David Rothenberg is a musician, author and naturalist-philosopher, who's work has linked humanity's artistic aesthetics to the environment for years. His research writing Why Birds Sing and Whale Music, aims to bridge the gap between different species and expand, "our understanding of what counts as musical sounds." Though the idea of  environmental "noise" as music was once hard to accept, Rothenberg notes that through experimenting with music in nature, "we are going to appreciate it more, we'll have a more integral way in fitting into our natural world."          

As a jazz clarinetist particularly interested in the environment, Rothenberg created  an anthology called The Book of Music and Nature in 2001, the first publication of its kind. After being invited to  Pittsburgh's National Aviary to play clarinet among the birds, Rothenberg noted that the white-crested laughing thrush was particularly engaged. "It was a defining moment... and got me interested in the whole process, why would a bird want to play along with this strange foreign sound, what kind of music was made between species?"  

Rothenberg noticed that though people have experimented with animal sounds before, they often did not let the animals guide the performance. When studying whale songs, Rothenberg approached the musical collaborations by allowing the whales to take the reigns and bent his music in this direction. Though the duet may not be as comfortable or familiar to neither humans nor the whales at first, with patience and observation of the whale's natural scale an accessible pleasing performance is entirely possible. "You can create music across species lines and you can create something interesting. It takes time and effort," notes Rothenberg.

Humans, whales and birds, are among the few species that  are proven to learn from sound. Scientific studies of birds show that learning sounds create new connections and brain cells, concluding that learning music makes you smarter.

Here David Rothenberg discuss humans' and birds' brain development through music.

The evolutionary significance of sound and music is contested in science. Evolutionary biologists usually try to explain the animal songs as necessary to survival alone, such as with mating calls. However, Rothenberg is willing to debate that it is a "narrow view of evolution to say that everything is adapted to its environment in some precise way... it's more survival of the interesting than survival of the fittest. Nature produces all these cool things not just as a big designed and efficient machine. I prefer to think of it all as art, as an essential part of life."      

Rothenberg says, "Hearing music in nature is a window to these issues," which he discusses in his upcoming book that focuses on the aesthetic evolution in animal species. This is as important to survival in the animal world just as music is a powerful component in humanity. Rothenberg will dive further into this topic at Ramapo during the Common Ground symposium on April 23, as well as perform with recorded animal sounds.