Tuning in to Nature’s Choir

Wild Sanctuary – October 01, 2007
By Bernie Krause, PhD

Wild Sanctuary
POB 536
Glen Ellen, CA 95442
chirp@wildsanctuary.com

• [>] Learn more about biophony at www.wildsanctuary.com

All God's Creatures Got a Place in the Choir

When creatures want to be heard, they must learn to use their voices in ways that will blend with other animals – just like instruments in a band or orchestra. When all these critters sing together, they form a chorus of sound so magical that even folks like us haven’t been able to create music quite as breathtaking. No music is prettier to our ears.

Have you ever looked at a friend’s face, someone you were talking to, and known you weren’t getting through? The problem might have been the words you were using, but it also might have been that the place where you were standing was too noisy. In order to be understood, we have to speak so that people can hear us. If the noise in the background is too loud, then our voices won’t be heard.

Neighborhood Creature Choirs

What about the songbirds in our own backyards? Originally, before there were houses, cars, and buses in our neighborhoods, many more creatures lived where we do. Can you imagine the streams, flowering meadows, and forests that covered the land? Depending on where you live, there might have been buffalo, deer, elk, moose, foxes, wolves, bobcats, mountain lions, dozens of kinds of birds, and thousands of insects living where you now walk or ride your bike. When all these creatures sang together at sunrise, in the evening, or even during the day, they formed a kind of musical chorus we call a biophony (an animal symphony).

The songbirds living around us today have had to adapt their songs to their new neighbors – us. What do I mean? Just open the door to your house and tell me what you hear. Sometimes, on a summer evening when it’s very quiet, you’ll hear crickets. And sometimes, very early in the morning when everyone else is still asleep, birds will begin to sing.
But mostly you’ll have to listen very carefully to hear the complete songs of birds and the buzzing of insects, because nearly everything we humans do makes noise: our cars, airplanes, lawnmowers, leaf blowers, radios. iPods, refrigerators, and television sets.

To some extent, a few birds, like American robins, sparrows, and wrens, are able to change their voices so that they can be heard even when it’s noisy nearby. They have had to do this in order to communicate with others in their family. It’s a little like having to scream to be heard when you’re in a room full of loud music or lots of other people talking at the same time. Although these birds don’t exactly scream, they do change their songs (or calls) so that their message won’t be lost. Sometimes their voices will be slightly higher. Sometimes lower. And sometimes a song will be longer or shorter than it would normally be in a forest.

Recording the Choir

This next spring or summer, get up just as it is getting light and open the window. See if you can identify what birds and insects you hear. (If you do this for a number of days, you might find that you recognize certain voices, even if you don’t know which creature is making which sound.) Maybe, if you have a small audio recorder – you don’t need anything fancy – you might want to record those sounds so you can listen to them again.

Later in the day, listen again. Have the human noises increased? Is it harder to pick out the bird and insect sounds? Again, try to record these sounds with your recorder. Listen to the difference in the bird/insect sounds when it’s quiet outside and when it gets noisier. Do the same in the evening, first as folks are coming home from work and then after most humans have gone to bed.

This is one way to find out how we are affecting the natural world around us. If you really listen closely, you’ll also hear how well the creatures who live all around us are able to communicate with each other.

Creature Choirs Worldwide

In the forests of the world, all sorts of creatures – chimpanzees, frogs, birds, fish, crocodiles, insects, and even tiny ants – are part of a very large animal orchestra. These biophonies have been the inspiration for many kinds of human music. It is only after recording animals and other natural sounds for the past forty years that I have finally figured this out. But people who live in the tropical rain forests of the world have been creating their music based on the forest sounds around them for as long as humans have been around.

The music of folks living in South American rain forests has no doubt been influenced by a bird called the musician wren. This bird whistles a tune that sounds like a flute playing the blues. Over time, the musician wren learned to sing these notes in a way that said many things to the other creatures living nearby. He was telling other male wrens that the tree he was singing in was his tree and no one else’s. But this same song, if it was pretty enough, might have attracted a female to become his mate. He was also telling other birds that this was his vocal territory and that others needed to find other ways to sing and stay out his way. “But if you’re a female musician wren," he added, "you can cross the line and we’ll check things out.” Most important, the wren created his song so it would fit with the sounds of all other insects, birds, frogs, and mammals that lived in his forest home. His voice became part of a creature chorus where his song would blend with all the others, but at the same time, no one else’s sound blocked his song from being heard.

On the other side of the world, on the Indonesian island of Borneo, the gibbons sing beautiful duets that echo through the rain forest at dawn. You can hear the singing of these tree-dwelling apes for many miles. When you listen to the music created by the people of the Borneo rain forest, you can hear the influence of these duets. People who live in the rain forests, mountains, and deserts of the world make their instruments from the resources their natural homes provide. They use flutes made of bamboo, and drums made of animal hides or the buttresses of large fig trees. Then they create rhythms, melodies, and harmonies based on the sounds of the forest. They use the forest as a kind of backup band for their music making.

Composing for an Animal Backup Band

Try to make up a song based on one of the backyard insect or bird sounds you’ve heard or from the recordings you’ve made. Use your recording as a backup, weaving your song in and out of the natural sound, or perform your song with the live orchestra nature provides, just as folks living in the rain forest do. Choose a time when the sounds are most interesting to you.

Some Final Thoughts

No matter where you live, as long as you are closely connected to and aware of the land around you, the sounds of insects, frogs, birds, whales, chimps, crocodiles, and, yes, even ants, will influence the creation of your music. This is one of the many bonds we have with the natural world, and one more reason that we need to work very hard to preserve what is left. None of us wants the great creature biophony to be silenced. That’s because, if we listen very carefully, no music is more inspiring.

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