WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.250 align:middle line:84% OK, so maybe something a little bit lighter and-- 00:00:05.250 --> 00:00:07.890 align:middle line:84% not intensely lighter, but a little bit lighter, 00:00:07.890 --> 00:00:09.720 align:middle line:90% and at least musical. 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:12.240 align:middle line:84% This is the essay that Caleb talked about a little bit 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:13.418 align:middle line:90% in his fine introduction. 00:00:13.418 --> 00:00:15.210 align:middle line:84% I wish there was more flavor filling in it. 00:00:15.210 --> 00:00:16.793 align:middle line:84% But maybe we could maybe we can listen 00:00:16.793 --> 00:00:19.980 align:middle line:84% to some more of the essay and put this postulate 00:00:19.980 --> 00:00:22.620 align:middle line:84% to the test-- was this starling really 00:00:22.620 --> 00:00:25.950 align:middle line:84% the Flavor Flav of one of the greatest composers 00:00:25.950 --> 00:00:27.480 align:middle line:90% in the Western canon, right? 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:32.310 align:middle line:84% OK, so this sort of recorded moment in animal history 00:00:32.310 --> 00:00:34.350 align:middle line:84% is one of my favorite ones that I encountered. 00:00:34.350 --> 00:00:36.683 align:middle line:84% We don't know very much about Mozart, believe it or not. 00:00:36.683 --> 00:00:39.990 align:middle line:84% We kind of think we do because of that movie with F. Murray 00:00:39.990 --> 00:00:40.840 align:middle line:90% Abraham in it. 00:00:40.840 --> 00:00:43.173 align:middle line:84% And it turns out a lot of the stuff that they believed-- 00:00:43.173 --> 00:00:45.180 align:middle line:84% that Peter Shaffer who wrote the play 00:00:45.180 --> 00:00:47.310 align:middle line:84% about that believed-- about the character of Mozart 00:00:47.310 --> 00:00:49.020 align:middle line:90% was actually incorrect. 00:00:49.020 --> 00:00:51.460 align:middle line:84% But some things do sort of seem to be 00:00:51.460 --> 00:00:53.460 align:middle line:84% a part of what we understand about him-- that he 00:00:53.460 --> 00:00:56.400 align:middle line:84% was kind of very light-hearted, very interested 00:00:56.400 --> 00:00:57.390 align:middle line:90% in pranksterism. 00:00:57.390 --> 00:00:59.430 align:middle line:90% He loved a good butt joke. 00:00:59.430 --> 00:01:00.660 align:middle line:90% He really did. 00:01:00.660 --> 00:01:05.519 align:middle line:84% So he has a song called "Leck mich im Arsch," 00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:09.390 align:middle line:84% or "Lick Me in My Butt," that he composed at the same time 00:01:09.390 --> 00:01:10.770 align:middle line:90% that he composed Don Giovanni. 00:01:10.770 --> 00:01:12.760 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] It's true. 00:01:12.760 --> 00:01:15.270 align:middle line:84% And while he composed this-- which by the way, 00:01:15.270 --> 00:01:18.060 align:middle line:84% the song, which Insane Clown Posse covered a little while 00:01:18.060 --> 00:01:20.430 align:middle line:84% ago-- if you can't sleep tonight, well, 00:01:20.430 --> 00:01:23.460 align:middle line:84% don't watch that because you'll never sleep again, but anyway-- 00:01:23.460 --> 00:01:27.240 align:middle line:84% but while he was writing such ditties as "Lick Me in My Butt" 00:01:27.240 --> 00:01:30.180 align:middle line:84% or whatever, he had a pet starling. 00:01:30.180 --> 00:01:33.330 align:middle line:84% And we know it because he wrote in his expense book, 00:01:33.330 --> 00:01:35.910 align:middle line:84% the day that he bought it, that he bought a starling. 