Single Song Research Articles

Song Structure and Repertoire Sharing in the Tawny PipitAnthus campestrisin Poland

Abstract. The present study characterizes the song of Tawny Pipit males (n = 55) recorded in May 2005 in the Wielkopolska region of Poland. Tawny Pipits sang with a very variable rate of 4–28 songs per minute (mean ± SE 16.0 ± 1.35). Songs were thus short, with an average duration of under 0.5 sec. At the same time, songs were relatively complex in structure and consisted of 2–3 (max. 5) units of frequency between 2.7 and 5.3 kHz. Based on visual inspection of sonograms and further cross-correlation analysis, 20 different song types were distinguished. Each male had only a single song type in his repertoire and the rendition of strophes produced by a male were very stereotypical. The songs of different males exhibited varying levels of similarity, from completely different, through sharing some within-song units, to strongly similar on sonograms. However, even the strongly similar songs of different males demonstrated some individuality in frequency parameters or fine note structure. On average, there wer...

Neighbour‐stranger song discrimination in territorial ortolan bunting Emberiza hortulana males

Neighbour‐stranger discrimination has been demonstrated in many species, but the mechanisms employed in discrimination vary. We tested whether an oscine bird with small repertoire size, the ortolan bunting Emberiza hortulana, discriminated between songs of neighbours and strangers. We performed playback experiments to measure response of males to a repeated single example of a single song type derived from a repertoire of a neighbour or stranger. Thirteen males were tested twice each, and in both cases songs were broadcast from the territory boundary shared by the subject male and the neighbour. Subjects responded more aggressively to songs of strangers than neighbours, i.e. they approached the loudspeaker faster and came closer and did more flights during the playback of stranger song. We found no significant differences in vocal response between treatments. We conclude that ortolan bunting can discriminate between songs of neighbours and strangers. This study provides experimental evidence for ortolan buntings in neighbour‐stranger discrimination. It also demonstrates that a single example of song is enough to discriminate between neighbours and strangers. We discuss which song characteristics are the possible acoustic basis for discrimination in the studied species.

Never Quite Sung in this Fashion Before: Bob Dylan's "Man of Constant Sorrow"

Never Quite Sung in this Fashion Before:Bob Dylan's "Man of Constant Sorrow" Todd Harvey (bio) In the liner notes to Bob Dylan's first, self-titled record, Robert Shelton (1962) writes: "'Man of Constant Sorrow' is a traditional Southern mountain folk song of considerable popularity and age but probably never sung quite in this fashion before." This statement suggests two main points for researching the song that I will examine in the course of this paper. I will first describe how "Man of Constant Sorrow" evolved up to the time of Dylan's recording, followed by a discussion of the process through which Dylan learned his version and internalized the song, making it his own. Parallel to this discussion of musical influences, I will talk about intellectual property and copyright, issues of central importance to folk music in the twentieth century. Shelton's statement holds great value both as an aesthetic and as a legal evaluation. My scholarship about Dylan dates to the early 1990s, at the end of my graduate work in music composition, when I became interested in the 1960s folk music revival. Dylan represented an obvious choice for study because his output has been documented practically from the beginning of his career. As I began to collect Dylan recordings it became obvious that the vast majority of his early repertoire was drawn directly and mimetically from traditional American roots music. Through these recordings I had the opportunity to listen, in a sense, as Dylan learned his repertoire, at first imitating sources and then composing original songs. In 1999, I became a post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The Center operates Folkways, the legendary folk record label, and houses an extensive folk music archive. The tangible result of my fellowship was the 2001 book The Formative Dylan: Transmission and Stylistic Influences, 1961-1963. In the book, I attempt to demonstrate the root material for 70 early Dylan songs: the first three Columbia LPs, songs subsequently issued by Columbia from [End Page 99] these studio sessions, publishers, demos, and the Folkways releases. In this discussion, however, I have taken a minimalist approach, and will focus on a single song, "Man of Constant Sorrow." Methodology To understand the development of "Man of Constant Sorrow" and to establish Dylan's place in that development, I have gathered all available documentation, scouring discographies and indexes for the purpose of analysis and comparison. Somewhat akin to the historic-geographic approach that a number of early twentieth-century folklorists applied to tales and songs, my methodology is perhaps more closely related Bernard Bronson's The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads (1959-72), which indexed and categorized extant print and recorded sources for each member of the ballad canon. My approach has five steps: 1) gather versions of the song; 2) transcribe and compare the melody and lyrics (as they are available) of these versions; 3) organize versions of melodies and lyrics first separately and then together to arrive at variant groups; 4) look for historical or geographic connections first between individual versions and then variant groups; and 5) construct a history of the song from this research. To date, I have identified 54 print and recorded versions of the song that might influence my study. I have compiled these into a "biblio-discography" and graphed them onto a lyric/melodic matrix. If my source is a recording, I transcribe the text and the melody using Western musical notation. Conceptually, I divide musical elements into first- and second-level categories. Melody and lyrics are first-level elements because they are the traits most often transmitted from performer to performer. I separate melody and lyrics because a performer may have a gift for remembering lyrics, yet have a limited vocal range. In this case, the melody would be altered greatly in the transmission process while the lyrics would remain intact. I consider mode, range, contour, and rhythm to be the identifying characteristics of melody, but their importance, relative to one another, varies. Many of the pre-1950 versions of "Man of Constant Sorrow," for example, utilize a Dorian mode, while many of the post-1950...

