Music in the jungle
- POSTED ON: 27 Sep, 2022
- TOTAL VIEWS: 235 Views
- POSTED BY: Katie Bagli | Article by Nimi Kurian
- ARTICLE POINTS: 150 Points
Music cheers us, raises our spirits, and calms us. Even early man must have made music by beating bones on stretched animal skins or blowing through bamboos. But where did he learn music from? The animals, of course!
Feathered songsters
It’s such a joy to be awakened by bird songs. And what a variety there is: from the plaintive tunes of the Magpie Robin and the cheery tinkling of Bulbuls to the whistling notes of a Malabar Whistling Thrush (dubbed the ‘Whistling Schoolboy’). Most people may consider a parakeet’s squawking parakeet or a crow’s harsh car as noisy but what’s noise to some is music to others!
Have you heard of New Zealand’s Bell Bird? Its call sounds exactly like a church bell and is heard over a five km radius. The association continues with a weird-looking ornament on its head. This normally remains deflated but, when filled with air, stands up like a church spire!
Birds have a special voice organ, the syrinx. Its membranes vibrate when air flows over them and produces a range of notes.
In the world of insects
Unlike birds, insects have different ways of producing music. The cheery chirping heard in grassy meadows comes from grasshoppers playing their fiddle/violin. They stridulate their spiny hind legs on their wings like a violinist uses his bow on the strings.
A Hawkmoth resting on a wall produces a hissing sound like a percussion shaker by forcing air out of the spiracles (holes) on its sides.
The drummer among beetles is the Deathwatch Beetle, which communicates by banging its head on tunnel walls.
Mammalian musicians
Among mammals, the dolphins are always ready for a song. They produce whistles through their blowholes and clicks through the melons or nasal sacs on their heads. Whales have melodious songs that vary from pod to pod. The Blue Whale’s songs are loudest (at 180 decibels) but the Humpback Whale’s songs have the largest reach as they can be heard 16,100 km away. Whales sing to communicate and signal the presence of food.
Apart from locating obstacles through echolocation, bats sing too. A little pup finds its mother in a cave with hundreds of other bats by listening for her signature tune.
Elephants too have a wide range of songs from the shrill soprano trumpeting when excited to the low rumbling produced from their stomachs. Some low-frequency tones may be inaudible to the human ear but can travel as far as 10km.
There are so many more and the music they create brings joy to our lives.