00:01:35.910 --> 00:01:38.070 align:middle line:84% And then he drew this little line of music 00:01:38.070 --> 00:01:39.510 align:middle line:90% under the note of purchase. 00:01:39.510 --> 00:01:43.080 align:middle line:84% And most people think it's because he whistled something 00:01:43.080 --> 00:01:45.060 align:middle line:84% in the pet store, or whatever the store was 00:01:45.060 --> 00:01:48.870 align:middle line:84% in Vienna, to the starling and the starling whistled it back. 00:01:48.870 --> 00:01:51.208 align:middle line:84% Which is for me, you know, like, we 00:01:51.208 --> 00:01:52.500 align:middle line:90% don't have to do anything else. 00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:53.542 align:middle line:90% Like, I think we're done. 00:01:53.542 --> 00:01:55.470 align:middle line:84% That and the Voyager Space probe are 00:01:55.470 --> 00:01:58.387 align:middle line:84% kind of the two greatest things that we've ever done as humans. 00:01:58.387 --> 00:02:00.720 align:middle line:84% I mean I guess it's pretty cool that planes can stay up, 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:01.920 align:middle line:90% but you know. 00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:05.190 align:middle line:84% So I won't read the whole essay because I think I've 00:02:05.190 --> 00:02:06.720 align:middle line:90% taken up all this time anyway. 00:02:06.720 --> 00:02:10.289 align:middle line:84% But I will read maybe the first like seven minutes of it, OK? 00:02:10.289 --> 00:02:13.680 align:middle line:84% Whistle a little Mozart to a starling in a cage. 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:18.330 align:middle line:84% If it knows humans as creatures that sing and are sung to, 00:02:18.330 --> 00:02:19.950 align:middle line:90% the bird will shut its beak. 00:02:19.950 --> 00:02:22.080 align:middle line:84% It will arch its starling neck, bending 00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:23.490 align:middle line:90% toward your puckered lips. 00:02:23.490 --> 00:02:26.310 align:middle line:84% It might bob its dark head back and forth at the Mozart line 00:02:26.310 --> 00:02:29.340 align:middle line:84% you've sent out-- the dotted pops of "Papageno, Papagena" 00:02:29.340 --> 00:02:32.730 align:middle line:84% or the crystalline shards of the Rondo for Glass Harmonica. 00:02:32.730 --> 00:02:35.370 align:middle line:84% And though a caged starling is chatty during the day 00:02:35.370 --> 00:02:36.900 align:middle line:84% and downright garrulous at night, 00:02:36.900 --> 00:02:39.510 align:middle line:84% at the moment it locks in on your Mozartean whistle 00:02:39.510 --> 00:02:42.780 align:middle line:84% the little bird will only blink, aiming its entire soundless 00:02:42.780 --> 00:02:44.790 align:middle line:84% self toward the music coming from you. 00:02:44.790 --> 00:02:47.040 align:middle line:84% Note how it nods along with your tuneful body 00:02:47.040 --> 00:02:49.800 align:middle line:84% as if to say, "Yes, yes, I have it." 00:02:49.800 --> 00:02:52.440 align:middle line:90% But a starling is no parrot. 00:02:52.440 --> 00:02:54.018 align:middle line:84% Do not expect that when you whistle 00:02:54.018 --> 00:02:55.560 align:middle line:84% "Twinkle, twinkle" you'll immediately 00:02:55.560 --> 00:02:58.260 align:middle line:90% hear a "little star" in return. 00:02:58.260 --> 00:03:01.230 align:middle line:84% You're going to have to come back whistling for a day or 12, 00:03:01.230 --> 00:03:02.970 align:middle line:84% confirming the sound's place in the world 00:03:02.970 --> 00:03:04.530 align:middle line:90% where the bird perches. 