From Popular Science:
A new project out of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, shows that cats are capable of liking music, they just think yours sucks. A pair of psychologists and a composer have combined sounds that cats like—such as the tempos of purring and suckling and the sliding wails of alley-dwellers—into three soothing songs for felines.
In a study published in Applied Animal Behavioral Science, the team tested the effectiveness of their feline melodies on a group of 47 domestic cats. The cats were totally not impressed when they heard Gabriel Fauré’s Elegie and Bach’s Air on a G String (human music, yuck), but when the cat-tailored songs came on, the cats rubbed the speakers with their faces. In cat language, that’s pretty much like shouting for an encore.
You can listen to samples of the cat songs here. They’re weird and kind of unsettling.
This is just another area where we have to hand it to the selfless scientists searching for knowledge for knowledge sake and not motivated by the almighty dollar. I think. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were grant money in this somewhere. And I suppose there might be enough people out there willing to spare no expense for their “fur children” who might buy albums of cat music.
The samples given, though, are interesting. I may try playing some for my cats sometime and see how they respond. On the other hand, perhaps the key to keeping cats off my keyboard might be Faure or Bach. If that’s the case, thank you, science!