Nonintrusive acoustic identification of hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus) individuals

From mid-April well into the summer, the secretive hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus) can be heard singing throughout the woodlands of Nova Scotia. Its song is distinctive, beginning with a clear introductory note followed by a flurry of flutelike body notes, often cascading and reverberant in character. Despite this fine display of avian virtuosity, few studies have been reported that probe the differences between the calls, songs, and repertoires of individuals. From April 2003 to May 2006, over 3000 songs from several birds were recorded using digital video cameras at study sites in and around the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The only birds recorded were those in close proximity to roads and trails. None of the birds were marked, banded, or deliberately disturbed in any way. Although the study birds remained hidden from view most of the time, in the few instances where the birds perched in the open, their behaviors while singing were captured on videotape. All of the birds were readily distinguishable from each other as no two individuals had a single song in common. The most significant finding was that individuals could be reidentified acoustically after 1 week, 3 months, and 1 year had elapsed.

노랑턱멧새(Emberiza elegans)의 테마송과 변이

To study song themes and variation of Yellow-throated Bunting, we obtained and analyzed recordings from 45 males breeding in 16 deciduous forests of 6 provinces. We classified the 3,245 songs into a total of 164 song themes and 1,024 song variants according to the identification on the base of difference(lexicon) in 640 syllable compositions. Males had one to six song themes and averaged 3.5 themes. No males shared an identical song theme. Males had syllables (ave. 9.4) in one song theme and males increased effectively their repertoire size by changing syllable composition (i.e. adding, deleting, or substituting one or more syllables) in a single song theme. The number of variants averaged 5.1 (range 1 to 31) per song theme. Individual variability was highest in the terminal elements of the song. In PCA, the 16 populations are clearly separated on Co. I based on shared syllable and on Co. II based on unique syllable. Similarity of songs based on shared syllables by distance coefficients, showed a pattern of concordance with geography. Pairwise similarity declined with increasing distance among recording sites. 16 different geographical regions by the syllable were divided in UPGMA tree.

The Duet Code of the Female Black-Bellied Wren

Abstract In many duet-singing songbirds, paired birds combine their song types nonrandomly to form duet songs. Several different behavioral mechanisms could generate nonrandom song type associations in duets. I tested female Black-bellied Wrens (Thryothorus fasciatoventris) for one such mechanism: adherence to a set of rules linking female response songs to male stimulus songs. I call this set of rules a “duet code.” Duets of free-living Black-bellied Wrens were recorded in 2001 and 2002. In 2003 I returned to the same territories and played the male song types from the recorded duets. Females answered male song stimuli as if duetting with the playback speaker. Although the known repertoires of females averaged 8.4 song types, each female sang only a single song type in response to each male song type. Random answering could not account for this pattern, supporting the hypothesis that females abide by duet codes. Females that were still paired with their mates from 2001–2002 answered 100% of their mate's songs with the same song types they had used previously, demonstrating that codes are stable over time. In contrast, females that were new to a territory answered an average of only 18% of their mate's song types with the same song type as the previous female, indicating that duet codes are individually distinctive. Duet participation by female Black-bellied Wrens represents a special kind of animal communication, in which discrete vocal signals consistently elicit discrete vocal responses according to an individually distinctive set of rules.

