 just there, in front of a speaker. 535 00:42:46,239 --> 00:42:51,729 And you can see two keys right there, on the left and on the right. 536 00:42:51,729 --> 00:42:55,708 Occasionally he is pecking on those keys, and he is doing that 537 00:42:55,708 --> 00:42:59,418 in order to hear song playback that comes from this direction 538 00:42:59,418 --> 00:43:01,948 where we see a figure of a bird. 539 00:43:01,948 --> 00:43:04,618 As soon as this young finch pecks on a button, 540 00:43:04,618 --> 00:43:07,338 it hears the song... 541 00:43:07,338 --> 00:43:10,988 relaxes, and begins to fall asleep. 542 00:43:10,988 --> 00:43:14,319 Every noise the zebra finches make is recorded, 543 00:43:14,319 --> 00:43:17,318 and 10,000 gigabytes of data have been analysed. 544 00:43:17,318 --> 00:43:22,153 Ofer believes he's starting to understand how the zebra finches learn to sing. 545 00:43:25,199 --> 00:43:27,818 Like humans, 546 00:43:27,818 --> 00:43:30,028 he's found they need teachers, 547 00:43:30,028 --> 00:43:33,498 regular practice, and frequent naps. 548 00:43:33,498 --> 00:43:37,249 Also like us, they have a critical period for learning. 549 00:43:37,249 --> 00:43:41,089 They can learn only during a very narrow window of their development. 550 00:43:41,089 --> 00:43:44,889 When they are about 35 days old, they have already started to sing, 551 00:43:44,889 --> 00:43:48,689 very faint songs, called subsongs. At that time, 552 00:43:48,689 --> 00:43:52,388 if they hear a song of an adult male, which they've never heard, 553 00:43:52,388 --> 00:43:54,828 they can actually start imitating it. 554 00:43:54,828 --> 00:43:57,968 If we just wait 30 more days, they cannot do very well. 555 00:43:57,969 --> 00:44:01,009 If we wait another 20 days, they can hardly imitate at all. 556 00:44:01,009 --> 00:44:04,908 And Ofer sees a human connection to his experience with zebra finches. 557 00:44:04,908 --> 00:44:07,809 We are very interested - what is it 558 00:44:07,809 --> 00:44:12,969 in their sensitive period that is so special, which also makes them similar to us? 559 00:44:12,969 --> 00:44:16,998 Human infants can acquire new language and learn it, 560 00:44:16,998 --> 00:44:20,559 and acquire it with no apparent effort and no accent. 561 00:44:20,559 --> 00:44:23,938 You can hear that I have an accent. My daughters don't. 562 00:44:23,938 --> 00:44:26,418 At the beginning of the window of learning, 563 00:44:26,418 --> 00:44:29,468 the birds make random sounds, just like babies do. 564 00:44:29,468 --> 00:44:32,518 You can see that in this very young bird, at about day 35, 565 00:44:32,518 --> 00:44:34,769 he was never trained with anything... 566 00:44:34,769 --> 00:44:39,548 But as they quickly mature, Ofer has discovered that the birds favour specific sounds, 567 00:44:39,548 --> 00:44:43,529 that appear as clusters on the graphs. Not only that, 568 00:44:43,529 --> 00:44:49,388 they also start singing them in a set order, just like a child turning noises into words. 569 00:44:49,388 --> 00:44:53,889 But just because zebra finch and human learning develop along similar lines, 570 00:44:53,889 --> 00:44:56,658 it doesn't mean the birds know what they're doing. 571 00:44:56,658 --> 00:45:01,999 It doesn't mean the birds have consciousness, and it doesn't mean they think their songs beautiful. 572 00:45:01,999 --> 00:45:06,498 So you've listened to these baby male zebra finches, 573 00:45:06,498 --> 00:45:10,769 found all these clusters, you've drawn this graph and all these lines. 574 00:45:10,769 --> 00:45:16,628 Can science address the question of why birdsong sounds beautiful to human ears? 575 00:45:16,628 --> 00:45:23,098 I personally wouldn't like to live in a world where we could really measure beauty. 576 00:45:23,098 --> 00:45:27,978 For me, the fact that I can observe those clusters shown up, 577 00:45:27,978 --> 00:45:30,319 I just observe more beauty. 578 00:45:30,319 --> 00:45:33,738 It doesn't explain the beauty, but I can see it. 579 00:45:33,738 --> 00:45:36,268 In art, people create beauty. 580 00:45:36,268 --> 00:45:40,455 In science, it's less talented people, who can only discover beauty. 581 00:46:03,138 --> 00:46:07,538 The beauty of birdsong has inspired artists and musicians for centuries. 582 00:46:07,538 --> 00:46:10,348 Composers such as Haydn, Ravel and Beethoven 583 00:46:10,348 --> 00:46:14,398 have incorporated the sound into some of their most famous works. 584 00:46:16,348 --> 00:46:18,838 Music is essentially an abstract art form, 585 00:46:18,838 --> 00:46:20,758 but, having said that, 586 00:46:20,758 --> 00:46:24,278 obviously everyday sounds feed into the compositional process 587 00:46:24,278 --> 00:46:26,898 and so I think if you are a composer with an acute ear, 588 00:46:26,898 --> 00:46:29,898 little things will feed in, and you'll play with them, 589 00:46:29,898 --> 00:46:34,169 just as, in a way, one quotes earlier composers. 