Zoömusicology

Over the last half century or so, there has been extraordinary progress in ethological observation and in the technologies that make it possible to record, analyse and compare animal sounds, many of which had never been studied. In the early 1970s, for example, whale songs were discovered with astonishment, and their musicality was gradually recognised by the general public. It is all the more surprising that very few musicologists have taken the trouble to look more closely at how this new knowledge might affect the understanding of music.