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Wild gorillas compose songs that they hum during meals
- fiatjaf 11y agoI couldn't hear anything.
- sarreph 11y agoAs usual, the SoundCloud comments crack me up :') ... Such gems as: > nice drop > When is the next one coming out? > love the 808s [drum kit]
- ascotan 11y ago"needs more cowbell"
- jamesrom 11y agoMore samples would be cool.
- jessriedel 11y ago> The other was singing – a series of short, differently pitched notes that sounds a little like someone humming a random melody (listen to clip below). > “They don’t sing the same song over and over,” says Luef. “It seems like they are composing their little food songs.” Right. A "random melody". Also known as "random noise".
- rosser 11y agoIs it so implausible that these creatures who have displayed startling emotional depth (Koko and her pet cat, anyone?) might also display musicality? Why are we so quick to dismiss the notion that anything not human might do something creative, like hum a happy little tune to itself? Oh, no. That's just "random noise".
- said 11y agoThe grandparent might be specifically talking about the sound clips from the article. They don't sound melodic, let alone musical (at least to my human ears).
- msutherl 11y agoI believe it's more of a semantic thing. A melody is inherently non-random. "Random melody" is nearly oxymoronic.
- nitrogen 11y agoI think it's fair to call a non-repeating sequence of randomly selected, sufficiently tonal notes, on a familiar scale, in the right frequency range, a melody. So I don't think it's fair to say a melody is inherently non-random. I'd say that there only needs to be a sequence of sounds identifiable as individual notes, with a sufficiently dominant pitch as to sound tonal.
- gohrt 11y agoIn other words, random within a non-random subspace of the universe of possibilities. Like hitting random notes on a piano, without having a piano to start with.
- msutherl 11y agoAs someone who has composed aleatoric music and had many discussions with people who have devoted their lives to generative music, I have to say it's debatable whether what you described can strictly be called a "melody" unless you take the broadest dictionary definition ('a pleasing sequence of notes'), though I do think you can call it "melodic" as in 'melody-ish'. In other words, I think there's an essential difference between melody as conceived prior to the advent of generative music, which implies a decision by the composer that 'this is the melody', and a 'random melody' where that decision is made in a different manner, i.e. "whatever this process produces is 'the melody'". In the case of a randomly generated score, it gets a bit confusing because it's not clear if the composer used a generative process to determine 'the melody' or if it can meaningfully be called 'random'. Ultimately we just don't have words for such things. Perhaps conveniently, generative music still plays a very minor role in music culture outside of i.e. some of Brian Eno's recent work and the enduring influence of John Cage.
- ssalazar 11y agoNot really. A melody is any sequence of tones that one could perceive as being musically significant or interesting. You could generate a random melody by randomly playing notes from a pentatonic scale. Random noise is musically tone-less and without structure, closer to e.g. Metal Machine Music or such.
- pmontra 11y agoCan anybody really hear anything in those samples? They seem random noise.
- adwf 11y agoThe Ku Pteleopsis Hylodendron Humming sounded like C D F D D to me. Very deep, possibly octave below left-most C on a piano, but for those saying it's just noise I'd say there's some signal there. The Bal Gilbertiodendron Dewevrei Singing clip I can't pick anything out. Bit too quiet to tell.
- escherize 11y agoI've always hypothesized that humming while eatting (or saying "Mmmmm") is the perfect pitch to vibrate the hummer's tounge, which makes the flavors experienced more pronounced. It would explain why we say "Mmmmm" not something higher pitched. Plus you can feel your tounge moving when you say "Mmmmm". Any thoughts?
- gohrt 11y ago"m" is a consonant. What does it mean to assign it a pitch?
- gliese1337 11y ago"m" is a nasal sonorant. It's assigned a pitch the same way nasal and oral vowels are- based on the positions of its major formants. Or, less technically, when someone successfully hums a non-monotone tune- you have just heard what it means for them to assign a series of differing pitches to "m".
- gavinpc 11y ago"m" is a voiced, nasal consonant. It can be pitched as much as any vowel.
- gavinpc 11y ago"m" is a voiced, nasal consonant. It can be pitched as much as any vowel.
- pierrec 11y agoIn this context, it means nothing. As you point out, GP is conflating pitch with pitchless phonemes, for example, the phrase "we say "Mmmmm" not something higher pitched" doesn't make any sense. However, I suppose GP meant to write "we tend to say "Mmmm" with a specific, relatively low pitch", a statement with which I don't particularly agree. I would rather say it's done at an average conversational pitch, or even at a higher pitch since it often has a pitch accent conveying surprise. Which I believe is the main purpose of saying "mmm": communication, not vibrational tongue massage. Consider that when you say "mmm", you voluntarily choose a pitch intonation according to what you're trying to convey, ie. how pleasantly surprised you are.
- gohrt 11y agoThe word "happy" is in the title but has no support in the article.
- bcook 11y agoAre we talking about music that was inspired by or inspiring the happy mood? If it's the latter, I would say it's true since eating is one of the better experiences you can have, especially as a simple animal.
- dang 11y agoOk, we replaced "happy songs" with "songs". HN readers are like sandpaper for titles.
- ommunist 11y agoProgrammers also do that. This is somehow linked to survival in the long run.
- izx 11y agoas if they would know the words..