590 00:46:34,169 --> 00:46:36,089 So you quote the sounds around you. 591 00:46:36,089 --> 00:46:38,668 Beethoven, in the Pastoral Symphony, 592 00:46:38,668 --> 00:46:41,618 is expressing, I think, the serenity of nature, 593 00:46:41,618 --> 00:46:46,588 and he decorates a cadence point in the slow movement 594 00:46:46,588 --> 00:46:50,948 with a little cadenza for three birds. 595 00:46:50,948 --> 00:46:54,372 There's the nightingale, which has this oscillation... 596 00:46:58,268 --> 00:47:01,498 .. which gets gradually faster and turns into a trill, 597 00:47:01,498 --> 00:47:03,090 then there's the cuckoo... 598 00:47:04,548 --> 00:47:06,379 .. and the quail. 599 00:47:53,769 --> 00:47:55,689 It's very fascinating 600 00:47:55,689 --> 00:47:59,446 that as we got into the 20th century in musical history, 601 00:47:59,446 --> 00:48:01,976 so we had a complete shift 602 00:48:01,976 --> 00:48:04,416 in terms of birdsong. 603 00:48:04,416 --> 00:48:06,426 Up until then, on the whole, 604 00:48:06,426 --> 00:48:10,836 composers had imitated, and mainly imitated birds that we recognise - 605 00:48:10,836 --> 00:48:14,826 cuckoos or whatever, or pigeons and things like that, a cooing sound. 606 00:48:14,826 --> 00:48:19,092 With Messiaen, we got a key change. 607 00:48:23,546 --> 00:48:28,046 Olivier Messiaen was one of the most important composers of the 20th century. 608 00:48:28,046 --> 00:48:32,586 His music was harmonically colourful, rhythmically complex, 609 00:48:32,586 --> 00:48:36,246 and in his later work, hugely influenced by birdsong. 610 00:48:36,246 --> 00:48:39,056 However, unlike previous classical composers, 611 00:48:39,056 --> 00:48:43,656 Messiaen actually went into the fields and forests of his native France to listen to 612 00:48:43,656 --> 00:48:45,954 and musically notate birdsong. 613 00:48:47,736 --> 00:48:51,576 His belief was that birds were musical, 614 00:48:51,576 --> 00:48:56,306 but that they were musical because God had put them into creation 615 00:48:56,306 --> 00:48:57,626 to be musicians. 616 00:48:57,626 --> 00:49:02,596 They were the real musicians of... of God's creation, rather than human beings. 617 00:49:02,596 --> 00:49:06,996 Peter Hill studied with Messiaen and has recorded many of his works. 618 00:49:06,996 --> 00:49:09,296 When I studied with Messiaen, 619 00:49:09,296 --> 00:49:13,326 he always confessed, "I'm not a scientist - I write birdsong, 620 00:49:13,326 --> 00:49:16,886 "really, because I love birds, and they enchant me." 621 00:49:16,886 --> 00:49:20,456 He worked them into a whole series of very remarkable pieces. 622 00:49:20,456 --> 00:49:24,156 The most famous, probably, is for piano - Catalogue d'Oiseaux. 623 00:49:24,156 --> 00:49:27,996 One of the most beautiful pieces in Messiaen's Catalogue d'Oiseaux, 624 00:49:27,996 --> 00:49:31,046 which he wrote in the mid-1950s, is Le Traquet Stapazin, 625 00:49:31,046 --> 00:49:33,536 which translates as the Black-Eared Wheatear, 626 00:49:33,536 --> 00:49:37,936 and he's imagining a kind of medley of birds here 627 00:49:37,936 --> 00:49:42,256 in the darkness before dawn on a midsummer morning. 628 00:49:42,256 --> 00:49:46,796 First of all there's the ortolan bunting, a flute-like sound, 629 00:49:46,796 --> 00:49:51,256 Messiaen says, and then the spectacled warbler, 630 00:49:51,256 --> 00:49:53,596 which has a kind of chattering effect, 631 00:49:53,596 --> 00:49:56,042 but always over this harmony of E major... 632 00:49:57,906 --> 00:50:02,406 And then that's interrupted by a harsh sea bird out to sea, 633 00:50:02,406 --> 00:50:04,426 so we know we're by the sea - 634 00:50:04,426 --> 00:50:06,116 it's a herring gull... 635 00:50:06,116 --> 00:50:07,947 And then a great crow... 636 00:50:10,096 --> 00:50:12,018 Then you get the gentler birds... 637 00:50:13,706 --> 00:50:17,654 That's the spectacled warbler again, and then the goldfinch. 638 00:50:19,806 --> 00:50:23,876 In the world that Messiaen creates from birdsong, it is very angular, 639 00:50:23,876 --> 00:50:29,126 and it doesn't fit into our ordinary concept of harmony. 640 00:50:29,126 --> 00:50:32,976 But that's why it's sort of unique, and in a way it's truer to birdsong 641 00:50:32,976 --> 00:50:36,026 than, actually, Beethoven was, or Mozart or Haydn, 642 00:50:36,026 --> 00:50:39,917 because they were trying to fit it in to a pre-existing harmony. 643 00:51:11,976 --> 00:51:18,356 In one way, birdsong is the most perfect music, because it exists in a kind of vacuum of its own. 644 00:51:18,356 --> 00:51:21,076 It's unsullied, it's totally pure. 645 00:51:21,076 --> 00:51:25,616 In another way, it has nothing to do with music as we know it. 646 00:51:25,616 --> 00:51:30,406 But one of the great challenges any artist faces 647 00:51:30,406 --> 00:51:32,516 is to bring these things together - 648 00:51:32,516 --> 00:51:34,526 to bring the sounds of nature 649 00:51:34,526 --> 00:51:38,246 into the constructs that we call Western music. 