The Australian pied butcherbird and the natureculture continuum.

Background in zoömusicology. The discipline of zoömusicology is a pioneering enterprise that requires the collaboration of practices, methodologies, and expert knowledge from a variety of areas. Pre-existing models for such research by musicologists are either absent or at best insubstantial. The various tasks at hand include the collection of extant recordings, the observation and recording of animals in the field, sonographic examination (and notation where feasible), and various types of musicological analyses. Zoömusicology contends with the methodological and conceptual issues that arise when music theory, designed to illuminate human musical traditions (especially the Western classical one), is applied to animal song. Background in ethology. With the break with the Cartesian tradition of the animal machine, an authentic science of animal behaviour emerged over the last two centuries, evolving both conceptually and methodologically. For example, Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, and others recognised that man is also an animal. Lorenz, von Frisch, and Tinbergen founded the field of ethology, where a major challenge remains: that of accepting that animal communication is pertinent to the realm of signification rather than merely the realm of information transmission. Aims. This paper aims to extend the range of contexts in which musicologists contribute. The paper proposes a methodology and a rationale for the study of birdsong by musicologists that, in addressing both sound and musical behaviour, could be relevant to a range of issues on the natureculture continuum. Main contribution. Results to date of our systematic exploration suggest that pied butcherbird song and human music share many characteristics and the divide between them is therefore narrow. While some musical elements might be species-specific, many others appear to transcend the species boundary. Implications. Eurocentric and anthropocentric musical assumptions and preoccupations have resulted in a paucity of studies of the sonic constructs and concomitant behaviour of other species by musicologists. When sonographic analysis of birdsong recordings became possible, biologists occupied this area of research, although not with a trained ear so much as a trained eye. Much of the biologists' focus has been on the functional significance of birdsong, but we should not assume that function and aesthetics are mutually exclusive. Any claims that music is a uniquely human activity must be considered provisional without further research into the potentially musical practices of other animals, and we expect such research to yield substantial surprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]