4. Wild Soundscapes

Available for over a year

Ben Garrod, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of East Anglia is on a mission to uncover a world of unexpected rhythm and melody across the natural world. Might a truly universal sense of musicality exist across nature? In this essay, Ben shifts his focus away from individual birds calling out at dawn, the solo songs of talented humpback whales or the musicality of eerie botanical arias from forests to a wider more collaborative scale. Like any good orchestral piece, is music in nature to be found in a symphony of wild musicians all playing together to create what we might call a musical soundscape? He examines the dawn chorus to weigh up whether individual singers are all at the mercy of individual selection communicating simply to defend territory and attract a mate. Or is there a more intimate relationship within these wild songs with different species playing alongside one another harmoniously? With contributions from Simon Butler Professor of Applied Ecology at the University of East Anglia; musician and naturalist Professor David Rothenberg from the New Jersey Institute of Technology Presented by Professor Ben Garrod Produced by Adrian Washbourne Mixed by Julian Mayers Executive Producer: Rami Tzabar A YadaYada Production for BBC Radio 3