Friday Question: Animal Music

First, a new (to me) music blog, Divertimenti. It appears to be by an organist/pianist pseudonymously named Dulciana. Her post on tracker organs is really cool.

Now, the Friday Question: Someone was looking for animal music, and found my post of the same name. In fact, another searcher also found that post searching for Philip Dorrell's thoughts on what music is. There is much debate about the evolutionary status of music, which leads many people to look at less-developed animals, especially primates. At the Neurosciences and Music II conference there was an entire session devoted to this question. Presenters showed how birds can adapt their songs to better attract females, seals learn to attract females by imitating their parents (even if the adopted parent is a Maine fisher saying, "Hey, how ya doin'!"), and questioned whether a captive gorilla was drumming or merely hitting a barrel.