THE DUET CODE OF THE FEMALE BLACK-BELLIED WREN

Abstract In many duet-singing songbirds, paired birds combine their song types nonrandomly to form duet songs. Several different behavioral mechanisms could generate nonrandom song type associations in duets. I tested female Black-bellied Wrens (Thryothorus fasciatoventris) for one such mechanism: adherence to a set of rules linking female response songs to male stimulus songs. I call this set of rules a “duet code.” Duets of free-living Black-bellied Wrens were recorded in 2001 and 2002. In 2003 I returned to the same territories and played the male song types from the recorded duets. Females answered male song stimuli as if duetting with the playback speaker. Although the known repertoires of females averaged 8.4 song types, each female sang only a single song type in response to each male song type. Random answering could not account for this pattern, supporting the hypothesis that females abide by duet codes. Females that were still paired with their mates from 2001–2002 answered 100% of their mate's ...

Song repertoire evolution and acoustic divergence in a population of black-capped chickadees, Poecile atricapillus

Socially learned vocalizations, such as the songs of many songbirds, commonly show repertoires and geographical variation or dialects, but we have only a limited understanding of the cultural evolutionary processes that produce these patterns. In this paper we describe the singing behaviour of populations of black-capped chickadees in Fort Collins, Colorado that represents the apparent evolution of a repertoire of song types. In contrast to most black-capped chickadee singing behaviour, which consists of a single song type that is remarkably invariant across North America, chickadees throughout Fort Collins sing three acoustically distinct song types. Individual males have an average repertoire of 2.8 song types and use all of them in dawn bouts and countersinging with neighbouring males. Two of the three song types contain novel introductory notes. These notes and the ratio between the pitches of the two whistled notes used in the song consistently define each song type. Individual birds slightly vary the pitches used during a bout of singing for a particular song type but always maintain a constant pitch ratio for that type. The song type repertoire appears to be restricted to the Fort Collins area and has persisted for several years. We outline some of the cultural evolutionary processes that may have produced this repertoire and conclude by discussing research opportunities that may yield insight into how and why socially learned traditions originate and evolve.

Song dialects on the Atlantic islands: goldcrests of the Azores (Regulus regulus azoricus, R. r. sanctae-mariae, R. r. inermis)

Territorial songs in island populations of songbirds are often highly divergent from those of neighbouring continental relatives. This is shown for the three goldcrest subspecies (Regulus regulus azoricus, R. r. sanctae-mariae and R. r. inermis) endemic on six islands of the Azorean archipelago. All investigated populations display a high intra- and inter-individual acoustic variation. On each island, up to six different song types have been found; and a single male sings up to three types. In contrast, all northwestern European populations of R. r. regulus and R. r. anglorum share only a single song type. In playback experiments, none of 18 tested dialect songs of Azorean goldcrests evoked notable territorial reaction in German and Czech goldcrest males (ssp. regulus). Two differing dialect groups of the goldcrest can be distinguished on the Azores. Populations of the eastern islands, Sao Miguel and Santa Maria, share common song types which are not found on the islands of the central and western groups. Dialect repertoires on the westernmost islands, Flores, Faial and Pico, are dominated by a different song type. In the geologically younger western crater of Sao Miguel, both western and eastern song types coexist. Acoustic similarities to a population from neighbouring Terceira suggest the western part of Sao Miguel as the origin for the westward expansion of R. regulus on the Azores.

Rapid evolution of a novel song and an increase in repertoire size in an island population of an Australian songbird

Cultural innovations are commonly noted in animals, but times of development of novel traits are usually unknown. We report here a novel song type arising in a bird population on an offshore island of Western Australia where the time of colonization of the island by the Western Gerygone Gerygone fusca is known. On the mainland, a single song type is widespread. On Rottnest Island, many individuals sing a different type of song and a number possess a repertoire of two song types: the standard song shared with the mainland and the novel song type not found on the neighbouring mainland. The novel song type found on Rottnest is so different in its syntactical structure that one could easily mistake it for that of a new species. The characteristic song of mainland birds is irregular in the frequencies at which the notes within a song are delivered. The novel song on Rottnest has a highly structured syntax with notes delivered at a strict and repeated sequence of frequencies resulting in a rhythmic musical sound. The species is known to have colonized Rottnest in about 1955. The new song type apparently developed rapidly by cultural evolution in the last 50 years.

