|
09 Jan 09 - 09:24 PM (#2536684) Subject: BS: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: Janie Heard an interesting piece on NPR Morning Addition on the way to work this morning. Before a female mosquito will mate with a male, he has to adjust the sound his wings make to a specific frequency. She then chimes in at another frequency and together they make a nearly perfect 5th. This then creates an overtone. Only when the overtone begins, do they mate! Below is a bit of an exerpt that you can you can use to perhaps spice up your own romantic life:>) If Music Be The Food Of Love What makes A. aegypi so unusual in the animal world is how precisely it modifies its tones. Rex Cocroft is a behavioral biologist at the University of Missouri who has recorded the sounds made by numerous kinds of insects. He says many animals, from birds to katydids, use sound in mating behavior. This experiment showed something new. "We think of insects as being masters of timing and rhythm and not so much as masters of pitch," Cocroft says. There's a field of science called biomusicology, he says, that investigates the idea that what we like in music may derive from what we've heard in the natural world. "For example, when people were writing early melodies like Gregorian chants," Cocroft says, "when you have a large jump up in frequency, then you tend to drop down stepwise, and people were asking, 'Well, do animals show similar kinds of rules?'" If that sounds crazy, consider this: The interval between the male mosquito's tone and the female's is quite close to what musicians call a perfect fifth. In fact, composers for centuries considered the interval of a fifth to be the most euphonious. So if mosquitoes have it right, all you need is a melody with an interval of a fifth and you'll be guaranteed romantic success. The composer of that romantic chestnut "Feelings" apparently figured that out: The first two notes are a perfect fifth. The entire article or podcast can be found here. |
|
09 Jan 09 - 09:39 PM (#2536693) Subject: RE: BS: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: Bill D "We're playing OUR song, baby! Fly down, I think I love you." |
|
09 Jan 09 - 09:39 PM (#2536694) Subject: RE: BS: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: pdq In the normal course of daily life for a mosquito, it's wing speed (and therefore the pitch of the note it produces) depends directly upon the ambient air temperature. The colder it get the lower the pitch. Trust me on this. There are some things that I just know. |
|
09 Jan 09 - 11:27 PM (#2536771) Subject: RE: BS: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: katlaughing How kewl!! |
|
10 Jan 09 - 03:27 AM (#2536856) Subject: RE: BS: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: open mike maybe they can be prevented from mating by sound... they do make sonic mosquito repellant devices... |
|
10 Jan 09 - 05:23 PM (#2537465) Subject: RE: BS: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: Gurney This should be above the line. Well, it's about music, isn't it? |
|
10 Jan 09 - 06:16 PM (#2537530) Subject: RE: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: Tangledwood It has been pointed out on another forum that perfect 5th just happens to be mandolin tuning. So,do mando players suffer more mozzie bites than guitarists? |
|
10 Jan 09 - 06:36 PM (#2537550) Subject: RE: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: Janie I was intrigued by the paragraph on biomusicology, of which I had never heard. All I have looked at so far is the link I posted, but think I will try to learn more and follow some of the research in this field. Consider the significant differences, as well as the similarities in the older music and rhythms from Africa, Europe, Asia, where humankind arose and to where we first dispersed. Also consider that there must be a biological basis and reason for music. Facinating. |
|
10 Jan 09 - 07:08 PM (#2537584) Subject: RE: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: Don Firth Yeah, I heard the NPR thing on mosquitoes also. Some time back, a good friend gave me a copy of Daniel J. Levitin's This is Your Brain on Music. Absolutely fascinating! Highly recommended. Here's a review: Clicky. Don Firth |
|
10 Jan 09 - 07:41 PM (#2537598) Subject: RE: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: Janie Thanks for the link, Don. Gonna head for the library tomorrow to see if they have a copy. |
|
10 Jan 09 - 09:12 PM (#2537680) Subject: RE: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: GUEST,Abby They also said that the bugs create an overtone when they do this. Any idea what the note could be? |
|
10 Jan 09 - 09:20 PM (#2537684) Subject: RE: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: Janie In the podcast, you can hear the overtone. I think it is identified in the podcast, but don't clearly remember. Maybe Don or someone else who also heard it will recall. |
|
10 Jan 09 - 10:42 PM (#2537710) Subject: RE: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: Barry Finn I've met some of the oppsite sex that after a fifth they make sounds that are heavenlly but usually their timing & rhythm is a bit off but I always feel for their pitch Barry |
|
10 Jan 09 - 10:45 PM (#2537712) Subject: RE: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: Stilly River Sage That was an interesting story, wasn't it? SRS |
|
11 Jan 09 - 08:08 PM (#2537744) Subject: RE: Mosquito Duets Perfect 5th From: Don Firth I believe (based on what I remember from a Physics of Music class I took back in the mid-1960s) that the overtone would be a major third, completing a major chord: root, major third, perfect fifth. As I recall from the NPR broadcast, the female mosquito produces a note of about 400 cycles per second, which is close to an A, but somewhat flat (reckoning by the current standard of 440 cps = concert A), and the male tries to zing in on about 600 cps (also, flat compared to what it should be: 660 cps [ratio, 2 to 3 to produce a perfect 5th]). The two notes together actually mix several overtones, but the strongest one is a major third above the root of A, namely C# in this case. [Note that the female 'skeeter has a deeper voice than the male 'skeeter.] Every note (with the possible exception of "purified" electronically produced notes) produce both the fundamental and a series of overtones. The varying strengths of the overtones of different instruments is why you can tell, say, a flute from a clarinet, even when they're both playing the same fundamental note. Some overtones reinforce each other, and this is what happens when 'skeeters--or anything for that matter--start playing duets. . . . I think. . . . Don Firth |