- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Penguin (1 Jun 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0141020016
- ISBN-13: 978-0141020013
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 900,279 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The richness and variety of birdsong is both a scientific mystery and a source of wonder. David Rothenberg has a unique approach to this fascinating subject, combining the latest scientific research with a deep understanding of musical beauty and form. Can the standard explanations of territoriality or sexual selection account for so many species' astonishing inventiveness and devotion to singing? Whether playing the clarinet with the white-crested laughing thrush in Pittsburgh or jamming in the Australian winter breeding grounds of the Albert's lyrebird, Rothenberg touches the heart and soul of birdsong, offering an intimate look at the most lovely of natural phenomena.
About the Author
David Rothenberg is Professor of Philosophy at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. His work has been profiled on NPR and the BBC, and he has written for The Nation, Sierra and BBC Wildlife. A composer and jazz clarinetist, he lives in Cold Spring, New York.
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First Sentence
IT IS MARCH and I am in Pittsburgh to jam with the birds of the National Aviary, the finest public collection of caged birds in the United States. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
IT IS MARCH and I am in Pittsburgh to jam with the birds of the National Aviary, the finest public collection of caged birds in the United States. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
This book got an excellent review in the Sunday Times when it first came out but when I opened it my heart sunk. It proved to be a very technical book with musical notation. Having said that, there were some enthusiastic sections that I followed with ease. The incredible complexity of the question of why birds sing is established skilfully as David Rothenberg follows his idea of playing music, actually with birds. Not only crossing the species divide but holding true to his love of jazz, Rothenberg pursues his idea to the point of flying to Australia (his professorship in Philosophy and Music must pay very well) in order to play with a wild Albert Lyre Bird guaranteed not to fly away at human approaches.
I confess to skimming the parts that bored me - the technical musical notations, the philosophy of aesthetics, and some of the human-focused exposition etc., but I enjoyed much of the rest, including informative snippets on how composers in the past have used or incorporated birdsong in their works, and information about the birds themselves. The question asked by the book can never be definitively answered since none of us can ask it of birds; but one feels there must be a spiritual dimension to the reason, something connected to the joy in being alive. This is probably very simplistic, but birds are, after all, relatively simple creatures. They fly, they eat, they mate and have offspring; they also sing as distinct from making calls that denote a warning or other imperative. They may have important evolutionary purposes in the wider scheme of things, but their lives are dominated by eating and mating. That their singing is largely very beautiful is what has made them worth studying for us. Human beings cannot make music as beautiful as bird song, or rather, our senses are too different for us to understand each other along whatever continuum of beauty that might exist.
Above all, the book made me want to go and sit in a wood somewhere and really listen to birdsong.
I confess to skimming the parts that bored me - the technical musical notations, the philosophy of aesthetics, and some of the human-focused exposition etc., but I enjoyed much of the rest, including informative snippets on how composers in the past have used or incorporated birdsong in their works, and information about the birds themselves. The question asked by the book can never be definitively answered since none of us can ask it of birds; but one feels there must be a spiritual dimension to the reason, something connected to the joy in being alive. This is probably very simplistic, but birds are, after all, relatively simple creatures. They fly, they eat, they mate and have offspring; they also sing as distinct from making calls that denote a warning or other imperative. They may have important evolutionary purposes in the wider scheme of things, but their lives are dominated by eating and mating. That their singing is largely very beautiful is what has made them worth studying for us. Human beings cannot make music as beautiful as bird song, or rather, our senses are too different for us to understand each other along whatever continuum of beauty that might exist.
Above all, the book made me want to go and sit in a wood somewhere and really listen to birdsong.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
You might imagine that a man with no literary experience or indeed any in depth knowledge of the avian world would tread carefully when attempting to persuade us that the ornithologists and scientists are wrong and that birds in fact sing for pure joy. But you'd be wrong.
From page one Rothenberg attempts to convince the reader that the scientific approach is flawed because the scientists mind is filled with preconceptions while the musicians minds are not. So far this is fair, many of the major scientific breakthroughs of the last few hundred years have come against the grain of scientific beliefs. Where he comes unstuck is his failure to confront issues which cause those scientific conclusions. He simply sidesteps these problems with the `why not' approach.
He is also guilty of severe anthropomorphism. He places our thoughts and values in birds, without considering other factors. He concludes that if humans could sing like a bird they would when they were joyful. But he makes preconceptions of his own such as assuming that birds find their song as pleasurable as we do. He also fails to realize that unlike us birds have predation risks and a tight energy budgets which prohibit song. In short if we were birds we would sing out of joy. But he fails to realize that we simply aren't.
Rothenberg has clearly undertaken profound research for this book and has spoken to numerous experts and scientists. So what is written as fact in the book is in all likelihood accurate. It is the forced interpretation of his research to fit in with his theory that is flawed. Unfortunately this leads to the continuous repetition of the same flawed message.
Its not that Rothenberg is bullish or arrogant in his disagreements with the scientific side of bird-song study. Its more that he treats them with much the same comical patronization that they (and most of us) treat his own views. And this is rather appealing. I did not for one moment believe that what he was writing was true, but I did find myself wishing he could find some indisputable proof that it was, just so this plucky theorist could win the day! And that, in essence, is the appeal of this book.
From page one Rothenberg attempts to convince the reader that the scientific approach is flawed because the scientists mind is filled with preconceptions while the musicians minds are not. So far this is fair, many of the major scientific breakthroughs of the last few hundred years have come against the grain of scientific beliefs. Where he comes unstuck is his failure to confront issues which cause those scientific conclusions. He simply sidesteps these problems with the `why not' approach.
He is also guilty of severe anthropomorphism. He places our thoughts and values in birds, without considering other factors. He concludes that if humans could sing like a bird they would when they were joyful. But he makes preconceptions of his own such as assuming that birds find their song as pleasurable as we do. He also fails to realize that unlike us birds have predation risks and a tight energy budgets which prohibit song. In short if we were birds we would sing out of joy. But he fails to realize that we simply aren't.
Rothenberg has clearly undertaken profound research for this book and has spoken to numerous experts and scientists. So what is written as fact in the book is in all likelihood accurate. It is the forced interpretation of his research to fit in with his theory that is flawed. Unfortunately this leads to the continuous repetition of the same flawed message.
Its not that Rothenberg is bullish or arrogant in his disagreements with the scientific side of bird-song study. Its more that he treats them with much the same comical patronization that they (and most of us) treat his own views. And this is rather appealing. I did not for one moment believe that what he was writing was true, but I did find myself wishing he could find some indisputable proof that it was, just so this plucky theorist could win the day! And that, in essence, is the appeal of this book.
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