650 00:51:44,186 --> 00:51:46,156 Rising to that challenge, 651 00:51:46,156 --> 00:51:51,826 two modern-day Messiaens have come together at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in Wiltshire 652 00:51:51,826 --> 00:51:54,636 to work on a unique composition. 653 00:51:54,636 --> 00:51:59,566 They are musician Richard Evans and producer Simon Emmerson, 654 00:51:59,566 --> 00:52:02,886 who, as well as leading the Afro-Celt Sound System, 655 00:52:02,886 --> 00:52:05,376 is also an obsessive birdwatcher. 656 00:52:05,376 --> 00:52:10,956 David has sent Simon and Richard a selection of bird sounds 657 00:52:10,956 --> 00:52:13,956 around which they'll create a brand-new piece of music. 658 00:52:13,956 --> 00:52:17,566 We started by building up the rhythm track 659 00:52:17,566 --> 00:52:20,656 and the obvious place was at the bottom end, 660 00:52:20,656 --> 00:52:23,236 a place where a bass drum or a bass beat would fall, 661 00:52:23,236 --> 00:52:25,246 so we put a bittern on beat one... 662 00:52:25,246 --> 00:52:27,266 LOW BOOM 663 00:52:27,266 --> 00:52:32,756 .. which is this marshland bird that skulks around 664 00:52:32,756 --> 00:52:34,576 in the fringes of the reeds. 665 00:52:37,766 --> 00:52:40,396 OK. We then wanted a back beat, 666 00:52:40,396 --> 00:52:43,906 um, and a stonechat has a sound 667 00:52:43,906 --> 00:52:47,186 of a stone being hit together, 668 00:52:47,186 --> 00:52:49,495 so we bring in the stonechat... 669 00:52:52,206 --> 00:52:56,846 .. so you've got a basic groove, one two. 670 00:52:56,846 --> 00:53:00,836 We put a woodpecker in now, just to act as a kind of woodblock. 671 00:53:00,836 --> 00:53:03,406 That's the woodpecker, 672 00:53:03,406 --> 00:53:07,486 um, tapping away... on a tree. 673 00:53:07,486 --> 00:53:10,125 It's not doing the drumming. 674 00:53:12,976 --> 00:53:14,671 Here comes the hoopoe. 675 00:53:24,276 --> 00:53:26,846 So there's your basic rhythm track. 676 00:53:26,846 --> 00:53:29,196 We can mix and vary these. 677 00:53:29,196 --> 00:53:33,086 So we needed, like, a lead vocal. 678 00:53:33,086 --> 00:53:36,036 The, er, most... 679 00:53:36,036 --> 00:53:39,886 appealingly vocal we've got, I think, is the eider duck, 680 00:53:39,886 --> 00:53:45,416 which sounds a little bit like Frankie Howerd, the English comedian, 681 00:53:45,416 --> 00:53:48,886 guesting on Carry On Birdwatching. 682 00:53:48,886 --> 00:53:50,056 Oo-ooh! 683 00:53:50,056 --> 00:53:52,536 Oo-ooh! 684 00:53:52,536 --> 00:53:54,326 Oo-ooh! 685 00:53:54,326 --> 00:53:55,636 Oo-ooh! 686 00:53:55,636 --> 00:53:59,481 And that is eider duck, it's not Frankie Howerd. 687 00:54:01,546 --> 00:54:04,256 And finally, 688 00:54:04,256 --> 00:54:05,806 um... 689 00:54:05,806 --> 00:54:08,756 OK, let's just stop all that. 690 00:54:08,756 --> 00:54:12,976 The day before, Peter Gabriel recorded some vocals, 691 00:54:12,976 --> 00:54:15,466 based on the song of the butcher bird, 692 00:54:15,466 --> 00:54:19,406 so-called for impaling its victims on thorns before devouring them. 693 00:54:19,406 --> 00:54:21,976 Peter Gabriel came to my studio at home 694 00:54:21,976 --> 00:54:26,906 and he tried to sing as closely as he possibly could 695 00:54:26,906 --> 00:54:28,736 to, um, the butcher bird song. 696 00:54:28,736 --> 00:54:32,336 So what we'd do was take each phrase and loop it up, 697 00:54:32,336 --> 00:54:38,196 so the butcher bird would be heard 12 times, and he'd just sing and sing and sing 698 00:54:38,196 --> 00:54:40,266 until he'd learnt the little melody 699 00:54:40,266 --> 00:54:43,546 and got as close as possibly he could to the exact melody. 700 00:54:43,546 --> 00:54:48,757 And then we'd edit together something that was exactly the same. So from this... 701 00:54:53,066 --> 00:54:55,739 .. we ended up with him... 702 00:55:04,356 --> 00:55:06,466 What Peter really wanted 703 00:55:06,466 --> 00:55:11,906 was us to put a process on it where, rather than him just singing along 704 00:55:11,906 --> 00:55:14,996 exactly with the bird, he wants it to sound 705 00:55:14,996 --> 00:55:21,936 as if his voice is slowly morphing and changing into the sound of the butcher bird and back again. 706 00:55:21,936 --> 00:55:24,896 We haven't done that yet. That's tomorrow's job, 707 00:55:24,896 --> 00:55:28,081 and it will be fairly difficult, I think, to achieve that. 708 00:55:33,986 --> 00:55:38,536 David will add his own contribution to the bird composition in a few days' time. 709 00:55:38,536 --> 00:55:42,986 But in the meantime, in Germany, his moment of truth has arrived. 