Do Animals Enjoy Music?

Be it jamming to the latest K-Pop hits or listening to the centuries-old compositions of Mozart, humans are known to enjoy and appreciate the various genres of music. Does this language of emotion have an effect on animals as well? It sure does!

Parrots are picky when it comes to their taste in music. In a study, parrots (Psittacus erithacus) were allowed to choose between songs from different genres; a touch screen was left in their cages for a month and the birds were allowed to select the music whenever they wished. The results showed that parrots preferred rock, pop, and western classical, even joining in when they considered fit, but showed a strong dislike of electronic dance music. Parrots are one of the few species that are known to have rhythm perception and can bust a few moves to the songs they enjoy!

Western classical takes home the Animals’ Choice Award (ACAs) for the most popular music genre. When calming classical music is played to cows, they relax and tend to produce more milk than usual. Goldfish might be some of the most silent animals you can find. However, they are able to distinguish between different composers; showing a clear bias for Bach as compared to others.Dogs enjoy classical music too, it calms the dogs down and makes them bark less and sleep more. Heavy metal music agitated the dogs and caused them to exhibit anxious behaviors. They did not share the same enthusiasm as us for pop music.

Cats do not care much for Beethoven's sonatas or BTS's Dynamite but indulge in mew-sic composed with them in mind. Species-specific music must be in the frequency range and with similar tempos to those used in natural communication by each species. David Teie, a popular cellist, decided to go one step further and compose species-specific music for cats. His music used the sound of suckling for milk, a sound that is pervasive during a cat's infant development, and included musical patterns that mirrored cat purrs and kitten mews. These songs were then played to various cats, and the results showed that 77 percent of cats reacted positively and relaxed while listening to the songs. If you’re interested in vibing with them, you can now find this album even on Spotify!

Now that we have seen a case about music being produced for animals, let's look into a case of music being produced by animals. Elephants are known for their music cognition abilities, they can distinguish between different melodies and identify notes of a scale. Conservationist Richard Lair and composer Dave Soldier collaborated to produce ergonomically designed instruments to allow the retired logging elephants of Thailand to experiment with the drums, cymbals, and harmonica created for them. Elephants preferred playing the traditional five-note Thai scale and at times included their own improvisations. What is interesting to note is that these elephants were not trained to play these instruments but played them purely out of interest. When one of the Thai Elephant Orchestra's compositions was played by a human orchestra, the audience could not guess the composer!

Though it has been believed for a long time that humans are the only species that have music cognition capabilities, there are now many cases of various species of animals showing their ability to comprehend and appreciate both human and species-specific music.