Category: Musical Universe

music in the natural world, non-human species

Music for Cats?

Can we just assume that the combinations of  frequencies and rhythms that we Homo Sapiens find pleasing are also pleasing to members of other species?  Maybe other species have their own preferences.

David Teie, of the National Symphony Orchestra, and Professor Charles Snowdon of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have produced compositions using frequencies with which cats are familiar from birth. The results are amusing and thought-provoking.

The Music of the Spheres-NASA Voyager Recordings

Please join me on this musical journey. You will find a variety of cool links relating to guitar:

  • the neuroscience of music and the developing, recovering, or aging brain,
  • the meditative approach to playing guitar for stress reduction,
  • and a growing collection of connections with stringed instruments, people, and the natural world.  Let’s wander down this path…

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, this musical path began with geomagnetic particles and solar winds, the “music of the spheres”.

NASA Voyager Recordings

And here we are, still drawn to vibrations. All musical instruments produce vibrations, which create sound, but in my thoroughly biased opinion there is nothing as lovely and exciting as a stringed instrument, especially one that is played with both hands on “live” strings. The experience pulls at the heartstrings in a very primal way.  Very cool.