00:03:04.530 --> 00:03:07.140 align:middle line:84% And when it does spit back whatever Mozart you've fed it, 00:03:07.140 --> 00:03:09.768 align:middle line:84% it will be on a starling's zany terms-- 00:03:09.768 --> 00:03:11.310 align:middle line:84% the theme from the "Haffner" Symphony 00:03:11.310 --> 00:03:14.640 align:middle line:84% punctuated with guttural warbles, or the famous Adagio 00:03:14.640 --> 00:03:17.790 align:middle line:84% from his Clarinet Concerto mixed into an uncanny impression 00:03:17.790 --> 00:03:19.470 align:middle line:90% of your dishwasher. 00:03:19.470 --> 00:03:21.990 align:middle line:84% The "Queen of the Night" aria sung in a screech worthy 00:03:21.990 --> 00:03:23.610 align:middle line:90% of a Bee Gee. 00:03:23.610 --> 00:03:25.740 align:middle line:84% A few days after that, your line of Mozart 00:03:25.740 --> 00:03:28.890 align:middle line:84% will come from the birdcage as a barely recognizable string 00:03:28.890 --> 00:03:31.080 align:middle line:84% of filched sounds, all sung together 00:03:31.080 --> 00:03:33.720 align:middle line:84% in a line so arrhythmic it's catchy. 00:03:33.720 --> 00:03:36.690 align:middle line:84% You'll hear Mozart, your own voice, the white noise 00:03:36.690 --> 00:03:39.270 align:middle line:84% of the house you live in, plus the recesses 00:03:39.270 --> 00:03:40.630 align:middle line:90% of starling instinct. 00:03:40.630 --> 00:03:42.330 align:middle line:84% It goes a little something like this-- 00:03:42.330 --> 00:03:43.650 align:middle line:90% "TWINKLE-- bizeet! 00:03:43.650 --> 00:03:44.860 align:middle line:90% TWINKLE-- hi, how are you?-- 00:03:44.860 --> 00:03:46.860 align:middle line:84% Doorbell-- --KL-- chackerchackerchackerchacker-- 00:03:46.860 --> 00:03:47.620 align:middle line:90% LITTLE bweet! 00:03:47.620 --> 00:03:48.120 align:middle line:90% Bweet! 00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:50.550 align:middle line:84% Purrup!-- LITTLE-- clanging smoke alarm-- 00:03:50.550 --> 00:03:51.090 align:middle line:90% LIT-- hi! 00:03:51.090 --> 00:03:51.660 align:middle line:90% How are you? 00:03:51.660 --> 00:03:54.420 align:middle line:84% --TLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE-- that Bee Gee screech again-- 00:03:54.420 --> 00:03:56.365 align:middle line:90% STAR! 00:03:56.365 --> 00:03:58.740 align:middle line:84% This will then be repeated with a maddening obsessiveness 00:03:58.740 --> 00:04:01.620 align:middle line:90% of an EDM concert. 00:04:01.620 --> 00:04:04.260 align:middle line:84% And we're not sure why starlings engage in such behavior, 00:04:04.260 --> 00:04:06.720 align:middle line:84% but we think it's because this breed is hardwired 00:04:06.720 --> 00:04:08.610 align:middle line:90% to sing to its tribes. 00:04:08.610 --> 00:04:10.650 align:middle line:84% There are many in a starling's life-- 00:04:10.650 --> 00:04:12.930 align:middle line:84% the little tribe of the monogamous pair, 00:04:12.930 --> 00:04:15.900 align:middle line:84% that of the clutch family, the flock in the field, 00:04:15.900 --> 00:04:17.940 align:middle line:84% the mob coming home from the neighboring fields 00:04:17.940 --> 00:04:19.470 align:middle line:90% to roost together overnight. 00:04:19.470 --> 00:04:22.140 align:middle line:90% And all these tribes are sonic. 