Humpback Whale: Song in Sheet Music

The songs of male humpback whales are famous for their beauty. In breeding areas near Hawaii, in the Caribbean, and elsewhere, their songs can last up to 20 minutes and be heard up to 160 km away. In the North Atlantic they have been found singing identical songs in unison miles away from one another.

Their songs fluctuate between 20 Hertz and 24,000 Hertz and different melodic gestures (unit labels) have been discovered. This short example features three modulating cries (524-1415 Hertz) and two ascending moans (162-271 Hertz). What is very interesting to me is that the modulating cries contain an augmented triad, whereas the ascending moans consist of a tritone.

All the information about their songs I have from a paper by Hauer-Jansen entitled ‘Analysis of Humpback Whale Songs: Applying the traditional method’ (2018).

Transcription: @AlexanderLiebermann
Video: @Sage Stephens

#music #transcription #whales #animalsounds #eartraining #musictheory

[quezia.rodrigues]

I had never imagined that it would be possible to transcribe the whale song. That's awesome, really.

[SOUNDSYSTEM_]

Even whales play in the common time signature, how beautiful

[Soulsurviver]

Sounds like that big ass dinosaur 🦕 in Jurassic park

[LizBdarkangelic]

Foind this while looking up humpback whale sounds to see how feasible the story of the song Port na bPúcaí is, and it really is so so close!

[Cloudnine]

It just roasted the whole music industry in seconds😂

[kaitlynhowell]

Now to wait on a musician YouTuber to play this.

[eunjoycekwon]

Some sounds is soo creepy I didn’t wanna listen it creeps me gives me goosebumps but this whale humpback songs is so beautiful 😻 it sounds soo good in my ear makes me fall inlove with them ♥️

[KieranOkeefe-zbme]

I love whales and dolphins there so beautiful and incredibly intelligent ❤❤❤

[HDDJEJEHDHDBDBDB]

Imagine your in the ocean and u hear a HUMPBACK WHALE trying to protect a seal just go on the whales back .

[alvarostockle]

So the sound that that animal that Obi-wan rides in Revenge of the Sith makes is based on a whale

[ammagnolia]

Is it true we can't hear any of this and it's switched to a frequency we can hear.... Like is this how other whales hearing sounds like?would another whale hear the same way were hearing it off the speaker/headphones

[Lofilifer]

I wonder if they’re like parrots and can copy other ocean life sounds.

[mehdihoseyni]

This one is like malmsteen😅too much into arpeggios 😂😂😂lmao

[gjp]

Ten dźwięk jest często spotykany u zwierząt wiele razy u psów

[gjp]

Jest wiele języków zwierząt ale jest język zwierząt którym się wszystkie posługują