710 00:55:42,986 --> 00:55:46,505 All year, David's ideas on birdsong and its musical qualities 711 00:55:46,505 --> 00:55:50,965 have been ruffling the feathers of the world's leading avian scientists. 712 00:55:50,965 --> 00:55:54,195 Now, they've flocked to Berlin for a conference. 713 00:55:54,195 --> 00:55:59,165 There's one big question that I hope to talk to some of these scientists about. 714 00:55:59,165 --> 00:56:03,765 Very few scientists have taken seriously the question of what birds are singing. 715 00:56:03,765 --> 00:56:09,295 Why do so many birds sing elaborate, very beautiful, musically constructed songs, 716 00:56:09,295 --> 00:56:13,375 when what they're trying to do with these songs is something rather simple - 717 00:56:13,375 --> 00:56:15,905 attract mates, defend territories? 718 00:56:15,905 --> 00:56:21,245 They'd be a lot better off using some simple, clear song. 719 00:56:21,245 --> 00:56:25,515 It's the last day of the conference and in Berlin's botanical gardens, 720 00:56:25,515 --> 00:56:28,045 it's high noon for David. 721 00:56:28,045 --> 00:56:34,275 Three of the world's leading avian scientists have reluctantly agreed to meet him. Between them, 722 00:56:34,275 --> 00:56:38,075 they have 97 years' experience studying birdsong. 723 00:56:38,075 --> 00:56:43,135 Do you think that a musician has any role to help understand birdsong? 724 00:56:43,135 --> 00:56:48,015 Or are we just too human-centred and misguided to be of any use? 725 00:56:48,015 --> 00:56:49,565 Well? 726 00:56:49,565 --> 00:56:54,485 What do you think? I think a musician can help to describe the beauty of birdsong - 727 00:56:54,485 --> 00:56:56,785 describe birdsong in an artistic sense. 728 00:56:56,785 --> 00:57:01,465 I mean, scientists haven't got a complete stranglehold on birdsong, 729 00:57:01,465 --> 00:57:05,455 but if you want to understand birdsong from a scientific point of view, 730 00:57:05,455 --> 00:57:08,545 you've got to approach it from a scientific point of view, 731 00:57:08,545 --> 00:57:12,015 and I personally don't really think that people from the arts 732 00:57:12,015 --> 00:57:16,515 can help us to any great degree in that endeavour. Well said. 733 00:57:16,515 --> 00:57:20,315 I would not tell an artist how he should listen to birdsong, 734 00:57:20,315 --> 00:57:23,545 and I think in that same way, it bothers a little 735 00:57:23,545 --> 00:57:29,875 to have an artist, a musician, telling us, "Oh, you should be listening in this way." 736 00:57:29,875 --> 00:57:35,455 But David really isn't telling us how to listen - he's just making some unscientific declarations 737 00:57:35,455 --> 00:57:41,035 that insult my birds and indirectly, you know, that bothers me. 738 00:57:41,035 --> 00:57:45,165 Birds sing because they have to - they must, this is what it means to be a bird. 739 00:57:45,165 --> 00:57:48,675 That's a completely tautological argument, isn't it? Not entirely. 740 00:57:48,675 --> 00:57:53,835 "They must"?! That's no scientific explanation. is the same in all these cases, 741 00:57:53,835 --> 00:57:57,865 but the songs are very diverse, different and interesting in themselves. 742 00:57:57,865 --> 00:57:59,925 It has... 743 00:57:59,925 --> 00:58:03,255 All behaviour patterns have to work. Yeah. Song has to work. 744 00:58:03,255 --> 00:58:05,835 But music is a totally human conception. 745 00:58:05,835 --> 00:58:10,945 I don't understand why you want to impose this word on something wonderful like birdsong. 746 00:58:10,945 --> 00:58:14,465 Because it helps... You then focus on the song itself. 747 00:58:14,465 --> 00:58:18,075 Science focuses on the function of the song too often, 748 00:58:18,075 --> 00:58:19,665 and not on the song in itself. 749 00:58:19,665 --> 00:58:24,685 I think you're being anthropomorphic. I don't understand why you want to use the word music. 750 00:58:24,685 --> 00:58:27,395 Assuming that birds are like people, 751 00:58:27,395 --> 00:58:31,755 in any sort of sense, is a very dangerous thing to do. 752 00:58:31,755 --> 00:58:37,805 From the evolutionary point of view, our nearest common ancestor was some reptile crawling around in sludge! 753 00:58:37,805 --> 00:58:43,335 You're not likely to find anything in common as far as vocal communication is concerned. 754 00:58:43,335 --> 00:58:47,225 But I also think it's anthropomorphic to count all the parts of the song 755 00:58:47,225 --> 00:58:51,545 and really be so quantifying about it, and stop there. 756 00:58:51,545 --> 00:58:57,635 If you really want to do science, you have to count, you have to do things that are quantitative, 757 00:58:57,635 --> 00:59:01,625 and set up experiments and hypotheses... Why not count...? 758 00:59:01,625 --> 00:59:05,185 Speculating on the basis of one or two animals is not interesting. 