This discovery (recently published in Current Biology) has implications for debates over the evolution of human music, and has opened my mind to the complexity of music perception by nonhuman animals. Crucially, when we slowed down or sped up his favorite song (“Everybody”, by the Back Street Boys), he spontaneously adjusted his dance tempo accordingly, just as a human would. Fortunately I was able to collaborate with his owners and conduct a controlled study, showing that he really did sense a beat and move in time with it, even when no humans were dancing with him. Then the Right Bird starts bopping his head left to right and looks at Left Bird as if to say, 'Hey, this is kind of catchy' YouTube. At first, both of the cockatoos off to the left seem kind of confused. The ability to synchronize movements to a musical beat was long thought to be uniquely human, but Snowball’s dancing suggested otherwise. The clip features a man singing Elvis Presleys classic hit 'Dont Be Cruel' with the help of an acoustic guitar. Snowball’s natural rhythm would put most of us to shame. I had been captivated by his YouTube debut, where he seemed to really be dancing to the beat of human music. Scientists have determined that a sulphur-crested bird nicknamed Snowball The Dancing Cockatoo was able to figure out his own dance moves without coaching, training or dance lessons. I study how human brains processes music, but last year I found myself in a living room in suburban Indiana, dancing with a sulphur-crested cockatoo named Snowball.

Sometimes science takes you in strange directions. Below learn about Patel’s experience with Snowball, the dancing Cockatoo. This fabulous book won a Deem-Taylor Award From ASCAP and its ideas are explored in a PBS special The Music Instinct which airs tonight. Patel’s book, Music, Language, and the Brain, challenges the widespread belief that music and language are processed independently. Best Bird Video Talking Parrots Dancing Cockatoos Singing Parrots Compilation. Burnham Senior Fellow at The Neurosciences Institute. Bird Lovers Only Rescue Service, Inc., a 501c3 not for profit bird rescue and sanctuary, would like to thank Taco Bell for their generous donation to our organization. Patel has served on the Executive Committee of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition and is currently the Esther J. Patel‘s research focuses on how the brain processes music and language, especially what the similarities and differences between the two reveal about each other and about the brain itself.

Dancing cockatoo