How birdsong crossed into musicology and why it matters now

Human fascination with birdsong has deep historical roots. Already Aristotle admired the clarity and order of bird voices, distinguishing them from the chaotic calls of other animals. Charles Darwin proposed that birds possessed “a taste for the beautiful,” and recent research has discovered that the hermit thrush prefers intervals typical of Western tonal systems. Ornithologist Donald Kroodsma captured this long tradition by calling birds “nature’s musicians.” Humans and birds apparently share an enduring bond resonated through aesthetically uplifting vocalisations.

Vivaldi, Beethoven, and Messiaen incorporated avian songs into their works; modern sound artists record them, and enthusiasts as well as scientists study them. Most people take a fairly clear notion of “music,” yet scholarly conversations around the concept are less stable. Blacking’s definition of music as “humanly organized sound” has been criticised for being anthropocentric—it implicitly excludes meaningful sonic organizations made by non-human animals. Attali sharpens the opposition further: music organises noise; noise belongs to industrialization, urbanisation, global overpopulation, and transportation. Over the last decades these ideas have blended into acoustic ecology, soundscape studies, acoustemology, sentient ecology, and ecomusicology, each seeking to understand how people relate to their acoustic environments.

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring painted a dystopian image of a spring without birdsong caused by synthetic pesticides, and her warning catalyzed the environmental movement more than half a century ago. Today the conversation extends to biodiversity decline, melting ice, rising seas, and noise pollution. In musicology, these concerns fuelled the field of ecomusicology, leading the American Musicological Society to approve an Ecocriticism Study Group in 2007. This group has since created a forum for interdisciplinary discussions about music and the natural world.

Against this backdrop, the Swiss National Science Foundation project “Seeking Birdscapes” (2019–2023) used multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork to investigate the listening practices of ornithologists and musicians. Its aim: to understand how these experts construct meaning from their sonic experiences in natural settings, and to reassess the role of—both human and non-human—sounds plus recording technology in people’s engagement with avian sound worlds.

Listening turned into an ethnographic discipline

The so-called auditory turn in the humanities has, over the last three decades, situated the human ear in ever wider cultural, social and technological contexts. Anthropologists in the 1980s began to pay systematic attention to the senses. Steven Feld’s work with the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea and Anthony Seeger’s research among the Suyá people of the Brazilian Amazon emphasised that for people living in the rainforest, sound perception can override vision. Feld coined “acoustemology”—auditory way of knowing—as a term. This rhetoric of antivisualism strongly impacted ethnomusicology, even though some researchers argued that the senses should be studied integratively rather than oppositionally. The “Seeking Birdscapes” project went beyond Indigenous settings into how non-Indigenous people, too, are entangled audibly with their surroundings, especially with birds.

Any inquiry into listening faces an analytical challenge, because sound spaces are not fixed around logical codes: sound does not carry inherent meaning. Listening is a socially negotiated sensemaking process that comes in complicated contexts.

What birdscapes means and how it enlarges soundscape thinking

Existing academically defined ‘music’ played a part in sidelining actual bird sounds: musicological analyses of birdsong-inspired compositions often treat those sounds as extra-musical references—decorative rather than structural. For a long time, only zoomusicology took the musical aspects critically, demanding a dedicated ‘musicology of animals’. The French composer François-Bernard Mâche, a pupil of Olivier Messiaen, published this call in 1983, noting that non-human animals communicate based on aesthetic decisions, with birds and whales presenting especially song-like patterns.

Yet if bird songs share features with human music (specific intervals, melodic phrasing), they are also experienced as part of a natural soundscape linking scientific enquiry, environmental art, and acoustic ecology. In 1968, the Wild Sanctuary organization began archiving Earth’s natural soundscapes, while the World Soundscape Project catalyzed the still-running journal Soundscape: The Journal of Acoustic Ecology.

Conversely, critics argue that “soundscape” often reifies sound as a detached physical object, ignoring the felt, multisensory embodiment of listening. Advances in sound reproduction media also generate transformations of what we hear. The “Seeking Birdscapes” developers chose instead to work from ideas of sentient ecology in line with philosopher David Abram, with his emphasis on interrelatedness of all living beings, and anthropologist/david/ee, who used “sentient ecology” to describe communicative links between people, animals, and environmental elements. Sentient communication does not require spoken language; it embraces visceral immersion, sensory learning and intuition. This view might interface with zoosemiotics and zoomusicology, two still-emerging fields of animal semiotics and music analysis that sometimes struggle with non-cognitive or pre-cognitive experiences.

