AN INTRODUCTION TO BIRD MUSIC. 



There is a general idea among many who are inter- 

 ested in birds that musical notation employed as a 

 means to express a bird's song is nearly worthless. Pos- 

 sibly those who are most skeptical in this regard are not 

 the ones who read music readily. If so, I shall hope 

 that the musical key and glossary which follow will 

 prove of great assistance in making plain those simpler 

 principles of music necessary to a proper understanding 

 not only of the musical records within this volume, but 

 of the character of the songs they represent. Of course 

 it is a more or less problematic matter to deal with wild 

 music. It is not amenable in any respect to law. How- 

 ever, the question involved is not whether the bird's 

 song is radically different from ours we may admit 

 that point but whether it may be truthfully and logi- 

 cally recorded upon the musical staff. That question, 

 it is the object of this book to answer affirmatively, and 

 with due regard for all the difficulties involved. 



Syllables alone can not express the song of a bird; they 

 are wholly inadequate, if not extremely unscientific. A 

 syllable may be spoken or sung in any tone of voice, 

 therefore, it is useless in locating a tone. Such conso- 

 nants as Q, S, and Z are of use only in defining a partic- 

 ular quality of tone. Now, as bird songs are composed 

 of a certain number of related tones and a limited 

 degree of pitch, there is but one way to record them; 

 that must be upon the musical staff! 



As a matter of fact, syllables are very useful in ex- 

 pressing rhythm or time; but even here they some- 

 times fail. For instance, one of the best syllabic 

 examples of rhythm is the Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, 

 Peabody, attributed to the White-throated Sparrow. 

 Naturally, one would pronounce the name Pea-bo-dy 

 evenly; but the bird does not sing this trisyllabic note 

 that way; he sings the first of the three tones to three 

 beats, the second to one beat, and the third to two beats. 

 Only the musical staff can express that fact accurately! 



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