00:04:22.140 --> 00:04:24.660 align:middle line:84% This sonic sense of the tribal might explain why, 00:04:24.660 --> 00:04:27.420 align:middle line:84% when we see a trilling mob of 10,000 starlings-- 00:04:27.420 --> 00:04:29.610 align:middle line:84% each bird watching its seven closest neighbors 00:04:29.610 --> 00:04:31.860 align:middle line:84% for the slightest change of speed or angle, 00:04:31.860 --> 00:04:34.470 align:middle line:84% dodging hawks en masse with shrieks and chips, 00:04:34.470 --> 00:04:37.170 align:middle line:84% beak beats and hard whistles-- we find ourselves calling that 00:04:37.170 --> 00:04:40.620 align:middle line:84% group not a flock or a swarm or a drove, 00:04:40.620 --> 00:04:43.230 align:middle line:84% but a collective noun that's drenched in sound-- 00:04:43.230 --> 00:04:45.090 align:middle line:90% a murmuration. 00:04:45.090 --> 00:04:48.060 align:middle line:84% So what kind of murmur began that spring day in Vienna 00:04:48.060 --> 00:04:51.420 align:middle line:84% when a 28-year-old Mozart, jaunty and his garnet coat 00:04:51.420 --> 00:04:53.790 align:middle line:84% and gold-rimmed cap, strolled into a shop 00:04:53.790 --> 00:04:56.160 align:middle line:84% to whistle at a starling in a cage? 00:04:56.160 --> 00:04:58.860 align:middle line:84% We know that bird must have zeroed in on Mozart's mouth, 00:04:58.860 --> 00:05:00.810 align:middle line:84% as the man whistled the 17 note opening 00:05:00.810 --> 00:05:03.420 align:middle line:84% phrase from his recent piano concerto-- 00:05:03.420 --> 00:05:04.530 align:middle line:90% And I have to pause here. 00:05:04.530 --> 00:05:06.000 align:middle line:84% Alison made me eat chocolate cake which 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:07.740 align:middle line:84% is terrible for your whistler, so I'm just 00:05:07.740 --> 00:05:08.400 align:middle line:90% going to have to sing. 00:05:08.400 --> 00:05:10.608 align:middle line:84% I don't think my whistler is in good shape right now. 00:05:10.608 --> 00:05:13.230 align:middle line:84% It's totally not the salty Margarita that I drank. 00:05:13.230 --> 00:05:15.540 align:middle line:84% So here's the bird zeroing in on Mozart's mouth 00:05:15.540 --> 00:05:17.940 align:middle line:84% as the man whistled the 17 note open opening 00:05:17.940 --> 00:05:20.400 align:middle line:84% phrase from his recent piano concerto-- 00:05:20.400 --> 00:05:26.100 align:middle line:90% [VOCALIZING] 00:05:26.100 --> 00:05:29.040 align:middle line:84% Mozart's melody riffs in G on a simple line heard 00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:31.225 align:middle line:84% in many a Volkslieder, so the starling 00:05:31.225 --> 00:05:33.600 align:middle line:84% might have been hearing similar tunes from other shoppers 00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:34.800 align:middle line:90% that whole month. 00:05:34.800 --> 00:05:37.440 align:middle line:84% Or perhaps Mozart himself had been in a few times 00:05:37.440 --> 00:05:40.420 align:middle line:84% and had whistled his line enough for the bird to learn it. 00:05:40.420 --> 00:05:44.760 align:middle line:84% But no matter how the starling got the song, on May 27, 1784, 00:05:44.760 --> 00:05:47.370 align:middle line:84% it spat that tune right back at the tunesmith-- 00:05:47.370 --> 00:05:49.980 align:middle line:84% but not without taking some liberties first. 00:05:49.980 --> 00:05:53.190 align:middle line:84% The little songbird unslurred the quarter notes and added 00:05:53.190 --> 00:05:56.040 align:middle line:84% a dramatic fermata at the end of the first full measure; 00:05:56.040 --> 00:05:59.040 align:middle line:84% we can only guess how long it held that warbly G. 00:05:59.040 --> 00:06:02.160 align:middle line:84% At the next bar, it lengthened Mozart's staccato attack 00:06:02.160 --> 00:06:04.680 align:middle line:84% and replaced his effete grace notes with two 00:06:04.680 --> 00:06:06.420 align:middle line:90% pairs of bold crotchets. 