What music do animals like?

[alan2here]

Cows are not fussy, It is an amazing sight to see a huge field with an apparently small amount of cows in it becoming an obviously large amount of cows gathering in a tight circle around a musician. I have seen this twice, once with a solo played on a horn and once with music consisting of a accordion\melodian and drums.

 

There is a video online showing a cat sitting on a piano stool playing a note on the piano over and over again. paw up, paw down, etc...

 

Supposedly dogs like slow music.

 

An experiment to discover what music animals like could be constructed with an almost featureless room containing x triggers (what type of trigger, how many triggers and how long each sample is would depend on the animal). The animal would enter the room, then once it triggers one of the triggers that music would be played to it and the other triggers would become inactive. The experiment could then be repeated maybe once a day for some days so that data could be collected on what each animal chose. The triggers would always be in the same places for each animal but could change between animals of the same type so that more music could be tested than the number of triggers that type of animal was capable of reliably remembering.

 

While I love Metallica and hate Busted, an animal may recognize those as being very similar music or even just meaningless noise. Therefore solo instrumental music should be selected as well as more complected stuff.

[curiouslou]

Well the first thing we must ask is not whether and animal "likes" a sound, but why an organism would be drawn to a particular stimuli in the first place. For instance, why do some humans enjoy certain kinds of music? Is it simply up to "taste" or perhaps is there a deeper mechanism in play? Could this variation be observed in other organisms? Perhaps one cat may enjoy the calming aura of Vivaldi while another might enjoy the heavy bass of Bob Marley. The scenario you put forth certainly does provoke thought, not only in regards to other animals but in regards to humans themselves.

 

What does cause someone to "like" any give stimuli? Be it a type of music, a frequency or a colour. it could be with the way in which our mind associates this neutral stimuli with a more significant one. But surely humans and animals arent all just carbon copies of Pavlov's dog. Are we?

[bascule]

I think humans enjoy music on levels no other animal is capable of comprehending

[Taktiq]

My cat likes ska.

[honestdude14]

I saw an episode on mythbusters(i know, laugh if you must) where plants actually grew faster and healthier while listening to weeks worth of heavy metal. They tried different kinds of music and isolated the plants from other sounds in the same area. It seems that plants like to rock.

[Gilded]

I saw an episode on mythbusters(i know, laugh if you must) where plants actually grew faster and healthier while listening to weeks worth of heavy metal. They tried different kinds of music and isolated the plants from other sounds in the same area. It seems that plants like to rock.

 

At first I was rather surprised by the results but then again, it sounds quite logical that relatively intense vibrations of certain frequencies could affect plant growth.

 

Anyway, to get back on topic I can see how some animals are attracted to some sounds to the extent that you could say they like them but I'll agree on humans generally enjoying music on a more complex level.

[alan2here]

Go ahead and do some science. I can't as I have no pets.

 

Try not to react to the sounds\music too much yourself as they may pick up on you're response which will pollute the experiment and be responsible with the volume.

 

An earlier poster said there cat likes sca? Tell me more.

[CDarwin]

Animals tend not to like music, and the softer and slower the better. They've done lots of experiments exposing primates to music trying to find out about the evolution of the human penchant, but no luck. Mammals take no music over music almost every time.

[curiouslou]

But then again what is music anyway? What do we class as "music"? I think it is simply sound, which is vibrations at alternating pitch and frequency, generally following a rhythm. So in its simplest form a consistent tapping noise that varies in pitch could be "music". So really we can say the sound of knocking on a door is a rather primitive form of music. And my dogs (not so sure about other people's) always run to the door when there is a knock. So really they do "like' that sound, however that is simply because (in my opinion) a sign of conditioning wherein a non-significant stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus.

 

Also, I think it is mostly true that we humans comprehend music on a much different and more complex level than animals. I personally believe this is due to the numerous communication systems and emotional states we humans have.

[alan2here]

Mammals take no music over music almost every time.

Except cows

 

I rather have a vested interest in this btw as someone who is madly in love with many types of music it is interesting to further my understanding about it and ask why.

 

So in its simplest form a consistent tapping noise that varies in pitch could be "music"

Yes, I absolutely agree. I am defining music very loosely.

 

My dogs (not so sure about other people's) always run to the door when there is a knock. So really they do "like' that sound.

I think they like what the sound signifies as opposed to enjoying the sound itself. The dogs would like any sounds that means there is a person on the other side of the door.

 

I think it is mostly true that we humans comprehend music on a much different and more complex level than animals. I personally believe this is due to the numerous communication systems and emotional states we humans have.

Are you suggesting that music is about conditioning to do with emotional states for humans as well? I think it is fair to say that some emotions can only be effectively communicated though music and cannot be communicated well though words.

Edited July 15, 2008 by alan2here
multiple post merged

[curiouslou]

I think it is fair to say that some emotions can only be effectively communicated though music and cannot be communicated well though words.

 

Well I think that the full scope of the human voice would act much like a musical instrument, varying in pitch, timbre, volume etc. So really words (spoken that is, not written) would be just as effective as conveying most emotions that music can. However I may be wrong on this.

 

 

My dogs (not so sure about other people's) always run to the door when there is a knock. So really they do "like' that sound.

 

I think they like what the sound signifies as opposed to enjoying the sound itself. The dogs would like any sounds that means there is a person on the other side of the door.

 

I agree with you in fact i went on to state that it wasnt because they enjoyed it but because it was conditioned into the dog . See the door was a non-significant stimulus and at the other side was the significant one. By the dog associating these two stimuli it only takes the presence of the original non-significant stimulus to provoke the original reaction. Thats why the knocking on the door now becomes the conditioned stimulus which triggers a conditioned response.