Susan Fast. In the Houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. vii, 247 pp. ISBN 0-195-14723-5 (paperback)

Susan Fast. In the Houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. vii, 247 pp. ISBN 0-195-14723-5 (paperback). Un article de la revue Canadian University Music Review / Revue de musique des universités canadiennes (Volume 23, numéro 1-2, 2003, p. 1-256) diffusée par la plateforme Érudit.

Changes in Song Complexity Correspond to Periods of Female Fertility in Blue Grosbeaks (Guiraca caerulea)

AbstractSong complexity is thought to be a sexually selected trait in passerine birds; however, quantifying relevant parameters of song complexity is the first step in testing the theory that song complexity is a sexually selected trait. We show here that blue grosbeak (Guiraca caerulea) males sing a single song type but the properties of that song type vary between renditions. This pattern of song delivery potentially provides females with an opportunity to assess dimensions of song complexity other then repertoire size. Here we characterize song complexity using four measures: (i) element repertoire size, (ii) proportion of distinct song variant, (iii) song versatility, and (iv) syntax consistency. We studied the functional significance of song complexity by comparing measures of song complexity before and after periods of female fertility. We found that male blue grosbeaks sing more song variants, use more versatile arrangements of elements, and maintain more syntax consistency during the fertile period of their social mate than during their social mate's non‐fertile period. These results point to a functional relationship between changes in song complexity and periods of female fertility in this species.

Development and adult phase plasticity of syllable repetitions in the birdsong of captive zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata).

Oscines learn their birdsongs from tutors. The authors found that a small fraction (approximately 7%) of captive male zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) produce variant acoustic birdsong profiles consisting of repetitions of single song syllables at high frequencies. Juvenile offspring of nonrepeaters can selectively learn the syntactic rule or habit of repeating syllables from repeaters. Adult tutored syllable repeaters, unlike spontaneous repeaters, undergo a form of song plasticity involving progressive reduction of the mean number and variance of repeated syllables as a function of long-term exposure to nonrepeater songs without altering the number or sequence of syllables within motifs. These findings suggest that aspects of song syntax or temporal frame can be acquired independently of song syllable or spectral content, and plasticity involving restorative alteration of acquired variant temporal frames can occur after the closure of the critical period for song learning.

Auditory representation of the vocal repertoire in a songbird with multiple song types.

Neural mechanisms for representing complex communication sounds must solve the problem of encoding multiple and potentially overlapping signals. Birdsong provides an excellent model for such processing, in that many songbird species produce multiple song types. Although auditory song representations in single song type species have been studied, how song is represented in the brains of species that sing multiple song types remains unknown. Here we examine song type representations in swamp sparrows (Melospiza georgiana), a multiple song type species, by making in vivo intracellular recordings from the telencephalic nucleus HVc, the major auditory-vocal interface in the songbird brain. These recordings show that single HVc relay neurons often generate action potentials to playback of only a single song type, even though synaptic inputs on these cells can be activated by playback of other song types in the bird's repertoire and songs of other birds. These subthreshold response patterns suggest that the song evoked action potential discharge of a single relay neuron is more selective than its presynaptic network. One component of this presynaptic network is likely to be in HVc, because multiple recordings from single birds show that different relay neurons can respond best to different song types, whereas single interneurons can generate action potentials to all song types in the bird's repertoire. These results show that single HVc neurons can generate song type-specific action potential responses, a feature that may facilitate the selective auditory encoding of multiple learned vocalizations in a single brain area.

Choreography of song, dance and beak movements in the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata).

As do many songbirds, zebra finches sing their learned songs while performing a courtship display that includes movements of the body, head and beak. The coordination of these display components was assessed by analyzing video recordings of courting males. All birds changed beak aperture frequently within a single song, and each individual's pattern of beak movements was consistent from song to song. Birds that copied their father's songs reproduced many of the changes in beak aperture associated with particular syllables. The acoustic consequences of opening the beak were increases in amplitude and peak frequency, but not in fundamental frequency, of song syllables. The change in peak frequency is consistent with the hypothesis that an open beak results in a shortened vocal tract and thus a higher resonance frequency. Dance movements (hops and changes in body or head position) were less frequent, and the distribution of dance movements within the song was not as strongly patterned as were changes in beak aperture, nor were the peaks in the distribution as strongly marked. However, the correlation between the positioning of dance movements within fathers' and sons' songs was striking, suggesting that the choreography of dance patterns is transmitted from tutor to pupil together with the song.

