Photography And Half-Thoughts By Mitchell Hegman

...because some of it is pretty and some of it is not.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Do Your Cats Listen to Metallica?


Apparently, Tom Cruise has sent Dakota Fanning a birthday gift—usually a pair of shoes—every year since she was 11 years old.  She is now 22 years old.  The actors worked together back in 2005, filming the movie War of the Worlds.
Interesting, but not what this blog is about.
The birthday shoes story is what I was digging into when I chanced upon something about a guy who has produced an album of music for cats.
I gave up on Tom Cruise right there.
This is also where Metallica arrives.  Seems David Teie (name unpronounceable in East Helena, Montana), first got the idea for making cat music while performing a concert with the rock band Metallica.  David is a cellist with America’s National Symphony Orchestra.
This is not an indictment against the music favored by Metallica.  Far from it.  Dave Teie (name still unpronounceable) felt a strong emotional sense to the music—something very close to nature—but on a human scale.  He started to think about music produced for humans.  He asked himself “Why doesn’t a song last for a tenth of a second, for ten thousand years?”  The answer: Because we base our music on human rhythms.
David Teie (sigh) decided he would try to make music not for humans.  He first wrote music for capuchin monkeys.  They liked it.  Cats were his next choice.  Maybe, because he knows that people goofy enough to live with cats are goofy enough to buy music for them.
The “cat” music is layered with sounds that recreates purring, but also has a layer of base clef that registers too low for cats but is pleasurable to humans.  Initial responses from cats have been favorable.  Many cats nuzzle next to the speakers while the music plays, some curl near the speakers and begin purring.
I am thinking about exposing my 40 pounds of housecat to the cat music album.  If that goes well, maybe my 40 pounds of housecat and I can try to catch Metallica someplace.
To listen to the cat music, try this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV8qERXJgHY
--Mitchell Hegman

Sources: news.sky.com, time.com

3 comments:

  1. I like how the music gives cats laser eyes! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting! I hear somewhat "meowing" sounds and lots of what seem to be outer space sounds. The cat's laser eyes is probably a reflection of light used when the video was shot.

    ReplyDelete