Right into the ecomusicological turn

Ecomusicology connects music and sound culture with environmental issues such as climate collapse, extinction, noise, and resource scarcity; it flips attention towards the capacity of all living beings—human and nonhuman—to shape auditory space and to act artificially meaningfully. Since the rise of animal studies (including human-animal studies), humanities scholars have re-framed what “subjecthood” means for other creatures. At the same time, Earth-centred literary ecocriticism launched philosophical reappraisals of human dominance; posthumanist currents push further into locating humanity within techno-economic bits.

During its research process, “Seeking Birdscapes” ran 39 semi-structured interviews—two-thirds with field ornithologists, bioacousticians, and ecologists, and one-third with musicians and artists tuning into avian soundscapes. In addition, field trips across different biotopes in Switzerland, Catalonia, and Iceland soaked the team systematically in songbird sound arrangements, including group observation with the Swiss Ornithological Institute in Sempach.

Recorded contrasts revealed that human sensibilities and cultural codes construct “sonic blind spots.” Iceland’s relatively few songbird species, for example, made it easier too underrepresent waterfowl, waders, seabirds, and flocks along migration routes not physically singing during breeding season. Flight noises including wings/tag of passages plus also of of birds does not belong purely western canonical music-cultural constructs known along fixed beauty concepts including works otherwise referable.

Contemporary tainted sonic definitions/rituals reflect structural perspectives therefore because anthropologically typical ontological placements along modernist hegemony can break up through sonic compositional writing including composition voice birds off of watery shift shift-shift so land cross shared motion created Carola Bauckholt’s dEZüGvöGL-sounds motion otherwise traditional work into aware crossing under “s set structured fixed enough once pE r cEp TIV tr=rEGIME”). Additional comparisons withing during our exercises gave under inside results if only mimesie copy mechanics human does purely natural reality science—is bird basically mistakenly turning cat , then animistic rather holistic contextualizations occurs altering identity those complex varying identities real common unifying interiorities.

The vocalization practice from powerful creating proper m what—how from then reinterpret ontological comparative have outcomes onto while understanding around unknown mapping previous limitation elsewhere space?

From this new overall summary: In studying birdsong far beyond pure musical meter scope we definitely can human more inclusive humanities widened through rethinking how defines ecological natural societies musings method being know through can example reach together every member living earth surface audible without sense isolation ignore silent hidden while giving platform reflect all wildlife integrated or untethered complex simultaneously across all human determined possible spectrum works contemporary.

This questioning stance may further illuminate specific constraints now emerging in human-animal studies. In Indigenous ontology, a shared humanity—not a common animality—forms the basis of all descent, rendering terms like ‘non-human animals’ meaningless and pointing to what has been called ‘the Modern’s dilemma’.

Thus Indigenous knowledge can open up stimulating approaches to understanding auditory-sound relationships between humans and animals.

Interviews about nature and bird-sound experience led to discussions of ecological crises and environmental commitment. These conversations brought to the fore the uncanny, often humanly imperceptible silence that decimation and extinction of bird species leave behind—an absence that echoes in personal encounters with loss and solastalgia.

Musicians and sound artists who incorporate ‘nature sounds’ into their creative work or translate environmental data—such as climate data—to make species loss hearable often aim to inspire environmental connection and care. Yet critically examining such works raises the question of whether this engagement unintentionally replicates dynamics of human dominion and consumerist attitudes toward ‘nature’. At the same time, artistic and imaginative responses to ecological crisis remain deeply meaningful and ecologically necessary. This again demonstrates that ecological crises express a fundamental crisis in the human-environment relationship.

The project team’s confrontation with bird sounds and birdscapes, as illustrated by these briefly summarized topics, shows how (eco)musicological research is challenged to reflect fundamentally on the principles underlying our daily perceptions, thoughts, and actions—and, where possible, to question them radically.

About the Contributions

The “Seeking Birdscapes” research project included a conference held in October 2022 under the title “Seeking Birdscapes: Musik, Ökologie und die Klangwelten der Vögel.” A selection of revised contributions from that conference forms the main body of this special issue of SJM, exploring the intricate and multifaceted dynamics of auditory interactions between humans and birds from perspectives spanning musicology, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and artistic practice.

Main Articles

In “The Anatomy of a Benign Failure,” musicologist Gergely Loch offers a concise analysis of a sequence from the Hungarian children’s film Barátom, Bonca (Bonca, my Friend, 1975), scripted by acclaimed children’s author Katalin Varga and directed by Ilona Katkics. The film depicts a dialogue between a young boy and an older man recording birdsongs in his garden; when played back, the slowed tapes transform the songs into something unfamiliar. An intriguing aspect revolves around applying a theory proposed by ornithomusicology pioneer Péter Szőke in the 1950s, who argued that birdsongs shaped Hungarian folk music. Szőke supported his claim by slowing tapes and transcribing them into conventional notation, drawing criticism from colleagues including Zoltán Kodály. By incorporating this already contentious theory into their film, Varga and Katkics perpetuate a problematic cycle of “wishful thinking in science, misinterpretation, misrepresentation and misidentification,” as the author rigorously demonstrates. This is especially evident in their inclusion of a birdsong that does not match the nightingale song named in the film. Loch concludes that these errors contributed to the final product’s artistic authenticity—an authenticity inseparable from environmental ethics.

