ABSTRACT
Despite accelerating scholarly interest in the more-than-human, many disciplines continue to theorize their pursuits with an assumption of human exceptionalism. Musicology is a case in point, with its borders fully closed to animals. Although some composers appropriate animals’ acoustic constructs, the focus is typically on the ‘improvement’ that these human composers supply. Given this disciplinary history, an appeal to acknowledge birdsong as music might be understood as political as much as aesthetic.
