Here’s a kind of crazy question that sounds like the beginning of a joke — or maybe Japanese Koan:

How do 70 live zebra finches play about a dozen electric guitars?

Well the answer can be found through the new art and sound exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., titled, “From Here To Ear.”

“I mean you probably came here with this mental image of what are these birds going to sound like,” museum curator Trevor Smith said to me when I arrived. “Of course birds are very much something we associate with music. But when you go in there and hear that first power chord when the bird lands… it’s a beautiful feeling.”

And a surprising one. I’ll admit I didn’t expect the music to be so, well, rockin’.