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

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)
    Writer of foreword
    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.
    ISBN
    • 9780253026200 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
    • 0253026202 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
    • 9780253026668 ((pbk. ; : alk. paper))
    • 0253026660 ((pbk. ; : alk. paper))
    LCCN
    2016059600
    OCLC
    959263796
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