Listen to the “Songs of the hermit thrushes” online. What characteristics of music do you hear in the thrush’s song? How can the sound of birds singing be considered music? To be considered music, what must any sound possess?

What will be an ideal response?

• The bird song has rhythm, melody, repetition, and variation. Whether or not the bird song is music depends on one's cultural viewpoint.


• Most Euro-Americans would not call bird song music, yet the Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea think bird songs have human meaning. The Kaluli people believe that bird songs are the voices of their deceased ancestors who have died and changed into birds.


• "Music has human meaning."