David Rothenberg: The weirdo at the zoo

 

David Rothenberg has a unique approach to music. While it is common to listen to the sounds of nature or even specifically bird singing, David Rothenberg does duets with animals. During my research about him I saw tons of pictures of him with a clarinet in the nature. By “nature” I do not mean him being in a backyard or nearby forest; he was standing on a boat playing the clarinet on the open sea to play a duet with whales. Other examples of his music feature cicadas or birds. So what does Rothenberg himself say about his work?

Rothenberg is a philosopher and wants to explore the culture of animals through his music. It is hard to understand animal sounds and match them to human expression, but major parts of culture as we humans know it is expressed through language and therefore sounds. According to Rothenberg, there are some animals that communicate by making noises which are not related to a language; nevertheless, they are statements about intrinsic processes such as emotion and “thoughts”. Said animals (especially whales, dolphins and songbirds) can learn through sounds giving them a similarity to humans that no closely related species like chimpanzees has.

In a video on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egZrPZQjqSw] uploaded by the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Rothenberg plays his clarinet in a zoo. He states that he as professor for philosophy and music would have lost his job at any other university for doing what he does. He is very aware of how amusing and strange his art appears to spectators, but he sees this as a contribution to science. Analyzing bird songs is a scientific discipline after all. Thus, Rothenberg works together with biologists to give his work a meaning besides art.

Rothenberg’s music is not the most pleasant since it seems rather chaotic than rhythmic. Of course, this is due to the fact that he does not just include the animals; he communicates through the music which means that he has to wait for answers and reply accordingly. His duets with cicadas are an exception of course: The insects to not stop their sounds, but become louder whenever another sound disturbs them. However, I find the principles behind his work very valuable. Communication with animals has been around for centuries by imitating their sounds, for example with bird flutes or the wooden frog guiro. Rothenberg does something very few other people would dare or are able to do which I think is a great service to science.