ROTHENBERG: I think acoustically, the reason is to separate themselves from the other main species, which is called Magicicada septendecim, and that one makes this famous totally different sound called the pharaoh sound.
But then when you have millions of them, they actually synchronize into these waves of noise. The one you just played is called Magicicada cassini, and this makes - an individual cicada goes (vocalizing). ROTHENBERG: Every brood is a separate population of three species of cicadas. Can you talk us through the sort of individual sounds and why cicadas make them? GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, to some of us, cicadas sound like sort of the static of a broken TV, but there are actually several distinctive sounds. And then I started already scheming that, 17 years after that, then I would be playing music with them. And 17 years after that, they were singing all around my house here. Seventeen years later, when I was in high school, I do remember them.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: What inspired you to start playing music with cicadas? Welcome to the program.ĭAVID ROTHENBERG: Thanks for inviting me. And he joins us now from Cold Springs, N.Y. And soon, he is playing his clarinet in a forest covered in cicadas.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: When a brood is due to emerge, he gets into his car. While some may dread cicadas, music professor David Rothenberg revels in them. Brood 10, which some pronounce Brood X, is supposed to be the loudest and one of the biggest after 17 years underground. It's a matter of days before the deafening buzz of cicadas fills backyards along the East Coast.