759 00:59:05,185 --> 00:59:07,715 Why not count the rhythms, the shape, the form - 760 00:59:07,715 --> 00:59:10,995 not just the number of differences? That's just the beginning. 761 00:59:10,995 --> 00:59:14,415 Scientists don't like it when non-scientists criticise them. 762 00:59:14,415 --> 00:59:19,435 They say, "How dare you? We're not musicians, we're not going to criticise music. 763 00:59:19,435 --> 00:59:24,875 "You should leave us scientists alone. We have enough problems! This work's hard enough to do as it is, 764 00:59:24,875 --> 00:59:27,125 "and you're making it more difficult." 765 00:59:27,125 --> 00:59:30,215 I think this is thoroughly wacky. Wacky? Thoroughly. 766 00:59:30,215 --> 00:59:38,425 Do you think most birds would imitate or respond to human beings who would whistle to them? 767 00:59:38,425 --> 00:59:43,015 If you say the birds are responding to music as a special sound, special human sound, 768 00:59:43,015 --> 00:59:45,785 as a scientist I step back and say, "Wait a minute." 769 00:59:45,785 --> 00:59:49,065 You're saying they respond to a special kind of sound, 770 00:59:49,065 --> 00:59:50,895 but do you have a control sound? 771 00:59:50,895 --> 00:59:54,545 When we wanted to get birds to sing in the laboratory, we'd try music, 772 00:59:54,545 --> 00:59:59,426 we'd try everything. What worked was a vacuum cleaner. Turn the vacuum cleaner on, they sang. 773 01:00:03,265 --> 01:00:06,925 David is a philosopher and he's a musician. 774 01:00:06,925 --> 01:00:12,695 So he's looking at birdsong from a very different angle to your average scientist. 775 01:00:12,695 --> 01:00:16,205 And he has, to my mind, ignored quite a large body of evidence, 776 01:00:16,205 --> 01:00:17,755 gleaned scientifically, 777 01:00:17,755 --> 01:00:22,625 by people setting up hypotheses and testing them and being sure they had good sample sizes, 778 01:00:22,625 --> 01:00:25,205 and doing all the things us scientists have to do. 779 01:00:25,205 --> 01:00:29,475 We're very cautious people, scientists. I think he finds that very frustrating. 780 01:00:29,475 --> 01:00:34,815 Science doesn't have, you know, the upper hand in figuring out what birdsong is about. 781 01:00:34,815 --> 01:00:38,475 They have one approach. It picks up on some things, misses out others. 782 01:00:38,475 --> 01:00:42,555 In a sense, it's science and arts - a different approach, different angles. 783 01:00:42,555 --> 01:00:46,025 He's an interesting man. He's got very interesting ideas. 784 01:00:46,025 --> 01:00:47,665 But he's not a scientist. 785 01:00:47,665 --> 01:00:51,455 What would it take for me to become a scientist? Complete retraining. 786 01:00:51,455 --> 01:00:56,055 Science is the art of collecting interesting numbers, 787 01:00:56,055 --> 01:00:59,715 and so I would ask you to collect some numbers, 788 01:00:59,715 --> 01:01:03,645 analyse them, and tell us what that tells you about the world. 789 01:01:03,645 --> 01:01:08,335 David has failed to convince the scientists 790 01:01:08,335 --> 01:01:11,525 that his ideas are worth taking seriously, 791 01:01:11,525 --> 01:01:15,234 and the wall between their world and his is as high as ever. 792 01:01:20,055 --> 01:01:22,025 # Loving you 793 01:01:22,025 --> 01:01:27,085 # Is easy cos you're beautiful 794 01:01:27,085 --> 01:01:31,685 # Making love with you 795 01:01:31,685 --> 01:01:33,935 # Is all I wanna do 796 01:01:33,935 --> 01:01:36,415 # La-la-la-la-la 797 01:01:36,415 --> 01:01:38,525 # La-la-la-la-la 798 01:01:38,525 --> 01:01:40,545 # La-la-la-la-la... # 799 01:01:40,545 --> 01:01:46,405 Feeling rejected, he's retreated back to the welcoming embrace of art - a world free of numbers, 800 01:01:46,405 --> 01:01:49,075 but rich in imagination. 801 01:01:49,075 --> 01:01:53,715 He's agreed to take part in the ultimate experiment in anthropomorphism. 802 01:01:53,715 --> 01:01:58,495 He's going to become a song thrush in an art installation. 803 01:01:58,495 --> 01:02:02,105 The work is to be created by conceptual artist Marcus Coates. 804 01:02:02,105 --> 01:02:05,905 Coates has dedicated most of his video and performance installations 805 01:02:05,905 --> 01:02:09,935 to exploring the relationships between humans and animals. 806 01:02:09,935 --> 01:02:12,325 Now, in his most ambitious work to date, 807 01:02:12,325 --> 01:02:16,875 he's creating a video dawn chorus, sung by humans. 808 01:02:16,875 --> 01:02:20,629 David is to be the final bird in his collection. 809 01:02:30,985 --> 01:02:33,465 I developed this technique, 810 01:02:33,465 --> 01:02:37,175 probably about seven years aho, 811 01:02:37,175 --> 01:02:41,065 of recreating birdsong, but using human voices. 812 01:02:41,065 --> 01:02:45,655 This is a re-enactment of a dawn chorus, 813 01:02:45,655 --> 01:02:49,273 where each bird will be sung by a different singer. 