The Septendecennial Sing-Along

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: The episode revisits a classic Radiolab segment on cicadas and David Rothenberg’s musical experiments with animals. It frames the coming 17-year cicada emergence as both a natural spectacle and a lesson in hidden complexity: what sounds like noise is actually layered species-specific song and intricate mating behavior. The piece also connects cicada biology to broader ideas about music, communication, and emergence.

Main Topics: Cicada emergence and seasonal anticipation (Priority: 5/5): The episode opens by tying the post-lockdown feeling of re-emergence to the return of periodical cicadas, emphasizing the rare 17-year swarm about to appear across parts of the U.S. David Rothenberg’s interspecies music experiments (Priority: 5/5): Composer David Rothenberg explains his practice of playing clarinet with animals, including birds and humpback whales, as a way of exploring communication beyond human language. Bird and whale duets as evidence of animal responsiveness (Priority: 4/5): The transcript recounts Rothenberg’s attempt to duet with a white-crested laughing thrush and a humpback whale, illustrating how animals may respond musically in ways humans can perceive but not fully interpret. Cicada sound as layered orchestration (Priority: 5/5): What humans hear as white noise is broken down into multiple cicada species and calls, revealing a structured acoustic environment rather than a single insect chorus. Cicada mating behavior and signaling (Priority: 5/5): The segment explains that cicada song is a mating system involving males calling and females responding with precisely timed wing flicks, creating a multi-step courtship sequence. Nature, complexity, and emergence (Priority: 4/5): The story uses cicadas as a metaphor for how simple rules across many individuals can create beauty, complexity, and collective behavior without any single insect understanding the whole.

Key Arguments: Animal communication may be musical and interactive even when humans do not understand the language. Cicada choruses are not random noise; they are structured contributions from multiple species with distinct songs. Female cicadas play an active role in mating by timing wing flicks precisely after male calls. Large-scale biological phenomena can emerge from simple local rules repeated across many individuals. The cicada life cycle shows long-term biological timing and synchronization that scientists still do not fully understand.

Data Points: Cicada emergence cycle: 17 years - The brood discussed is described as awakening after 17 years underground. Number of cicada species in the chorus: 3 species - The segment says three related cicada species are present at the same time. Number of discernible sounds: Up to 9 sounds - Each of the three species has three parts, yielding nine distinct sounds. Female timing delay: One-third of a second - The female cicada’s wing flick occurs exactly one-third of a second after the male stops. Research timeline: 1960s - Humpback whale song was reportedly not known to scientists until the 1960s. Brood frequency examples: 13 or 17 years - The closing remarks mention cicadas returning on different cycles, including 13- and 17-year broods.

Pivotal Quotes: "when you just hear it for the first time, you just hear white noise. ... But when you learn what's going on, you can hear the different parts of the orchestra." — David Rothenberg: Explaining how cicada sound changes from noise into recognizable structure once understood. "I was just imagining I was sitting down with a musician who I maybe couldn't talk to, who spoke another language besides English." — David Rothenberg: Describing his mindset while improvising with a bird duet. "what you're really hearing is an orchestra of sex." — Narrator/Jad Abumrad: Summarizing the mating calls and responses behind the cicada swarm.

Implications: Listeners are encouraged to hear nature differently: apparent noise may conceal complex communication, and mass biological events can reveal elegant systems. For science storytelling, the segment shows how sound can make hidden ecology vivid and emotionally resonant.