Skip to search
Skip to main content
Catalog
Help
Feedback
Your Account
Library Account
Bookmarks
(
0
)
Search History
Search in
Keyword
Title (keyword)
Author (keyword)
Subject (keyword)
Title starts with
Subject (browse)
Author (browse)
Author (sorted by title)
Call number (browse)
search for
Search
Advanced Search
Bookmarks
(
0
)
Princeton University Library Catalog
Start over
Cite
Send
to
SMS
Email
EndNote
RefWorks
RIS
Printer
Bookmark
Is birdsong music? : outback encounters with an Australian songbird / Hollis Taylor ; with a foreword by Philip Kitcher.
Author
Taylor, Hollis
[Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/Created
Bloomington : Indiana University Press, [2017]
©2017
Description
xii, 347 pages : illustrations, music ; 23 cm.
Availability
Available Online
JSTOR DDA
Copies in the Library
Location
Call Number
Status
Location Service
Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks
QL698.5 .T39 2017
Browse related items
Request
Details
Subject(s)
Birdsongs
—
Australia
[Browse]
Butcherbirds
—
Behavior
—
Australia
[Browse]
Writer of foreword
Kitcher, Philip, 1947-
[Browse]
Series
Music, nature, place
[More in this series]
Summary note
"How and when does music become possible? Is it a matter of biology, or culture, or an interaction between the two? Revolutionizing the way we think about the core values of music and human exceptionalism, Hollis Taylor takes us on an outback road trip to meet the Australian pied butcherbird. Recognized for their distinct timbre, calls, and songs, both sexes of this songbird sing in duos, trios, and even larger choirs, transforming their flute-like songs annually. While birdsong has long inspired artists, writers, musicians, and philosophers, and enthralled listeners from all walks of life, researchers from the sciences have dominated its study. As a field musicologist, Taylor spends months each year in the Australian outback recording the songs of the pied butcherbird and chronicling their musical activities. She argues persuasively in these pages that their inventiveness in song surpasses biological necessity, compelling us to question the foundations of music and confront the remarkably entangled relationship between human and animal worlds. Equal parts nature essay, memoir, and scholarship, Is Birdsong Music? offers vivid portraits of the extreme locations where these avian choristers are found, quirky stories from the field, and an in-depth exploration of the vocalizations of the pied butcherbird."-- Description provided by publisher.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
An outback epiphany
Songbird studies
The nature of transcription and the transcription of nature
Notes and calls: a taste for diversity
Song development: a taste for complexity
Musicality and the art of song: a taste for beauty
Border conflicts at music's definition
Facts to suit theories
Too many theories and not enough birdsong
Songbirds as colleagues and contemporaries.
Show 7 more Contents items
ISBN
9780253026200 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
0253026202 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
9780253026668 ((pbk. ; : alk. paper))
0253026660 ((pbk. ; : alk. paper))
LCCN
2016059600
OCLC
959263796
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
Read more...
Other views
Staff view
Ask a Question
Suggest a Correction
Report Harmful Language
Supplementary Information
Other versions
Is birdsong music? : outback encounters with an Australian songbird / Hollis Taylor ; with a foreword by Philip Kitcher.
id
99108444013506421