814 01:02:52,075 --> 01:02:55,735 David today will be singing like a song thrush. 815 01:02:55,735 --> 01:02:59,205 So I'm not like waking up under covers? 816 01:02:59,205 --> 01:03:01,935 No, I think you're just hanging out in this dark space. 817 01:03:04,975 --> 01:03:07,785 We've got some fantastic recordings, 818 01:03:07,785 --> 01:03:10,845 and we slowed down the birdsong. 819 01:03:18,945 --> 01:03:20,115 Double-sided... 820 01:03:20,115 --> 01:03:24,705 'They have a little ear piece and they sing along with it, and I film them singing this, 821 01:03:24,705 --> 01:03:28,085 'and we speed the film up to the original bird speed, 822 01:03:28,085 --> 01:03:32,169 'and what you in effect get is an extremely accurate rendition of birdsong. ' 823 01:03:48,385 --> 01:03:56,395 'We're also using human habitats, and David has said that he spends a lot of time in hotels, 824 01:03:56,395 --> 01:03:59,865 'and it's a kind of habitual place for him. David's sitting here, 825 01:03:59,865 --> 01:04:01,975 'in his underpants - 826 01:04:01,975 --> 01:04:04,512 'he's in a very human environment. ' 827 01:04:08,685 --> 01:04:10,645 All right, let's run. 828 01:04:10,645 --> 01:04:13,745 Starting to play... now. 829 01:04:13,745 --> 01:04:21,163 Oh! Oh! Oh-oh-oh...! 830 01:04:26,075 --> 01:04:30,435 'This project is more about, rather than us projecting our emotions 831 01:04:30,435 --> 01:04:33,295 'and our kind of needs onto birds, 832 01:04:33,295 --> 01:04:37,275 'it's kind of the other way round, and we are becoming birds. 833 01:04:37,275 --> 01:04:40,135 'And there is that element in all of us 834 01:04:40,135 --> 01:04:43,135 'that wants to believe that birds enjoy singing, 835 01:04:43,135 --> 01:04:47,165 'and they're singing because they're in love, or they're joyous, 836 01:04:47,165 --> 01:04:51,807 'or they're just singing because they're pleased to be alive. ' 837 01:04:59,875 --> 01:05:05,315 'It wasn't just the song that became very accurate when we sped it up. 838 01:05:05,315 --> 01:05:09,015 'Also, the people's movements and their mannerisms - 839 01:05:09,015 --> 01:05:12,905 'it's almost as if, if you sped humans up ten times, 840 01:05:12,905 --> 01:05:15,305 'they'd become much more like birds. ' 841 01:05:28,935 --> 01:05:34,895 David's experience of being a bird and his brush-off from the science world has drawn him back 842 01:05:34,895 --> 01:05:39,115 to what ignited his passion in the first place - duetting with living birds. 843 01:05:39,115 --> 01:05:41,035 At the Bronx Zoo in New York, 844 01:05:41,035 --> 01:05:44,505 he's recruited another artist inspired by birdsong. 845 01:05:44,505 --> 01:05:48,585 Like David, musician Michael Pestel has a bit of previous, 846 01:05:48,585 --> 01:05:50,928 duetting with birds. 847 01:05:55,005 --> 01:05:59,695 On this occasion, Pestel has brought along his pride and joy - 848 01:05:59,695 --> 01:06:01,765 the Bird Machine. 849 01:06:01,765 --> 01:06:03,915 The Bird Machine is an evolving project. 850 01:06:03,915 --> 01:06:06,825 It's never really finished. 851 01:06:06,825 --> 01:06:10,056 In fact, each time I play it, it's slightly different. 852 01:06:12,825 --> 01:06:17,465 The core of this instrument is a recorder - a bass recorder in C - 853 01:06:17,465 --> 01:06:22,435 which is designed according to the square design of organ pipes - 854 01:06:22,435 --> 01:06:25,295 Renaissance organ pipes. 855 01:06:25,295 --> 01:06:27,923 BURBLING MUSIC WITH WHISTLES 856 01:06:38,935 --> 01:06:45,025 Other sounds are, you know, your generic seagull... 857 01:06:45,025 --> 01:06:47,935 SQUAWKING 858 01:06:47,935 --> 01:06:49,857 .. European blackbird... 859 01:06:59,465 --> 01:07:02,662 Then you've got the wind wand. 860 01:07:16,905 --> 01:07:23,335 Well, of course, it's always a bit of a hit or miss when you go into aviaries. 861 01:07:23,335 --> 01:07:25,535 One tries to draw them out, 862 01:07:25,535 --> 01:07:29,483 and in the process, draw oneself out. 863 01:07:44,005 --> 01:07:47,895 The response is intuitive, and that's enough for me. 864 01:07:47,895 --> 01:07:52,255 I'm certainly not approaching this as a scientist. 865 01:07:52,255 --> 01:07:57,887 When there is a dialogue, it's an intensely satisfying one. 866 01:08:14,565 --> 01:08:18,645 Despite the best efforts of Michael, David and the Bird Machine, 867 01:08:18,645 --> 01:08:21,695 they've all failed to get a response. 868 01:08:21,695 --> 01:08:25,725 However, in another part of the zoo, David has left the best for himself - 869 01:08:25,725 --> 01:08:27,745 the white-crested laughing thrush, 870 01:08:27,745 --> 01:08:30,885 the bird that inspired him in Pittsburgh four years ago. 871 01:08:30,885 --> 01:08:34,355 Both the male and female of this species duet together. 