In his ethnographically informed article “Inquisitory Birds,” anthropologist and birder Andrew Whitehouse examines ethical questions around song playback, a common yet controversial technique used by both scientists and birders to elicit responses from birds. Upon hearing recorded calls, birds display either aggressive territorial reactions or inquisitive social approaches. The long-term effects of playback on bird behaviour remain under-researched, but it may cause birds to stop responding to conspecific sounds, deviating from presumed natural behaviour. Within current discussions on playback ethics—which offer insights into human-animal divides, the aesthetics of birding, and the practices surrounding them—Whitehouse introduces an alternative perspective. By foregrounding the human-bird encounter, he moves away from one-sided exploitation aimed at acquiring (scientific) knowledge. This shift paves the way for a more nuanced understanding of birding, especially from the birds’ perspective, as it can provide enriching encounters for ‘inquisitory birds’.

Ethnomusicologists Natalie Kirschstein and Helena Simonett investigate the auditory practices of a dozen individuals as they ‘walk and talk’ in a Swiss ‘sounding forest’ or ‘tùn resùn/Klangwald’. Initially centred on auditory practices, their conversations with interlocutors uncovered the profound interdependence of sensory experiences, especially walking. Rather than simply extending Ingold and Vergunst’s ‘anthropology of walking’ by adding the auditory dimension, they advocate for a ‘sensory walking ethnography’. They suggest that an ecological approach to perception can overcome the limitations of the predominantly linguistic or semiotic perspective common in sound-related disciplines. A recurring theme was sound and silence, apparently centred on hearing. Yet the authors contend that these forest experiences—described as quiet or silent—transcend mere auditory perception, emphasizing the need to consider sound within the broader sensory context that shapes perception. They ultimately argue for a more inclusive sensorial approach in disciplines concerned with the realm of sound.

Times and Perspectives

Composer Emily Doolittle’s reflective essay explores a collaborative music-and-text piece inspired by seabirds breeding in vast colonies on the Shetland Islands’ cliffs. As a composer and researcher fascinated by the music-like aspects of gannet sound communication, Doolittle offers insights into the multifaceted personal experiences and creative methodologies that shaped the composition. These profound interactions with gannets find succinct expression in the essay’s title: “Sharp, Loud, Fast, Fierce.” The piece Gannetry—inspired by Dawn Wood’s poem—was written for clarinetist Joanna Nicholson as part of the Modern Chants project in 2021.

In “Captured Birdscapes,” Matthias Lewy and Helena Simonett analyze the Birdscapes exhibition held in 2022 at the Lucerne Nature Museum in Switzerland. The exhibition’s central aim was to communicate the SNSF project’s research procedures and outcomes. After briefly introducing the concept of a sonorous museum space, the authors outline the foundational concepts underpinning the exhibition before examining the exhibition itself. Their discussion highlights the potential for extending such endeavours beyond academia and underscores the importance of incorporating sound installations and objects into museum environments to promote critical reflection.

Helena Simonett is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Competence Center for Music Education Research, Switzerland. She has conducted extensive research on Mexican popular music and its global dissemination, as well as on Indigenous ceremonial music and dance in northwestern Mexico, with a focus on Indigenous ontologies and ecological concerns.

Patricia Jäggi is a Senior Research Associate at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and at the University of Zürich. Her work encompasses the politics, identities, and histories of sound and listening, as well as sound art and acoustic ecology. Her research extends to artistic and mediating formats such as sound and listening walks, sound compositions, and workshops on enhanced auditory-sensory perception.

Mulhauser, Blaise (2009): Der Artenverlust in der Schweiz: Verdeutlicht an sieben Vogelarten, Bern: Haupt.

Nada, Charlou (2016): L’oiseau musicien: Enjeux de l’évocation du chant d’oiseau dans une pratique musicale, Geneva: University of Geneva.

Novak, David, and Sakakeeny, Matt (eds.) (2015): Keywords in Sound, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Ong, Walter J. (1982): Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, London: Methuen.

Perrings, Charles (1997): Biodiversity Loss: Economic and Ecological Issues, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rufener, Rudolf (1959): “Vogelstimmen in der Musik”, in Du: Kulturelle Monatsschrift 19/5, 75–77.

