Animals and music: the influence of music on animals, animals in the musical ear

We cannot establish for certain how other creatures hear music, but we can use experiments to determine the influence of various types of music on animals. Animals can hear very high-frequency sounds and therefore, when trained with them, they often work with high-frequency whistles.

The first who conducted research about music and animals can be called Nicholas Nepomnyashchy. According to the study of this scientist, it was precisely found out that animals seize the rhythm well, for example, circus horses unmistakably get into the beat when the orchestra sounds. They are also good at capturing the rhythm of the dog (in the circus, they dance, and domestic dogs can sometimes howl their favorite melody).

Heavy music for birds and elephants

In Europe, an experiment was conducted on one poultry farm. Chicken turned on heavy music, and the bird started spinning from this place, then fell on its side and twitched in convulsion. But this experiment raises the question: what kind of heavy music was it and how loud? After all, if the music is loud, then it's easy to drive anyone crazy, even an elephant. By the way, about elephants - in Africa, when these animals are fed up with fermented fruits and start to brawl, the locals drive them away with rock music, which is played through an amplifier.

And scientists conducted an experiment on carp: some fish were placed in closed from light vessels, others - in light. In the first case, the growth in carp slowed, but when they were periodically put on classical music, their growth became normal. It was also found that destructive music negatively affects animals, which is quite obvious.

Animals with a musical ear

Scientists have conducted a series of experiments with Jacquot parrots and found that these birds love something rhythmic, like reggae, and calm down, surprisingly, under Bach's dramatic toccats. Remarkably, parrots have individuality: different birds (Jaco) had different musical tastes: some listened to reggae, others liked classical compositions more. It was also accidentally found that parrots do not like electronic music.

It was found that the rats love Mozart (during the experiments they made records of the operas of Mozart), but few of them still prefer modern music to the classics.

Edward William Edgar, known for his enigma variations of ser, became friends with dog, Dan, whose owner is a London organist. During choir rehearsals, it was noticed that the dog roars at fake choristers, which earned him respect from Sir Edward, who even dedicated a four-legged friend one of his enigma variations.

Elephants have musical memory and hearing, they are able to memorize the melodies of three notes, and love the violin and bass sounds of low brass instruments more than the shrill flute. Japanese scientists have found that even goldfish (unlike some people) react to classical music and are able to make differences in compositions.

Animals in music projects

Let's take a look at the animals that participated in various unusual musical projects.

As noted above - dogs tend to howl lingering compositions and voices, but they do not try to adjust to the tone, but rather try to keep their voices so that it drowns out the neighbors; This animal tradition originates from wolves. But, in spite of their musical characteristics, dogs sometimes participate in serious musical projects. For example, at Carnegie Hall, three dogs and twenty vocalists performed Kirk Nurok’s “Howl”; in three years this composer, inspired by the result, will write a sonata for piano and a dog.

There are other musical groups in which animals participate. So there is the "heavy" band Insect Grinder, where a cricket acts as a vocalist; in the band Hatebeak, the vocalist is the parrot; Caninus team "sing" two pit bulls.

By Arthur Viter

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