872 01:08:34,355 --> 01:08:37,115 They are the Sonny and Cher of the bird world, 873 01:08:37,115 --> 01:08:42,745 hopping around the forest floor, impressing each other with their vocal gymnastics. 874 01:08:42,745 --> 01:08:45,325 David is hoping they're up for a threesome. 875 01:08:45,325 --> 01:08:51,415 Unlike most birds, in this species, the males and females sing together. 876 01:08:51,415 --> 01:08:56,295 They do not use their song primarily to defend territories or attract mates, 877 01:08:56,295 --> 01:08:59,805 but the males and females together use song to establish 878 01:08:59,805 --> 01:09:03,695 connection between each other in the forest - to sort of collectively 879 01:09:03,695 --> 01:09:07,915 define a pair bond between the two of them. 880 01:09:07,915 --> 01:09:12,935 So if a clarinet interjects into the mix, it's not seen as a threat 881 01:09:12,935 --> 01:09:19,465 or a challenge, or something like that. It's more like, "Oh, another sound to riff off of." 882 01:09:49,785 --> 01:09:54,985 I think it's very easy to get birds to react to human noises. 883 01:09:54,985 --> 01:09:58,315 I can make woodpeckers drum by clicking my tongue. 884 01:09:58,315 --> 01:10:01,925 If you whistle at a bird at the right frequency, 885 01:10:01,925 --> 01:10:05,725 it's going to reply, because it's a frequency its own species uses. 886 01:10:05,725 --> 01:10:09,325 And I think many birds are rhythmical in the sounds they produce. 887 01:10:09,325 --> 01:10:11,815 Many birds produce very pure tones, 888 01:10:11,815 --> 01:10:15,565 which is why David would want to call them musical. 889 01:10:15,565 --> 01:10:19,125 And then he can then imitate those sounds, to some extent, 890 01:10:19,125 --> 01:10:21,475 with his musical instruments, 891 01:10:21,475 --> 01:10:25,696 and the net result is you start getting a duet between him and the bird. 892 01:10:50,255 --> 01:10:53,205 # Why do birds 893 01:10:53,205 --> 01:10:56,495 # Suddenly appear 894 01:10:56,495 --> 01:11:00,525 # Every time you are near...? # 895 01:11:00,525 --> 01:11:05,065 So perhaps David has simply been conducting an exercise in call and response. 896 01:11:05,065 --> 01:11:10,785 Without convincing evidence, the scientists will never take him seriously. 897 01:11:10,785 --> 01:11:13,695 But while he's been travelling the world, 898 01:11:13,695 --> 01:11:15,855 a scientific paper has been published 899 01:11:15,855 --> 01:11:19,848 that might actually support his belief in a pleasure principle for birdsong. 900 01:11:21,811 --> 01:11:24,291 On the 30th August 2006, 901 01:11:24,291 --> 01:11:27,811 Professor Erich Jarvis of Duke University, North Carolina, 902 01:11:27,811 --> 01:11:30,671 published a paper in the Journal of Neuroscience. 903 01:11:30,671 --> 01:11:35,681 It revealed important chemical changes taking place in the brains of zebra finches. 904 01:11:35,681 --> 01:11:37,651 Jarvis had actually found evidence 905 01:11:37,651 --> 01:11:40,981 that dopamine, the so-called pleasure molecule, 906 01:11:40,981 --> 01:11:43,711 is released when they sing. 907 01:11:44,731 --> 01:11:48,341 We know that in the mammalian brain, in our own brain as well, 908 01:11:48,341 --> 01:11:51,951 there's a molecule called dopamine that is released 909 01:11:51,951 --> 01:11:56,171 into certain areas of the brain during pleasurable experiences - 910 01:11:56,171 --> 01:12:00,151 during dancing, singing, even sex and so forth, or eating good food. 911 01:12:00,151 --> 01:12:02,871 And that causes addiction to these things. 912 01:12:02,871 --> 01:12:05,731 And what we discovered is that when birds sing, 913 01:12:05,731 --> 01:12:09,061 that causes dopamine release into these similar brain areas. 914 01:12:09,061 --> 01:12:11,831 There are seven brain areas in birds 915 01:12:11,831 --> 01:12:15,771 that appear to be important for vocal learning and production. 916 01:12:15,771 --> 01:12:17,781 It was in one of these, area X, 917 01:12:17,781 --> 01:12:21,251 that Erich and his team recorded a rise in the level of dopamine 918 01:12:21,251 --> 01:12:23,031 when his zebra finches sang. 919 01:12:23,031 --> 01:12:29,031 They seemed to be enjoying all their singing, but particularly when directed to females. 920 01:12:29,031 --> 01:12:31,661 You've discovered a molecule that proves this? 921 01:12:31,661 --> 01:12:36,531 We've discovered... No, I'm not going to say proves it... Suggests, exactly. 922 01:12:36,531 --> 01:12:40,101 Dopamine has been proposed to be involved in a number of functions, 923 01:12:40,101 --> 01:12:43,521 including learning, timing of a brain system, and so forth. 924 01:12:43,521 --> 01:12:46,751 One of the hypotheses out there, and it's a strong one, 925 01:12:46,751 --> 01:12:51,071 is that it's involved in reinforcing systems and reinforcing feelings. 