The idea that whales “sing”, commonly accepted today, is relatively recent. Until the late 1960s it was thought that whale noises were nothing more than expressive sounds or calls. But in 1967, a discovery by the marine biologist Roger Payne, who died last Saturday, changed our understanding – ushering in a new way of looking at the world’s largest mammals.
As the young Payne listened on repeat for days to recordings made of humpback sounds captured underwater off the coast of Bermuda, he noticed the calls were organised in repeating patterns. Speaking to Guardian Seascape in 2020, he described it as his “wow” moment, spurring on the discovery – made alongside other researchers – that all whale species “sing” in some rhythmic form, even in the “clicks” of toothed whales, such as sperm whales.
Some whales even use the sonata form, common to human music: a theme, followed by a variation, then a return to the theme. The zoologist Katy Payne – Roger’s collaborator (and former wife) – would go on to prove that whales use what can be described as rhyme, a technique whales seem to use to remember long and complex sections of repeating patterns, topped and tailed with “end phrases”.
Katy Payne showed humpback whales in a given area sing different versions of the same song – essentially a “hit” – that changes slightly throughout the course of the season. Indeed, it was the humpback – toothless baleen whales, with fleshy, concertina-like jaws – that quickly stood out as the most prolific cetacean singer, creating songs that are also emotionally affecting to human beings.
Why whales sing is still not comprehensively clear, but Roger Payne soon observed differences between their songs and their other social sounds: for example, between the “almost whispering” tone of mothers communicating to calves, and the long, loud broadcasts of males seeking a mate.
It is primarily males that sing songs, though there are some recordings of females singing, too. The role of whale song in mating is still not fully understood. In 2020 Stanford University researchers found that blue whales sing at different times of day and night as their migration behaviour changes – though, again, precisely why is unclear.
What is known is that, given the distances whales travel in deep ocean, the volume and “broadcast” quality of song is key. Roger Payne’s assertion, early in his career, that a blue whale, in deep ocean free from human noise pollution, could transmit a song that might be heard by another whale as far as 13,000 miles away, was so controversial among biologists that he described the reaction as almost “career-ending”. Another theory of his was that music might predate human life, given that whales predate humans in evolutionary terms.
In his later years, Payne became interested in how technology might help to decipher a vocabulary of “whale speak”, if enough samples could be gathered – though he stopped short of using the term “language” as it was too open to being misconstrued.