Ebook: Animal musicalities: birds, beasts, and evolutionary listening

Why do birds sing? : and other tales -- Collecting silence : the sonic specimen -- Collecting songs : avian and African -- Songs on the dissecting table -- Postmodern humanity -- Listening for objectivity -- The rose garden -- Conclusion : the animanities.;"Over the past century and a half, the voices and bodies of animals have been used by scientists and music experts as a benchmark for measures of natural difference. Animal Musicalities traces music's taxonomies from Darwin to digital bird guides to show how animal song has become the starting point for enduring evaluations of species, races, and cultures. By examining the influential efforts made by a small group of men and women to define human diversity in relation to animal voices, this book raises profound questions about the creation of modern human identity, and the foundations of modern humanism."--Dust jacket.