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Animals & Music

There was a bit in the latest FT about experiments with chimps' reactions to music which concluded, unlike previous investigations, they couldn't give a shit about music and the only thing they reacted to was fast dance tunes (they ran about because they didn't like it). The item went on to speculate only humans like music. But don't dogs howl along to singing? And what about birds?
 
There was a bit in the latest FT about experiments with chimps' reactions to music which concluded, unlike previous investigations, they couldn't give a shit about music and the only thing they reacted to was fast dance tunes (they ran about because they didn't like it). The item went on to speculate only humans like music. But don't dogs howl along to singing? And what about birds?

I have no doubt that some animals like some music - there's numerous examples on youtube. I posted one recently in the Animals thread of a man playing accordion to a field of cows in what could be rural Switzerland or Germany. Before long they scoot from grazing in various parts of the field until they're all clustered as close as they can get to him. They're clearly getting some sort of enjoyment.

I've previously posted about my friends with 2 cats, one of which hates guitars & disappears when one appears, the other seems to love the sound & gets up really close. It seems fascinated by the sound.

Don't forget that many animals have superior hearing to humans & can hear frequencies which are inaudible to us. Who knows what music sounds like to them?
 
Cha-cha-chimp? Ape study suggests urge to dance is prehuman

Chimpanzees seen clapping, tapping and swaying along to piano rhythms in a music booth

Source: Ian Sample/theguardian.com
Date: 23 Dec, 2019

Akira stands up and sways about. Pal is big on clapping. Ai is into tapping her foot, while Gon bangs and slaps the walls.

Not the latest teen band sensation, but a spectacle far more impressive: the moves of a group of chimpanzees that scientists believe shed light on the prehistoric origins of human dancing.

The researchers in Kyoto filmed the chimps performing the movements in a music booth attached to their enclosure where the apes could go to rock out to piano sounds played in the room.

None of the chimps had been taught to groove, and they received no rewards for doing so in the study, but regardless they broke out into spontaneous bodily expression when the beats started.

“Chimpanzees dance to some extent in the same way as humans,” said Yuko Hattori, a researcher at Kyoto University who studied the dancing chimps. Most of the apes swayed their bodies, though claps and foot taps featured too, primarily among the females.

While dance has a rich and ancient history in humans, it is considered all but absent in non-human primates. The most similar behaviour seen in the wild are chimpanzees’ “rain dances” and waterfall displays. This month, researchers at Warwick University reported chimps in Saint Louis Zoological Park in Missouri moving in what looked uncannily like a conga, but the apes had no musical accompaniment.

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.amp...-ape-study-suggests-urge-to-dance-is-prehuman
 
Cows they deserve it.

LUND, Denmark – During a recent performance of Tchaikovsky’s “Pezzo Capriccioso,” a handful of spectators leaned forward intently, their eyes shining, and a few encouraging colds escaping the otherwise subdued ground floor. Although relatively new to classical music, they seemed closely associated with the eight cellists on stage and raised their heads abruptly as the sluggish strains of the piece gave way to rapid arcs.

When it was over, amid the fervent applause and the screams of “Bravo”, a single, appreciative moo could be heard.

On Sunday in Lund, a village about 50 miles south of Copenhagen, a group of elite cellists played two concerts for some music-loving cows and their human colleagues. As the culmination of a collaboration between the two local ranchers, Mogens and Louise Haugaard, and Jacob Shaw, the founder of the nearby Scandinavian cello school, the concerts were meant to attract the attention of the school and the young musicians living there. Judging from the reaction of two- and four-legged participants, it has also shown how popular an initiative can be that brings cultural life to rural areas.

https://dailyzbusinesspress.com/when-the-cellos-play-the-cows-come-house/
 
A UK zoo hired a Marvin Gaye impersonator to sing to sing to its macaques, ostensibly to help set "the mood" during mating season.
Zoo hires Marvin Gaye impersonator to get monkeys in the mood

A British zoo aiming to bolster its population of endangered monkeys hired a Marvin Gaye impersonator to visit the enclosure and croon love songs.

The Trentham Monkey Forest in Stafford, England, said David Largie, an experienced Marvin Gaye impersonator, performed selections from the soul legend's catalog including "Let's Get It On" and "Sexual Healing" inside the Barbary macaque habitat. ...

"We thought it could be a creative way to encourage our females to show a little affection to males that might not have been so lucky in love," Park Director Matt Lovatt said on the zoo's website. "Females in season mate with several males so paternity among our furry residents is never known. ..."

Lovatt said zookeepers expect to discover whether the visit had any effect on the monkeys when birthing season arrives in late spring or early summer.
SOURCE: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2022/0...t-Stafford-England-Marvin-Gaye/1871644340605/
 
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