If you watched the Julian Treasure video on the power of sound, you’ll already know why listening to birdsong has a calming affect on us humans. But I bet you didn’t know that there is an Internet Radio station that plays bird song 24/7!

The thinking goes that over the years humans have learned to relax when birds are singing – it’s when the birds stop singing that we need to worry. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently and was about to start a piece of music that incorporated bird song along with a few other tricks when Charlotte discovered Birdsong Radio. I couldn’t help but laugh on reading her write up:

Recently I have been listening to Internet Radio stations, looking for ones that play music that would be categorizable as music2work2. Even though I listen for quite a while to get a good feel for the music they play, it seems that very few only play instrumental music.

I have also found that the name of a station or particular program does not necessarily indicate the type of music they play, except for that is, Birdsong Radio; I discovered that "bird songs," the sound of birds singing, is the only thing they play. I really appreciate nature and animals & I love to sit on the porch, relax and listen to the birds chirping and singing in my yard. But after a while, listening to only bird sounds directly through the radio starts to become annoying. Julian reckons there is no maximum dose but to my ears it became an irritation and I had the change the channel.

I’ve been listening to Birdsong radio while I write this post and found it to be a great accompaniment, but I guess I can see where after a while your brain is looking for a different stimulus. I think like most things in life it’s about balance – I’m certainly going to incorporate some birdsong in the next piece of music2work2 – along with a variation of the New York Jets fight song – but that’s a different kind of science all together.

Birdsong Radio - A Different Kind of Tweet