When Lucy Zhang first listened to recordings of humpback whale songs, she didn’t expect to hear the makings of a symphony.
But while playing the recordings, the Saratoga High School senior recognized music patterns she had encountered while practicing piano sonatas.
Zhang listened to these recordings as part of collaboration with John Ryan, a senior research specialist studying ocean soundscapes at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and discovered structural similarities between whale songs and human sonatas. On Thursday, Zhang showcased their research as part of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) annual meeting in New Orleans.
The project started when Zhang decided to take her science studies out of the classroom. “I wanted a real-life application of the things I learned,” she said.
She turned to Ryan, her father’s longtime coworker — Ryan recalls hearing Zhang play piano in the background of work calls when she was only a child. When Zhang shared that she was interested in doing a research project with whales, Ryan sent her whale song recordings previously collected from underwater microphones in the Monterey Bay and simply asked her to listen to the sounds of ocean giants.
Ryan said Zhang “recognized the structure in a whale song that was really just like the structure of a sonata, which I didn’t know.”
Zhang discovered that, like human music, the whale songs had different sections. Three parts make up a sonata in human music: exposition, development and recapitulation.
“The exposition has a main theme that’s repeated in the third section. So, the first section and the third section are very similar, and the second section is the development—it’s a little bit more unique, and flows by itself,” Zhang said. The whale songs sections showed a similar pattern. Nestled between an introduction section and an ending, Zhang found a familiar pattern: exposition, development and recapitulation. “Her musical mind could immediately pick that out,” Ryan said.
Zhang and Ryan shared their findings with the broader scientific community at the AGU conference, which brings together more than 20,000 scientists to share discoveries ranging in topics from volcanoes to outer space. Zhang was accepted as part of the AGU’s BrightSTaRS program, which highlights research by middle school and high school students.
“Students get experience conducting research and then communicating that research through a poster that is displayed at the AGU annual meeting” said Michelle Nichols, Education Section representative for the AGU’s Annual Meeting Program committee. “It gives you the whole entire process of science from beginning to end, and I think it’s absolutely fantastic.” According to Nichols, Zhang’s poster will be displayed in the same hall as posters presented by professional scientists, on view for thousands of conference attendees.
Zhang says the experience has strengthened her passion for STEM and taught her about the complexities of whale song. “I think a lot of people don’t realize how musical they actually are. We think animals just make random noises, but they really have so much pattern and structure when you dig deep,” she said.
While most researchers presenting at the conference may worry about travel logistics and funding, Zhang faced a challenge familiar to any high school student: final exams. The conference landed during her exam week, leaving her unable to attend in person. Instead, she decided to present her whale song research virtually, a reminder that even promising scientists have to finish high school.
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