The Niche Hypothesis: A Proposed Explanation Of How Animals Taught Us How To Sing And Dance

Now, if I’m honest to me this all sounded a little ridiculous, I mean I’ve never seen my dog dance, a few tail wags sure, but if I seen him doing the salsa up and down my living room I’d be a bit concerned. But after reading up on the Niche Hypothesis, I mean, it made a bit of sense to me. You see Native Americans believed there was a natural symphony of sounds in the animal kingdom where they all integrate to form an “animal orchestra”. And I guess when I get up early in the morning to go to college and can hear the birds singing it might as well be a chorus of singers standing outside my window.

Our generation are a very visual generation, we spend most of our time looking at screens or advertisements. We spend little time listening to what the environment around us is saying. We have stopped using our hearing sense as much, which what in many years before was a sense that was central to our dynamic lives. I would agree with this. I see it in kids alot, if they are sitting on an Ipad sometimes they wouldn't even hear you call them they’re so engrossed in the visuals. We are very much an “Indoor Generation”. On average 40% of Brits would only spend 15 minutes a day outside, and how much of this time is in a busy city or suburban area. Where is the time spent listening to the sounds of nature?

Ancient human beings depended a lot on their ability to hear and understand the audio information given to him by their surroundings. In the article the native uses reeds saying this is how they created music. Like how as a kid me and my friends would be outside playing and use two pieces of grass to make a noise, making music with nature. Just like the natives. I think it’s really cool how ancient humans were aware that each species of creature had their own sonic niche in the frequency spectrum. This was really advanced as they didn’t have any facilities to study the animals like we would have today, and where still able to tell which animal it was. This shows how in tune they were to their environment and how much we weren’t. We basically unevolved and lost these amazing abilities. The sounds of these habitats function as this modern day orchestra, each voice occupies their own space in the environment in relation to frequency, duration, timbre and amplitude.

However most of the time we wouldn't be able to pick out the different sounds like our ancestors did. We have completely separated ourselves from nature. Which is sad, and maybe if we had have kept in tune with nature, we would not be so careless with the environment as many are today. Because us too along with all the creatures on the earth are all part of a mix of an environmental orchestra woven up to create a beautiful symphony of life.