00:06:06.420 --> 00:06:08.550 align:middle line:84% And then the starling had the audacity 00:06:08.550 --> 00:06:11.760 align:middle line:84% to sharp the two Gs of the second measure, when 00:06:11.760 --> 00:06:14.730 align:middle line:84% any Viennese composer worth his wig would keep them natural 00:06:14.730 --> 00:06:16.140 align:middle line:90% and in line with the key. 00:06:16.140 --> 00:06:19.380 align:middle line:84% And those bird-born G-sharps take the steady folk tune 00:06:19.380 --> 00:06:22.230 align:middle line:84% into a much more harmonically complex place, 00:06:22.230 --> 00:06:25.230 align:middle line:84% ignoring the fermata-ed natural G of the earlier measure 00:06:25.230 --> 00:06:28.080 align:middle line:84% and pushing the next note in the phrase-- an A-- 00:06:28.080 --> 00:06:30.540 align:middle line:84% which builds a lifted E-major chord. 00:06:30.540 --> 00:06:32.610 align:middle line:84% And Mozart apparently loved this edit, 00:06:32.610 --> 00:06:34.920 align:middle line:84% because he bought that bird on sight. 00:06:34.920 --> 00:06:36.900 align:middle line:84% For good measure, he drew a little treble staff 00:06:36.900 --> 00:06:39.570 align:middle line:84% in his expense book and scored the starling's tweaks 00:06:39.570 --> 00:06:41.070 align:middle line:90% under the note of purchase-- 00:06:41.070 --> 00:06:43.590 align:middle line:90% Vogel Staar 34 kreutzer-- 00:06:43.590 --> 00:06:46.076 align:middle line:90% [VOCALIZING] 00:06:46.076 --> 00:06:51.440 align:middle line:90% 00:06:51.440 --> 00:06:53.690 align:middle line:84% And under the last measure, an acclamation, 00:06:53.690 --> 00:06:55.730 align:middle line:84% scribbled in the maestro's quick hand-- 00:06:55.730 --> 00:06:58.100 align:middle line:90% Das war schön! 00:06:58.100 --> 00:07:00.800 align:middle line:84% There is no other live-animal purchase in Mozart's expense 00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:03.067 align:middle line:84% book, and no more handwritten melodies; 00:07:03.067 --> 00:07:05.150 align:middle line:84% there are no other additional transactions praised 00:07:05.150 --> 00:07:06.110 align:middle line:90% as "schön!" 00:07:06.110 --> 00:07:08.090 align:middle line:84% This is one of the very few things we even know 00:07:08.090 --> 00:07:09.560 align:middle line:90% about his purchasing habits. 00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:11.870 align:middle line:84% He'd only begun tracking his spending that year, 00:07:11.870 --> 00:07:14.360 align:middle line:84% and by late summer, Mozart had abandoned the practice 00:07:14.360 --> 00:07:16.280 align:middle line:84% and only used that notebook to magpie 00:07:16.280 --> 00:07:17.720 align:middle line:90% random phrases of English. 00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:21.080 align:middle line:84% So this note of purchase is special among the extant scraps 00:07:21.080 --> 00:07:22.610 align:middle line:90% from his life. 00:07:22.610 --> 00:07:24.500 align:middle line:84% He also bought the bird at a critical point 00:07:24.500 --> 00:07:26.120 align:middle line:90% for the classical period. 00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:28.190 align:middle line:84% At the end of the 18th century, tunes 00:07:28.190 --> 00:07:30.560 align:middle line:84% were never more sparkling or more kept, 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:34.310 align:middle line:84% their composer's obsessive over the rhetoric of sonata form-- 00:07:34.310 --> 00:07:36.140 align:middle line:84% a four-part structure that permeated 00:07:36.140 --> 00:07:38.600 align:middle line:84% classical symphony, sonata, and concerto. 