Birds Got Rhythm

Where did the harmony and composition skill of birds come from, and did we learn about music from them?

Perching birds are like nature’s choir, raising their voice to the tune of life, along with the clicks of crickets, the howl of wolves, the choirs of fish. But there’s more to a bird’s chirps and whistles than meets the eye. Some species of birds push the envelope and literally act musically. For instance, the pied butcherbird’s tuneful behaviour rivals that of professional human musicians, a new paper concludes.

According to the researchers, the more complex a bird’s repertoire, the better it is at singing in time, rhythmically interacting with other birds more skillfully than those birds who only knew a few songs. The most skillful birds extensively play around with their tunes, balancing repetition and variation. It’s not all that different from a jazz musician, said Constance Scharff, a co-author who directs the animal behavior laboratory at the Freie Universität Berlin.