Nightingales in Berlin: Searching for the Perfect Sound

The nightingale's song is a strange and unsettling composition that reflects our own cacophony back at us. Philosopher and musician David Rothenberg seeks out these musical creatures and makes a new sound with them in his book, "The Nightingale's Song: A Search for the Natural Environment Around Us." He takes us to the urban landscape of Berlin and invites us to listen in on their remarkable collaboration as birds and instruments riff off of each other's sounds. Through dialogue, travel records, sonograms, tours of Berlin's city parks, and musings on the place animal music occupies in our collective imagination, Rothenberg takes us on a quest for a new sonic alchemy, a music impossible for any one species to make alone.

\n Format: Hardback
\n Length: 184 pages
\n Publication date: 19 April 2019
\n Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
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The nightingale, a celebrated figure in myth, song, and story, has captivated the imagination for millennia with its complex song that evokes a range of human emotions, from melancholy to joy, from fear of death to the immortality of art. However, have you ever taken the time to listen closely to a nightingale's song? It is a strange and unsettling composition, an eclectic assortment of chirps, whirrs, trills, clicks, whistles, twitters, and gurgles. At times, it is mellifluous, and at other times, it is downright guttural. It is a rhythmic assault that always eludes capture.

In his new book, "The Nightingale's Song: A Philosophical and Musical Exploration," philosopher and musician David Rothenberg delves into the peculiarity of the nightingale's song and its connection to our own cacophony. As vocal learners, nightingales acquire their music through the world around them, singing amidst the sounds of humanity in all its contradictions of noise and beauty, hard machinery and soft melody. Rothenberg seeks out these musical creatures, armed with a clarinet, and creates a new sound with them.

Through dialogue, travel records, sonograms, tours of Berlin's city parks, and musings on the place of animal music in our collective imagination, Rothenberg takes us on a quest for a new sonic alchemy, a music impossible for any one species to make alone. In the tradition of "The Hidden Life of Trees" and "The Invention of Nature," Rothenberg has written a provocative and accessible book that attunes us ever closer to the natural world.

The nightingale's song is a reminder of our interconnectedness with the natural world and the power of music to bridge the gap between species. It encourages us to listen more carefully to the sounds around us and to seek out new ways of collaborating with other creatures to create something greater than ourselves. "The Nightingale's Song" is a testament to the beauty and complexity of the natural world and the endless possibilities for exploration and discovery that lie within it.

\n Weight: 424g\n
Dimension: 234 x 164 x 17 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780226467184\n \n