Music from Another Species

Name: Music from Another Species
Brand: INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Price: 202.75 AUD
Availability: BackOrder

Australian Birdsong Transcriptions

By: Hollis Taylor

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Hardcover | 12 May 2026

At a Glance

Hardcover
336 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
27.9 x 21.6

Hardcover

$202.75

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Considered by many to be the most accomplished songbird in Australia, the pied butcherbird is known for its ability to skillfully improvise new and complex melodies. Each one sings differently from the next; their nocturnal solo songs can span up to seven hours and are often combined with other calls to form an artistic ensemble; and since their songs change annually, these feathered choristers provide an endless bounty of complex musical phrases to transcribe. Music from Another Species is an exhaustive zoomusicological analysis of these avian vocalizations in relation to the minimalist music produced by humans. The culmination of over twenty years of listening, author Hollis Taylor has produced a veritable repertoire of birdsong with the notation of over 100 individual vocalizations. From comparisons of bird solos across geography to those at the same site but different times, the elegant variations across subspecies, and even duets and larger ensembles, the collected transcriptions allow readers to immerse themselves in these songs so replete with musicality and invention. Complete with online audio files, Music from Another Species opens the door for us to find the exuberance, timbral riches, chromatic flourishes, and abutting large leaps and sharp switchbacks of the pied butcherbird.

Industry Reviews

"The innovative and arresting aspect of this book is the way in which it presents birdsong in a manner more similar to published musical repertoire, as in the work of a human composer. . . . As a resource for studying the capacity for sonic communication of this species, Taylor breaks new ground." - Nicholas Bannon, author of Music, Language, and Human Evolution

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