00:07:38.600 --> 00:07:41.750 align:middle line:84% By 1784, sonata form had imprinted itself 00:07:41.750 --> 00:07:44.630 align:middle line:84% on the listening culture enough to feel like instinct; 00:07:44.630 --> 00:07:46.370 align:middle line:84% Vienna audiences could rest comfortably 00:07:46.370 --> 00:07:48.920 align:middle line:84% in the run of classical forms as familiar-- and thus 00:07:48.920 --> 00:07:50.600 align:middle line:90% enjoyable-- narratives. 00:07:50.600 --> 00:07:54.470 align:middle line:84% And nobody played this cagey game more giddily than Mozart. 00:07:54.470 --> 00:07:57.080 align:middle line:84% Of all the things Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgang Amadeus 00:07:57.080 --> 00:07:59.780 align:middle line:84% Mozart brought to human sound, the most important 00:07:59.780 --> 00:08:01.940 align:middle line:90% might be his sense of surprise. 00:08:01.940 --> 00:08:04.280 align:middle line:84% His compositions, while almost always law-abiding, 00:08:04.280 --> 00:08:07.220 align:middle line:84% are full of trickery-- leading tones that drop away 00:08:07.220 --> 00:08:09.650 align:middle line:84% from roots, accidentals that jar the listening 00:08:09.650 --> 00:08:12.020 align:middle line:84% mind from its diverted stupor, minuets 00:08:12.020 --> 00:08:13.910 align:middle line:90% too syncopated to dance to. 00:08:13.910 --> 00:08:16.580 align:middle line:84% And these caprices, though stuck inside the pinfold 00:08:16.580 --> 00:08:19.640 align:middle line:84% of common practice, are what made him a star. 00:08:19.640 --> 00:08:22.130 align:middle line:84% As the old German saying goes, the music of Bach 00:08:22.130 --> 00:08:25.160 align:middle line:84% gave us God's word, Beethoven gave us God's fire, 00:08:25.160 --> 00:08:28.130 align:middle line:84% but Mozart gave God's laughter to the world. 00:08:28.130 --> 00:08:30.890 align:middle line:84% Mozart found the accidents in song that reminded music 00:08:30.890 --> 00:08:33.650 align:middle line:84% to glorify the playful, the mischievous, 00:08:33.650 --> 00:08:36.440 align:middle line:84% the "pop" that sends Jack exploding from the box 00:08:36.440 --> 00:08:38.179 align:middle line:90% after so much measured cranking. 00:08:38.179 --> 00:08:40.730 align:middle line:84% So the starling's playful G-sharp-- 00:08:40.730 --> 00:08:43.100 align:middle line:84% it must have felt more than "schön" to the maestro, 00:08:43.100 --> 00:08:45.800 align:middle line:84% and worth more to him than 34 damn kreutzer. 00:08:45.800 --> 00:08:46.880 align:middle line:90% I mean, think of it-- 00:08:46.880 --> 00:08:50.000 align:middle line:84% he'd whistled a tune steeped in Vienna's golden algebra 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:51.740 align:middle line:84% to a thing with feathers, and then 00:08:51.740 --> 00:08:54.860 align:middle line:84% the animal bobbed its little head and whistled back to him 00:08:54.860 --> 00:08:57.440 align:middle line:84% a glorious, deviant, Mozartean wink. 00:08:57.440 --> 00:08:58.850 align:middle line:90% This wasn't just "schön." 00:08:58.850 --> 00:09:01.100 align:middle line:90% This was game recognizing game. 00:09:01.100 --> 00:09:04.100 align:middle line:84% It's difficult to imagine a more priceless moment-- 00:09:04.100 --> 00:09:06.380 align:middle line:84% one of the greatest thinkers in history bonding 00:09:06.380 --> 00:09:07.885 align:middle line:90% with a bird brain. 00:09:07.885 --> 00:09:09.260 align:middle line:84% And I'll stop there for that one. 00:09:09.260 --> 00:09:10.175 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:09:10.175 --> 00:09:11.550 align:middle line:84% Where do you think [? time ?] is? 00:09:11.550 --> 00:09:14.080 align:middle line:84% Do you think we have time for one more?