Value of Birdsongs: Snowball the Dancing Cockatoo
On Music (excerpt)
Music: you stranger. You feeling space. Growing
Away from us. The deepest thing in us, that,Rising above us, forces its way out. . .
A holy goodbye:
When the innermost point in us stands
Outside, as amazing space, as the other
Side of the air:
Pure.
Immense,
Not for us to live in now. (Rainer Maria Rilke)
Rilke reminds us of the profound nature of music. The next part of this story may seem rather whimsical. But I encourage you to view this video. Then read on.
Two years after completing my Master’s studies at the University of British Columbia, Steven Feld published his classic work Sound and sentiment: Birds, weeping, poetics, and song in Kaluli Expression (1982). As a music therapist and Indigenous person, I was truly excited about this book.
Feld provides a scholarly text on how human beings learn to express their emotions, especially the difficult ones, from the birds in Papua New Guinea. As an emerging Indigenous scholar I was truly impressed. Feld’s work demonstrated the connections between human beings and animals – a connection that is so core to Indigenous beliefs.
Now we have a modern expression of science in the studies of Snowball that establishes connections between humans and birds in new way – through neuroscience. One of our most famous biologists, E.O. Wilson, and Evan Balaban, a birdsong biologist, mentored Aniruddh Patel, now a Senior Fellow at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, California, through his Harvard thesis, titled "A Biological Study of the Relationship Between Language and Music." After viewing a YouTube video of Snowball, the Medium Sulphur Crested Eleanora Cockatoo, Patel later conducted a scientific experiment that was eventually published in Current Biology, describing the neuroscientific similarities between humans and parrots (Patel et al, 2009). As it turns out, both humans and parrots are vocal learners with the ability to imitate sounds. "Since vocal learning creates links between the hearing and movement centers of the brain, I hypothesized that this is what you need to be able to move to the beat of the music." (Dreifus, 2010)
Patel describes himself as a "neuroscientist of music". And, of course, the neuroscientists are getting a lot of press these days when it comes to their interest in music and the brain. How about Oliver Sacks’s popular book titled Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (2007) to mention only one?
As music therapists, we are grateful to the many scientists who are interested in music. Another one of my favorites is Ellen Dissanayake, an interdisciplinary scholar with a tendency toward neo-Darwinism. She has, at last, answered the question about whether or not we "need" music and the arts. And like Patel she emphasizes the importance of rhythm. Dissanayake makes a compelling case for the arts, also claiming that they are food that we must eat in order to survive and thrive.
O.K. If this science is so compelling why are the arts pushed aside by American policies like "No Child Left Behind" (Lovley, 2007)? And should music therapists avoid using the term "music" in their grant applications in order to get funded? And how do we authentically describe a work that is so dependent on the moment-to-moment creative process with our patients and client? How do we account for critical skills in successful music therapy practice like intuition and spontaneity?
You can view several YouTube videos of Snowball. The link above is Snowball dancing to "Everybody" by the Backstreet Boys. Some of his other favorite dance tunes are Queen’s "Another One Bites the Dust" and Michael Jackson’s "Billie Jean", "Black or White", or "Rock with You". But my favorite is the YouTube of Snowball performing for participants in the World Science Festival. In this YouTube video, you can view a panel of scientists each getting up from their formal positions on stage to dance with Snowball. Please notice that Snowball uses very simple moves so that the scientists can follow him.
What I’m wondering is why it takes "science" to prove the value of music for human and other species. As music therapists, we see such dramatic results day after day after day in our work. And there is a body of philosophical and poetic literature that hails the value of music and the arts to keep our souls alive. Why is there still such an obsession with science? What will it take to bring attention to our hearts and souls?
In the last Q&A entry in the New York Times article quoted above, the interviewer Claudia Dreifus asks Patel:
"Q. Is it difficult to find money for this type of research?
A. It is easier than it used to be. One of the founders of this field, Dr. Robert Zatorre, before 2000, he never used the word music in a grant application. He knew it would get turned down automatically because people thought this was not scientific. Instead, he used terms like "complex nonlinguistic auditory processing."
But in recent years, it’s become O.K. to say: I study music and the brain." Science rules.
References:
Dissanayake, E. (1992). Homo aestheticus: Where art comes from and why. New York: The Free Press.
Dissanayake, E. (2000). Art and intimacy: How the arts began. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Dreifus, C. (2010). Exploring music’s hold on the mind: A conversation with Aniruddh D. Patel. New York Times, Science, May 31, 2010. Retrieved June 6, 2010 from: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/science/01conv.html?ref=science
Feld,S.(1982). Sound and sentiment: Birds, weeping, poetics, and song in Kaluli expression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Lovley, E. (2007) Arts Educators Battle No Child Left Behind. Politico, Nov. 5, 2007. Retrieved June 7, 2010 from http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/6715.html
Sacks. O. (2007). Musicophilia: Tales of music and the brain. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Patel, A.D., Iversen, J.R., M.R. Bregman, & I. Schulz. Experimental evidence for synchronization to a musical beat in a nonhuman animal. Current Biology 19(10), 827-830.
How to cite this page
Kenny, Carolyn (2010). Value of Birdsongs: Snowball the Dancing Cockatoo. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 15, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=colkenny140610
About Carolyn Kenny
Biography
Carolyn Kenny, Ph.,D. MT-BC, CMT is a Professor of Human Development and Indigenous Studies and one of the founding faculty members in the Antioch University Ph.D. in Leadership and Change in the Professions. She also continues her private practice in Music Therapy in Santa Barbara, California. She serves on the Advisory Board for Music Therapy Education and Research (MUSERS), associated with the Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar, Bosnia-Hercegovina (http://www.musers.org) and as Co-editor-in Chief (with Brynulf Stige) of Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. She served for many years as Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Music Therapy Journal. And also currently serves on the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Music Therapy. She contributes as a Book Reviewer on a regular basis to The Arts in Psychotherapy. She has published extensively in both Music Therapy and Indigenous Studies. Her most current publication is A Holistic Approach to Aboriginal Policy Research, published in French and English by the Status of Women Canada.