Rehding, Alexander (2011): “Ecomusicology between Apocalypse and Nostalgia”, in Journal of the American Musicological Society 64/2, 409–413.

Rothenberg, David (2019): Nightingales in Berlin: Searching for the Perfect Sound, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Ulvaeus, Marta (eds.) (2001): The Book of Music and Nature: An Anthology of Sounds, Words, Thoughts, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Ryan, Robin (2015): “‘No Tree — No Leaf’: Applying Resilience Theory to Eucalypt-Derived Musical Traditions”, in Current Directions in Ecomusicology: Music, Nature, Environment, ed. by Aaron S. Allen and Kevin Dawe, New York: Routledge, 57–68.

Samuels, David W., Meintjes, Louise, Ochoa, Ana Maria, and Porcello, Thomas (2010): “Soundscapes: Toward a Sounded Anthropology”, in Annual Review of Anthropology 39, 329–345.

Schafer, R. Murray (1977): The Tuning of the World, New York: Knopf.

Schoon, Andi and Volmar, Axel (eds.) (2012): Das geschulte Ohr: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Sonifikation, Bielefeld: transcript.

Sebeok, Thomas A. (1972): Perspectives in Zoosemiotics, The Hague: Mouton.

Seeger, Anthony (1981): Nature and Society in Central Brazil: The Suya Indians of Mato Grosso, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Seeger, Anthony (1987): Why Suyá Sing? A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Simonett, Helena (2014): “Envisioned, Ensounded, Enacted: Sacred Ecology and Indigenous Musical Experience in Yoreme Ceremonies of Northwest Mexico”, in Ethnomusicology 58/1, 110–132.

Simonett, Helena (2016): “Of Human and Non-human Birds: Indigenous Music Making and Sentient Ecology in Northwestern Mexico”, in Current Directions in Ecomusicology: Music, Nature, Environment, ed. by Aaron S. Allen and Kevin Dawe, New York: Routledge, 99–108.

Simonett, Helena (2021): “Stilles Sterben: Das Verstummen traditioneller indigener Klangpraktiken in Nordwest-Mexiko”, in Tierstudien 20, 100–109.

Simonett, Helena (2024): “Mensch-Vogel-Transformation: Ethnomusikologische Überlegungen zur Schilfrohrflöte der Yoreme”, in Varia Neolithica (special issue: Mensch-Tier Beziehungen im Neolithikum, ed. by Isabel Hohle and Nadia Balkowski), forthcoming.

Smith, Mark Michael (2001): Listening to Nineteenth-century America, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Sodikoff, Genese Marie (ed.) (2012): The Anthropology of Extinction: Essays on Culture and Species Death, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Sorce Keller, Marcello (2010): “Was ist Musik? Einige Gründe dafür, warum wir die ‘Musik’ nicht mehr als ‘Musik’ bezeichnen sollten”, in Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft 30, 11–26.

Sorce Keller, Marcello (2012): “Zoomusicology and Ethnomusicology: A Marriage to Celebrate in Heaven”, in Yearbook for Traditional Music 44, 166–183.

Spannring, Reingard (ed.) (2015): Disziplinierte Tiere? Perspektiven der Human-Animal Studies für die wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen.

Sterne, Jonathan (2003): The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Sykes, Jim and Steingo, Gavin (eds.) (2019): Remapping Sound Studies, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Taylor, Hollis (2017): Is Birdsong Music? Outback Encounters with an Australian Songbird, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Thompson, Emily (2002): The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Thorpe, William H. (1961): Bird-Song: The Biology of Vocal Communication and Expression in Birds, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Titon, Jeff (2013): “The Nature of Ecomusicology”, in Música e Cultura 8/1, 8–18.

Truax, Barry (ed.) (1978): The World Soundscape Project’s Handbook for Acoustic Ecology, Vancouver: A.R.C. Publications.

Volmar, Axel and Schröter, Jens (eds.) (2013): Auditive Medienkulturen: Techniken des Hörens und Praktiken der Klanggestaltung.

Whitehouse, Andrew J. (2018): “Senses of Being: The Atmospheres of Listening to Birds in Britain, Australia and New Zealand”, in Exploring Atmospheres Ethnographically, ed. by Sara Asu Schroer and Susanne Schmitt, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 61–75.

Winkler, Justin and Mosch, Ulrich (2011): “Klangraum als Lebenswelt: Ein Gespräch über Probleme der Versprachlichung, Klassifikation, Reflexion und Verortung”, in Positionen. Texte zur aktuellen Musik: Sound Studies 86, 18–21.

Wolfe, Cary (2010): What is Posthumanism?, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Wright, Mark Peter (2022): Listening after Nature: Field Recording, Ecology, Critical Practice, New York: Bloomsbury Academic.