Edited July 15, 2008 by curiouslou

[CDarwin]

But then again what is music anyway? What do we class as "music"? I think it is simply sound, which is vibrations at alternating pitch and frequency, generally following a rhythm. So in its simplest form a consistent tapping noise that varies in pitch could be "music". So really we can say the sound of knocking on a door is a rather primitive form of music. And my dogs (not so sure about other people's) always run to the door when there is a knock. So really they do "like' that sound, however that is simply because (in my opinion) a sign of conditioning wherein a non-significant stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus.

 

Also, I think it is mostly true that we humans comprehend music on a much different and more complex level than animals. I personally believe this is due to the numerous communication systems and emotional states we humans have.

 

Human music has a cultural dimension. I would say that's what makes it "music," as opposed to simply noise. It, like language, means something culturally.

 

Except cows

 

That's yet to be definitively established. Perhaps the cows behaved as they did for some other reason.

 

But anyway, the reason most mammals wouldn't enjoy human 'music' has nothing to do with the fact the humans call it 'music,' and much more to do with the fact that it consists of so many loud and varying noises, which would unsettle them. It's the same thing with other sounds that wouldn't really mean anything to animals, like jack-hammers, but they none-the-less would rather avoid. Of course there's a range of tolerance even still.

Edited July 15, 2008 by CDarwin
multiple post merged

[alan2here]

It, like language, means something culturally.

That seems terrifyingly shallow. I certainly enjoy genre's that have originated from very different cultures. I dare say for some that it is mainly a cultural thing though. I feel sorry for them limiting there experience in such ways.

 

That's yet to be definitively established. Perhaps the cows behaved as they did for some other reason.

I find that very unlikely. It was striking. I wasn't playing, I was just with some morris dancers at the times and they preform outdoors. In both examples there is no way they would have been playing if there had not been a wall between us. After a while in the solo example the player started playing differently, slightly faster and they all ran away, they were unsure before that though, lurching backwards and forwards into and out of there tight cluster and sometimes standing dead still, if they had disliked the sound I suspect they would have moved away from it not scrambled towards it almost stumbling over each other. You may see bulls doing this sort of thing on TV or in certain parts of the world but in england farm cows only ever spread out sparsely across a field and eat grass slowly, the most interesting thing they normally do is supposedly lie down when it is going to rain. On the other occasion we stopped playing and they wandered away to disperse across the field and act much more like cows should.

 

The reason most mammals wouldn't enjoy human 'music' has nothing to do with the fact the humans call it 'music,' and much more to do with the fact that it consists of so many loud and varying noises, which would unsettle them. It's the same thing with other sounds that wouldn't really mean anything to animals, like jack-hammers, but they none-the-less would rather avoid. Of course there's a range of tolerance even still.

I expect that domestic animals are much less fussed than wild animals by unusual noises. I've never though of a safe environment as being an unnatural one for an animal but I suppose that it is. I never proposed that animals would consider the same sorts of sounds music as humans. Human music varies so wildly depending on taste and it is all designed for the same species, humans. Music has no inherent meaning to humans. Meany adults wouldn't be able to identify all the instruments in a random piece of music.

 

Mammals take no music over music almost every time.

Do non-mammals react differently then or were the experiments only done on mammals?

 

I would like to know some details. I hope the experiments were not biased towards failure. "It seems that the fox did not like it when in the night the speakers hidden in it's burrow suddenly started playing loud dance music". I should think not though, could be interesting.

 

They've done lots of experiments exposing primates to music trying to find out about the evolution of the human penchant

Interesting also as primates have so many intregingly human characteristics.

Edited July 16, 2008 by alan2here
multiple post merged

[DrP]

I think our cat likes it when I play the guitar. It likes it when I do some harmonics, apply a gentle bass line and 'widdle' over it with some major key melodies. It kinda looks suprised when I start and then it looks sort of pleased and curious and lies down and sleeps. I doubt it would be impressed if I plugged the thing in, applied some distortion and blasted away some thrash metal though!

[CDarwin]

That seems terrifyingly shallow. I certainly enjoy genre's that have originated from very different cultures. I dare say for some that it is mainly a cultural thing though. I feel sorry for them limiting there experience in such ways.

 

True enough. Perhaps my definition put the cart before the horse a bit. Music has an emotional effect on humans before it can be given meaning culturally. That's pretty readily translatable. But it does have cultural meaning.

[alan2here]

I thought this thread looked interesting and relevant

http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=10686

Edited September 27, 2008 by alan2here

[Gilded]

I remember listening to

when my sister's dog was right outside my room. She (the dog) didn't really mind, but looked rather confused.

[alan2here]

Thanks for the story.

 

Although with dog stories it usually seems hard to know whats going on. Instinct, responding to the mood of other nearby people or genuine enjoyment of the of music.

 

I love metal and much unconventional music but I can't say this drone metal does anything for me :¬P It's got no patterns of any kind?

[Gilded]

I love metal and much unconventional music but I can't say this drone metal does anything for me :¬P It's got no patterns of any kind?

 

Many songs do. Depending on the artist in question it occasionally approaches dark ambient though. But for example Earth who essentially came up with drone doom have many quite melodic songs with almost blues-like riffs. Drone doom is all about sustained notes, but some have decided that the notes should pass through dozens of distortion and reverb effects.

 

Anyway, seeing how the tempo is quite slow and it can be quite ambient-like I'd guess animals aren't too discomforted by it. Then again it can be quite heavy on the bass so that might be a problem for some animals.

[big314mp]

My dog used to come and listen to my brother and I practice piano. Other than that, he didn't really even seem to notice when we played music (on the stereo).

 

Dogs hear in higher frequencies than humans, so perhaps test music should be shifted up a few octave to suit them better?