Beyond Imitation: Birdsong and Vocal Learning
Wed, Oct 25, 2017
6:30 PM–8:00 PM
Room C198
Why do birds sing? Could we call what they sing and how they sing music? Of all nonhuman animals, birds teach us to check anthropocentrism in music, or, as David Rothenberg puts it in Why Birds Sing (2005), birds check “the conceit that humanity is needed to find beauty in the natural world.” But how do they learn songs? Do they invent and compose them or “parrot” what they hear? Join us for a discussion between animal behavioral psychologist Professor Ofer Tchernichovski (Hunter College) and distinguished professor of philosophy and music, composer and clarinetist, Professor David Rothenberg (NJIT).
Cosponsored by the Ecocriticism Working Group.
https://vimeo.com/241713084
