The Cultural Changes of Whalesong Stub

0:57 What's good everybody?So I've been obsessed about babiesand Bolivian tribes and monkeysand trying to figure out what's up with music really.What do we know in terms of what actually is out thereand what is default, what is learned,what is our fishbowl, what is the water in which we swimand I wanna talk about birds now because I'm not done yet.And I was just reading about snowball, the cockatoo.

1:26 So 2009 researchers showed that snowball danced to musicas any internet aficionado would say of courseI have watched many a bird dance.But the crazy thing about snowballis that they were able to speed upand slow down the songand snowball sped up and slowed down its movement.Snowball was actually dancing.And then 10 years later,they proved that snowball was coming upwith dance moves to different music.That's crazy.

2:02 So I'm not saying that snowballis equivalent to human dance,but it does make you kind of go,I don't know, I like it when certain thingsthat are so human you get a little punctureand like whale song or bird song or a bird dancing.There's also a really cool thing with zebra finches.They learn their songs.And so it's not necessarily just a genetically fixed thing,a inherited thing.They are replicating it.

2:37 And in 2021, there was a study where male zebra finches,they learned to distinguish regular sequenceseven with substantial tempo changes.The tempo changes is a much bigger dealthan I think it seems at first glancebecause one of the things I love is happy birthday.The song happy birthday can be sung in every keyand every key in between every key,but it's still happy birthday.It can be sung really fast.

3:14 It can be sung really slow.It's still happy birthday.Why?How do we do that?I just had a wonderful conversation with film composerand we were talking about a great song is a great song.So put it on any instrument.He went even further and he was saying,it doesn't even need to be the greatest instrument.This is just way Greco, by the way.Incredible guy, incredible composer.Definitely check out that episode.

3:45 But what we were saying is the song itselfis the relationship.And so when you have a bird like snowballor these zebra finches,being able to understand the relationship between pitchesat different timing,that means that they are actually creating a relationshipin the same way that when I was talking about the newborns,creating the relationship and the expectation

4:18 within the statistical model of where will a rhythm fall?Where will a melody go?And we see this with mimicry.But I think this is bigger than just mimicry.This is saying I get it.I'm interacting with it across a broader thing.So some parrots are able to synchronize their bodiesto musical beats.Songbirds are able to learn this timing prediction.Human newborns, we've already talked about.

4:58 They have this statistical prediction.Adult humans, obviously have all of this.But there's this cultural componentjust like we saw with the chimane.So what is this?Where do we go?We go back to monkeys.So this one is crazy.2025 in science, I just read it.It's called monkeys have rhythm.Hell of a title.Two adult macaques were trained on explicit microphone tapping.So, you know, got the click.

5:32 And then they were tested on real music after that.They were able to synchronize their taps,these monkey taps, to a subjective beatin actual music.They were able to tap along to music, the monkeys.That's crazy.So it's not just the other study that I was talking aboutwhere they were able to have brain activationbased on irregularities.This was participation in music.Minor participation.Granted, this is a tap.

6:04 But still, it'd be pretty crazy to look over to your dogand see your dog tap in their foot to music.This is something beyond just like rhythmic groupingor sensitivity.This is synchronization.So no, this doesn't mean that a monkeycan just hear a song and dance, right?Like that was a lot of training.But that shows that at the very least,there's machinery in their brains to be able to do this

6:33 in the same way that there's the machinery in a snowball,the cockatoo to be able to rip it up on the dance floor.So I say this not to diminish humans, like obviously,we can do more than tapafter being fed lots and lots of treats.However, I think it actually should make us feelmore integrated with music itselfand also maybe have some hope that musicis truly a universal language.Here I am with those aliens again,

7:09 but regardless of aliens are real or not,they are a fun thought experiment.How would they go about learning music?Would they have music?And I think at least all of the signsacross multiple species, not just mammals,science point to maybe.And if you'll humor me with one more mammal,let's talk about whales.So one of the things that I think is really wildis just the cultural changes of whale song.

7:39 So there will be these song revolutionswhere one population song gets replacedby another song from another population.And the researchers will watch songsmoving across the South Pacific over years.The songs are catching up.There is a Billboard Hot 100 of whale song.A 2022 study followed six song typesthat moved from Eastern Australiaall the way to New Caledonia.And the New Caledonian whales,

8:11 they were able to produce these songs with high fidelity.They were not simplifying them.This was like a cultural migration.They were singing along to basically the original.And the whale songs have rhythmic organization.It's not just one giant drone or moan.There is temporal organization inside of these songs.And what I think is crazyis as we get better at machine learning.So say what you want about AI.

8:44 I think machine learning like pattern matchingcan be really, really wild for things like thisbecause researchers, they took eight yearsof humpback song recordingsand they applied a method similar to human infantswhere they're trying to use the human infant'sdiscovery process for wordswhere the babies, they're able to likeuse the probabilities where if a certain syllable

9:09 comes together, they start to treat them as a chunkand then they start to learn them as a word.You can apply the same thing to a humpback songand they're able to find statistically coherent chunks.Like, not saying they have language,but there are word-like meanings inside of their songs.They might not have language, but they kind of have lyricsand I'll leave you with that.Let's sing along to some whale songs.

9:42 Maybe that'll be my next record.Don't tempt me with a good time.If you enjoyed this podcast, I would like for youto listen to my whale songs.I do have a song about a whale.It's on my, I think it's on Big Hugand it's weird or is it Little Hug?You go tell me.I've made too much music.I've forgotten it all.Unlike the whales, they remember all their songs.I don't remember all of my songs.

10:06 Go to scoobertdoobert.pizza to find outand you can also check out my weird pizza shopthat I made over there.I'm not gonna tell you any more about that.And like five stars, share, share with your friendsand I will see you next week.Thank you for listening.