David Rothenberg

Making Music with Birds and Bugs

City of Books  radio

2022-01-20

“Birds sing because they have to – because they must,” says the man who knows more than most about the subject, Professor David Rothenberg, an American musician, philosopher and writer whose books include Why Birds Sing, Nightingales in Berlin and Bug Music. “Birdsong is the real classic music, this is oldest music we know. It’s been around so much longer than the human species – it’s stood the test of time,” he says.

Jamming with the cicadas in New Jersey: a once in 17 years event

Reuters  online

2021-06-03

For some in the U.S., the emergence of billions of red-eyed cicadas this spring after a 17-year slumber has been met with annoyance – particularly over their loud buzzing calls. But for David Rothenberg, a professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, it has presented a unique opportunity for collaboration.

This musician makes 'strange, but beautiful' music with Brood X cicadas

CBC News  online

2021-06-01

Rothenberg plays the clarinet and the soprano saxophone, and his backing band consists of billions of five-eyed insects that just emerged from deep underground for the first time in 17 years — the Brood X cicadas. He spoke to As It Happens host Carol Off on Tuesday from a field in Princeton, N.J., where he was performing his latest "concert" with his beloved bug buddies.

Music Professor David Rothenberg Makes Music With Cicadas

NPR  radio

2021-05-09

NPR host Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks to music professor David Rothenberg about the music of the Brood X cicadas and what it's like making music with them.

‘Bug Music’ man from Cold Spring joins in swirl of sound created by cicadas

News 12 Hudson Valley  online

2021-05-25

David Rothenberg, of Cold Spring, literally wrote the book on “Bug Music” – using a choir of insects as his muse. He spoke with News 12 Nadia Galindo about the hype surrounding the reemergence of cicadas after a 17-year slumber. "When I’m playing with them, I'm trying to join in the swirl of sound," he says.

The Hills Are Alive with the Sounds of Bugs

Outside  online

2021-01-22

Musician David Rothenberg plays his clarinet alongside insects on warm summer evenings. He creates melodies to the rhythms of crickets, katydids, and a whole orchestra of bugs. Summer Symphony Bug Music is produced by Oscillator Media.

David Rothenberg Jams with the Cicadas

PBS NewsHour  tv

2013-06-19

David Rothenberg, professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, takes his clarinet out to Ulster County Fairgrounds in New York to play music with the cicadas, which have emerged after 17 years underground. Their sounds are as musical as bird calls and whale songs, he says in his new book "Bug Music."

Emerging From Darkness

The New York Times

David Rothenberg

2021-05-08

Billions of cicadas will soon erupt in a symphony of sound after 17 years of silence. I'll be there with my clarinet.

Mockingbird Morphing Music: Structured Transitions in a Complex Bird Song

Frontiers in Psychology

Tina C Roeske, David Rothenberg, David E Gammon

2021

The song of the northern mockingbird, Mimus polyglottos, is notable for its extensive length and inclusion of numerous imitations of several common North American bird species. Because of its complexity, it is not widely studied by birdsong scientists. When they do study it, the specific imitations are often noted, and the total number of varying phrases. What is rarely noted is the systematic way the bird changes from one syllable to the next, often with a subtle transition where one sound is gradually transformed into a related sound, revealing an audible and specific compositional mode.

Spider Music

Performing Arts Journal

David Rothenberg, Tomás Saraceno

2018

Birds, whales, insects—sure, they all make sound. But spiders? I first came across the work of Tomás Saraceno climbing through some bubbles atop the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in his piece On the Roof: Cloud City in 2012. Later, I saw a much-enlarged related work, Cloud Cities, filling the great hall of the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. Here was an art everyone could appreciate—sublime in its scale, awe-inspiring, and surprisingly accessible because you could climb right in it.

The Point Is to Change It: Can Philosophy Address Climate?

Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology

David Rothenberg

2018

nn: Are you an optimist or a pessimist? an: Optimist! nn:(Astonished) Really? an: Yes, convinced optimist—When it comes to the 22nd Century. nn: You mean of course the 21st? an: 22nd! The life of the grandchildren of our grandchildren. Are you not interested in the world of your grandchildren! nn: You mean we can relax because we have a lot of time available to overcome the ecological crisis? an: How terrible, shamefully bad conditions will be in the 21st Century, or how far down we have to start on the way up, depends on what you, you, and others do today and tomorrow. There is not a single day to be lost. We need activism on a high level immediately.

Temporal regularity increases with repertoire complexity in the Australian pied butcherbird's song

Royal Society of Open Science

Eathan Janney, Hollis Taylor, Constance Scharff, David Rothenberg, Lucas C. Parra and Ofer Tchernichovski

2016-09-01

... We tested for a correlation between the complexity of song repertoire and the temporal regularity of singing performance. We found that different phrase types often share motifs (notes or stereotyped groups of notes). These shared motifs reappeared in strikingly regular temporal intervals across different phrase types, over hundreds of phrases produced without interruption by each bird...

A New Morphological Notation for the Music of Humpback Whales

Art and Perception

David Rothenberg, Michael Deal

2015

The humpback whale sings a song that defies easy characterization and human perception. This paper attempts to develop a new form a visual notation for this song which enables humans to better perceive its musicality, tonality and morphology, combining elements of sonographic and musical notations. The beauty of the humpback whale song is considered as to whether it is an inherent characteristic or a human projection.

The Concert of Humans and Nightingales

Performance Philosophy

David Rothenberg

2014

Of all the days to schedule a midnight concert live with nightingales in the Treptower Park in Berlin, why did we have to choose May 9th? This could very well be the only night when the park was going to be full of people. This night and this night alone was the 69th anniversary of the end of World War II. Victory Day, a big holiday in Germany although not in the United States. I can see why. We bundle all our war holidays together into Memorial Day and Veterans Day at opposite times of the year to cover all our bases.