926 01:12:51,071 --> 01:12:54,351 And particularly pleasurable feelings. 927 01:12:54,351 --> 01:12:57,301 And has this been studied in other animals? Yeah. 928 01:12:57,301 --> 01:13:03,441 It's already been found...?Yeah, so actually the brain system in the animal studied the most, rats, 929 01:13:03,441 --> 01:13:08,181 where it's for drug addiction, it's most known that you give rats cocaine, 930 01:13:08,181 --> 01:13:11,742 you get these huge dopamine releases 931 01:13:11,742 --> 01:13:14,462 that then makes them become addicted to the cocaine. 932 01:13:14,462 --> 01:13:19,801 That's how we've thought we become addicted to cocaine. So you generate more pleasure from the drug, 933 01:13:19,801 --> 01:13:23,742 and so this could be just the birds' natural way of doing it. 934 01:13:23,742 --> 01:13:26,551 So you think birds might be addicted to singing? 935 01:13:26,551 --> 01:13:32,081 Yeah, that's right. That's a possibility. Could be a more healthy addiction! That's right. 936 01:13:32,081 --> 01:13:36,071 Does that mean birds sing for the same reasons humans sing? 937 01:13:36,071 --> 01:13:39,021 Um... if you ask that question 938 01:13:39,021 --> 01:13:43,991 to a bunch of different biologists, you'll get different answers. 939 01:13:43,991 --> 01:13:46,851 And so I can only give you my answer, 940 01:13:46,851 --> 01:13:49,431 which is I do think that birds sing, 941 01:13:49,431 --> 01:13:53,182 in part, for a similar reason why humans sing - for pleasure. 942 01:13:53,182 --> 01:13:58,671 # Ah-aa-aa-aah... # 943 01:13:58,671 --> 01:14:03,351 David at last found an acknowledgement from the science world, that birds might, 944 01:14:03,351 --> 01:14:09,261 perhaps, given the right conditions and the presence of a female bird, 945 01:14:09,261 --> 01:14:14,561 possibly sing because... yes, they enjoy it. 946 01:14:14,561 --> 01:14:18,031 # Aah-aa-aa-aah... # 947 01:14:18,031 --> 01:14:21,681 In the end, this is always going to be a standoff. 948 01:14:21,681 --> 01:14:25,342 But even if David's idea will never take wing in the lecture hall, 949 01:14:25,342 --> 01:14:27,961 it has come home to roost in the recording studio. 950 01:14:27,961 --> 01:14:32,371 Now at the end of his journey, he is to join up with Simon and Richard 951 01:14:32,371 --> 01:14:34,291 at Real World Studios, 952 01:14:34,291 --> 01:14:38,471 to add his contribution to their human-bird composition. 953 01:14:38,471 --> 01:14:42,171 The birds have played their part, in the form of the rhythm track. 954 01:14:42,171 --> 01:14:46,291 Now David is to provide the first human element, playing his bass clarinet, 955 01:14:46,291 --> 01:14:50,371 along with Kate St John on cor anglais. 956 01:14:50,371 --> 01:14:53,101 MUSIC STARTS 957 01:15:29,801 --> 01:15:31,632 That was cool! 958 01:15:47,801 --> 01:15:52,500 And finally, Simon has recruited the band Guillemots to play on the track. 959 01:15:55,161 --> 01:15:59,991 It's one of the most natural forms of music you could imagine, 960 01:15:59,991 --> 01:16:04,071 and I've always been... I've played music since I can remember, 961 01:16:04,071 --> 01:16:06,181 but because I've got a musical ear, 962 01:16:06,181 --> 01:16:09,831 I always find it fairly easy to identify birdsongs, 963 01:16:09,831 --> 01:16:12,551 so from quite early on, I've been listening out 964 01:16:12,551 --> 01:16:15,791 to different birdsongs. 965 01:16:15,791 --> 01:16:19,911 Now, at this point, we can go off into you guys. Yeah. 966 01:16:19,911 --> 01:16:24,181 At the moment, it goes to quite a formal reel... 967 01:16:24,181 --> 01:16:27,371 'Absolutely no idea what they're gonna do. 968 01:16:27,371 --> 01:16:32,621 'What you're seeing today is very much kind of edge-of-the-seat stuff. 969 01:16:32,621 --> 01:16:36,371 'We haven't had any rehearsals. We're just seeing what happens. ' 970 01:16:36,371 --> 01:16:40,262 Is that the corncrake there? Yeah, the corncrake... 971 01:16:43,262 --> 01:16:45,881 I really believe 972 01:16:45,881 --> 01:16:50,101 birdsong IS music, and that conclusion has been reinforced 973 01:16:50,101 --> 01:16:55,021 and pushed a little further by meeting all these interesting people and working with them, 974 01:16:55,021 --> 01:17:00,041 and I think making music this way hopefully makes one less selfish, 975 01:17:00,041 --> 01:17:01,731 and a better listener. 976 01:17:01,731 --> 01:17:04,261 I'm responding to the environment, 977 01:17:04,261 --> 01:17:07,401 really interacting with the world around. 978 01:17:07,401 --> 01:17:09,561 All right, I'm ready. 979 01:17:09,561 --> 01:17:11,391 OK. Here we go. 980 01:17:11,391 --> 01:17:13,211 Good luck, studio. 981 01:18:18,891 --> 01:18:22,221 Subtitles by Judith Russell Red Bee Media Ltd 2007 982 01:18:22,221 --> 01:18:25,031 E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk