Customer Reviews

Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

David has written a unique narrative of someone who is deeply and spiritually connected to nature and the animal world. His previous book on the songs of birds and why they sing as they do is one of the best in the literature on avian song, and this latest book goes beyond the scope of that book with a musical and mystical adventure into the obscure and mysterious world of the great whales. As one who has been fascinated with interspecies communication since reading John Lilly's books back in the 60's and 70's, I was impressed with David's approach to learning what it is to try and breach the void between the two most intelligent species on the planet.
He combines the best discoveries of science and technology with a musician's understanding of the primeval common ground that exists in rhythm and sound, across all cultures and extending into the animal kingdom as well. He was willing to take some risks and tick off some activist and naturalist allies to get where he wanted to go with his search, and I think it paid off handsomely in the results and insight we can all gain from his book. The individuals he sought out in his extensive researching are among the foremost authorities in the field of cetacean studies, and he was able to harvest a wealth of both fact and opinion from them. The audio CD included with the book is an outstanding compilation of his attempts to participate in the making of oceanic music and on its own worth the price of his book. I highly recommend The Thousand Mile Song to anyone who wants to further their own insights into the essential nature of music, sound, and whale culture.

The Thousand MIle Song is a wonderful perspective of Whales from their songs. The CD included in the book creates a great multimedia experience. The author writes with a loose style that is engaging throughout the book. I never got bored. For parts of the book I listened to the CD while reading. That was fun!

I bought this book after hearing it described on a radio program. I'm very satisfied. Lately, I have trouble finding anything to hold my interest, but that was not a problem with this book.

Overall, I found it a good blend of science, whimsy, and environmentalism.

This is a wonderfully lyrical book that, unfortunately, has been not been thoroughly vetted for accuracy or proofed (the first typo can be found on the dust cover back flap). Having been personally and deeply involved in both the Humphrey and subsequent Delta and Dawn whale rescue efforts, it is regrettable that the author chose to re-write the history of a remarkable whale rescue event that occurred in the Fall of 1984 in San Francisco Bay, despite the fact that he knew (or should have known) that there were other, more relevant aspects to the tale, ones completely neglected in the text.

On the 10th of October of 1984, a lone male humpback whale swam into the Bay and proceeded, subsequently, to swim up the San Joaquin Delta, up the Sacramento River toward Sacramento ultimately finding itself trapped in a tiny slough 75 miles upstream. John Garamendi, then a California State Senator (now Lieutenant Governor), headed up a team that consisted of a long list of state, federal and academic agencies and personnel. As part of that team, Dianna Reiss and I were appointed scientific co-directors by Garamendi and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with the special mandate to pull together the best information available at the time regarding humpback rescue operations and to share that data with the team along with practical strategic suggestions for a possible rescue. Because there was no reference or previous humpback whale rescue data related to this particular type of event, different methods were tried with limited success over the course of three weeks.

Then, in a final attempt to rescue the animal, a phone teleconference was held in Sacramento on the 31st of October. Lou Herman, among many other "experts," was invited to join in the discussion from his lab at the University of Hawaii. When it was his turn to speak, he mentioned that a couple of unnamed grad students in his department had experimented with humpback vocalizations and that their methodology might serve to lure the whale, replacing the aversion models we had employed until then. Herman offered to send a copy of the tape as a playback source. At the same time, a researcher and recordist, Duane Johnson (then employed by California Fish and Game Department) on site in Sacramento at the conference, offered the same information and likewise a tape from research that he had conducted. In an aside, Dianna Reiss expressed concern that Herman, who served on peer review committees that passed judgment on her academic papers and talks at conferences and, according to her, also had a reputation for being vindictive, intimidating and sometimes violent, urged us, for political reasons, to take him up on his offer. Despite my initial feelings that the quality of the Johnson recording immediately available in Sacramento would be superior, and which later turned out to be the case, Herman was asked to send his along out of deference to Reiss and to allay her concerns. Received at my lab on 1 November 1984, the package contained a badly copied audiocassette, completely unusable as delivered. Furthermore, the written operational protocol accompanying the medium was inexplicable (`Use an 800W amplifier to drive a 200W underwater speaker.' The "20 minute" tape noted in the accompanying letter contained only 65 seconds of one vocalization).

Deciding, after all, that Herman's tape and protocols were unreliable, Reiss called Joe Mobley and Scott Baker, the researchers who had done the original Alaska humpback recordings and playback studies. Before supplying her with the correct information, she was told by Mobley and Baker that Herman had initially and proactively discouraged their humpback playback program and only grudgingly allowed it to proceed at a later time. Finally armed with dependable data from the researchers, we then devised a playback protocol that ultimately did work.

The humpback recording provided by Herman, aside from being far too short, was seriously masked by boat engine and other background noise. And, by then, we could not reach Duane Johnson to obtain a copy of his tape. Given the material in hand, the recordings used in the Mobley/Baker study with whales in an open water non-stressed environment - the opposite of conditions surrounding Humphrey - Dianna and I reached a consensus on procedure. I was charged with denoising the tape using newly available audio forensic technology at the time, and digitally processed the vocalization in numerous ways, changing pitch, duration, amplitude, timbre, and reverberation characteristics and extending it to the full 20 minutes promised by Herman (but never delivered) so that if the animal was attracted to the material, it would be less likely to habituate to the sounds if they needed to be repeated. This process took 32 hours to accomplish. The results of this exercise were accurately and fairly reported in the various media on site when the whale swam out of San Francisco Bay and past the Golden Gate the afternoon of Sunday, November 4th, 1984.

When those of us with feet on the ground or in boats on the Sacramento River managed to get well-deserved recognition for the efforts expended, and despite the fact that Herman's, Baker's and Mobley's contributions were acknowledged in every media interview I gave, Herman, who apparently did not get the level of recognition he thought he or felt his lab deserved, went ballistic calling all of the print and broadcast media on the west and east coast obsessively insisting that the recordings were his and that he, singlehandedly, was responsible for the rescue. Herman has yet to explain that contention to the 500+ students and volunteers who were present onsite and did help rescue the animal from the Sacramento Delta. Rothenberg's exposition of this event represents a continued vestige of Herman's lamentable fixation.

And the author's speculation that music may mean more to whales than we may ever know, must be followed by an even more compelling assumption that it may, in the end, mean less. As Luc Ferry pointed out in his seminal book, "The New Ecological Order," "Nature is beautiful when it imitates art."

David Rothenberg is on a quest. He wants to communicate with other animals, and music is his medium. He's had some light success, recounted in his "Why Birds Sing". Here, he moves into the realm of mammals - our neighbours in the sea, the whales. With clear and undemanding prose, the author takes us through both the science of cetaceaology and his own efforts to record and perform with the great whales. He follows the whales around the world, reaching out with sound in bays, "sea-world" tanks and the open sea. Orcas off Vancouver Island, Belugas in the Chicago Aquarium, and, of course, the great Humpbacks, who produce the "Thousand Mile Song".

"Music hath charms . . . " goes the old cliché, but the author's purpose isn't to "charm", it's to establish some kind of link with those elusive creatures. Unlike those who rely on cliché and imagery, Rothenberg has electronics. And a clarinet. The electronics can record the voices of the singing whales, his squalling wind instrument and a computer to record both sets of sounds for comparison. The author's prompt was the release of thousands of recordings by the US Navy in their quest to separate submarines' sounds from that of living creatures - "biologics". Early results were released in a fabulously successful recording "Songs of the Humpback Whale". These, of course, were all just recordings, and nothing interactive was attempted.

The main trigger for Rothenberg was the variations that some species exhibited. "Songs" changed from season to season, and in some cases within the season. The author rightly reasoned that such variation was unlikely due to innate genetic characteristics. It must be due to something the whales determined consciously. Rothenberg's assessment is that the changes represent the whale equivalent to musical structure - themes, crescendos, and climaxes that must have some meaning, if not purpose. The "purpose", originally thought to be part of a courting ritual - all the whale singers are male - was quickly dismissed when no response on the part of females, even those close by, was observed. So, what is the purpose of "whale song"?

Rothenberg is careful not to get caught up in speculation. He's happy enough to goad a whale into responding to his clarinet. It only happens once, but a journey of a thousand kilometres . . . His desire to understand why the whales sing, or even what they're singing, is a meaningful quest. These are, after all, the planet's largest inhabitants, and they carry big brains that evolution has spent over 30 million years developing. Logically, those brains are capable of much more than just swimming, eating and finding mates. There must be an emotional element that we must learn to understand. A sour note regarding whale emotions is introduced when Rothenberg encounters a researcher who queries: "Who gave you the right to mess with these animals?" Rothenberg's response is to join an illegal "whale-watching" group to launch yet another concert. To the concerned reader, the episode resonates through the rest of the book.

Rothenberg's' efforts to communicate are a worthy idea, but hardly scientific. It's an interruption in some point in their life cycle and we don't yet know enough about whales to determine how much impact such "experiments" might have. Rothenberg presumes the whales might want to know something about us - unsurprising since our species has been slaughtering theirs for centuries. Perhaps they do, but a clarinet and a tape recorder are unlikely means of communication. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

After reading a little about this book, I was excited to give it a read. Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed in the quality of the writing, which was amateurish and overly conversational.
I also found some of the author's perspectives and choices quite disturbing. For instance, in the middle of the book, the author talks to a scientist and presents his idea to play music with whales; the scientist was very concerned about the possibility of disrupting the whales' behavior and even the possibility of doing unintended harm. The author chose not to listen to this seasoned, experienced scientist and instead moved forward with his plan anyway. I found this decision very distrubing and selfish; he put his own goals before the needs of the whales. He also disregarded federal regulations in order to swim with and otherwise potentially harass the whales.
I am very disappointed in the writing in this book and in the author's choices. Overall, the poor quality of the writing and the questionable choices the author made in order to create a story makes me wonder if, as a professor, he had to produce a product in order to keep or achieve tenure.

The book is a great combination of interesting easy reading with lots of unusual educational content about whales

David Rothenberg continues to amaze us with his explorations into music, sound and nature. This work is both of this world and a world apart. An incredible book and CD.

Even though I have been interested in whales since childhood, I never imagined that a discussion of whale songs could be so fascinating, pulling discussion threads from science, art, music, acoustics, animal behavior, and other disciplines.

The image of the author, standing in a dingy, playing clarinet music to whales is, in itself, a poem.

A standing ovation to the author who makes non-fiction, deeply itriguing, and more of a woven interaction of thoughts than any fiction can.

Shepherdess

this was an interesting book , and CD coming from a unique and out of the box perspective!