Dogs and elephants respond to classical music, but cats, well, they’re different. They don’t like your tunes. They prefer species specific music, according to one composer who has produced an album of music for cats. Humans can listen too for free online and watch cats respond at musicforcats.com.
The genius behind this innovative concept is David Teie, a soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra. According to Teie’s Website, Music for Cats was born out of his “scientific theory on the fundamental nature of music appreciation by mammals.” He contends that “every species has an intuitive biological response to sounds present in their early development.” And that “felines establish their sense of music through the sounds heard after they’re born: birds chirping, suckling for milk, or their mother’s purr.”
With this in mind, Teie composed Music for Cats, incorporating feline-centric sounds with natural vocalizations, all matched to a cat’s frequency range. In a recent interview, Teie told TODAY that “most cats usually show interest at first and then are calmed by the music.”
According to Teie, an independent study conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and published in Applied Animal Behavior Science verified that Music for Cats resonates with its audience. The study concluded that “cats showed a significant preference for and interest in species-appropriate music.”
“This really began as a test of a theory of mine concerning how music affects the emotions (of animals),” Teie told TODAY. His album features delightful music that TODAY described as “songs with whirring rhythms and quirky cadences — all designed to appeal to the unique senses of the animal.”