‘Living in the Past’?: value discourses in progressive rock fanzines

At the height of its success in the first half of the 1970s, progressive rock was perhaps a surprisingly popular genre; surprising since its exponents strove to fuse classical models of composition and arrangement with electric instruments and extend the form of rock music from the single song to the symphonic poem, even the multimovement suite. Album and concert sales were extremely high; even albums that were greeted with less than critical approval (itself a rare occurrence) such as Jethro Tull's A Passion Play and Yes's Tales from Topographic Oceans (both 1973) sold well (the latter reached number one in the UK Top 10 album charts upon its release). Today, the dominant critical characterisation of progressive rock is of overblown, pretentious musicians in ridiculous garb surrounded by banks of keyboards playing bombastic, overlong compositions in time signatures that you couldn't dance to: a music as far removed from ‘real’ rock ‘n’ roll as could be imagined; a music that failed both as rock music but also as classical music. (All these negative characteristics are to be found, for instance, in David Thomas's (1998) coverage of Yes's latest UK tour.) This characterisation is only partly unfair. It arose in the wake of punk, which sought to sweep away what its proponents saw as the empty virtuosity of rock dinosaurs. Punk sought to reclaim rock music for `ordinary' people to be played in intimate venues - not stadia - by people who didn't need to be conservatoire trained.

Song overproduction, selective attrition and song dialects in the white-crowned sparrow

Male Puget Sound white-crowned sparrows, Zonotrichia leucophrys pugetensis, form large vocal dialects along the Pacific northwest coast of North America. Most adult males sing a single song dialect throughout their lives. To determine how dialects are maintained in this species, I studied two populations at the Columbia River mouth in a contact zone between two dialects. Singers of each of the two dialects clustered together in space, forming local song ‘neighbourhoods’. Two hypotheses for the maintenance of dialects were tested. The late acquisition hypothesis predicts that yearling or adult male immigrants memorize their song from the territory neighbours they settle next to. The selective attrition hypothesis predicts that males memorize a variety of dialects early in life, overproduce song dialects upon arrival, and later selectively retain the one prelearned dialect that best matches what their neighbours sing. In 1997 and 1998, 35–40% of new territory occupants sang two dialects upon arrival in April, and then over the course of days to several weeks, discarded one dialect from their repertoire. Fourteen of 16 (88%) kept as their adult song the dialect that matched the dialect sung by the majority of their neighbours. No male added a new dialect to his repertoire after arrival, nor did males alter their retained dialect to more closely resemble their neighbours' songs. New arrivals that overproduced dialects upon arrival were significantly more likely to match their neighbours' dialect than males that did not overproduce upon arrival. In a playback experiment, males in the overproduction stage engaged in matched countersinging to the dialect played to them. These observations and the experiment support the selective attrition hypothesis: males visit and memorize a variety of dialects, probably in their hatching-year summer, overproduce dialects upon arrival the next spring, and then selectively retain the one dialect that matches the local song culture. Vocal plasticity late in life is not the result of a late sensitive phase for song memorization, but rather results from behavioural selection operating on a pre-existing repertoire of song dialects.

The Influence of Song Mode on Responses of Male American Redstarts

AbstractMale American redstarts (Setophaga ruticilla) exhibit two modes of singing: repeat and serial mode. Repeat mode consists of repetitions of a single song type, usually one possessing an accented terminal note. Serial mode is constituted by a series of different songs with unaccented terminal notes, sung in a versatile sequence. Different authors have observed that males discriminate between these two modes. In the experiments reported in this paper, we tested whether males use accented terminal notes, song versatility or both to discriminate between the two song modes. We observed that males responded more intensively to the accented song. The accented note seems a very important song characteristic for evoking male American redstart responses. In contrast, males did not show any difference in their response to single and varied serial songs.

Versatility from a Single Song: The Case of the Nightingale Wren

Versatility from a Single Song: The Case of the Nightingale Wren

Versatility from a Single Song: The Case of the Nightingale Wren

Versatility from a Single Song: The Case of the Nightingale Wren