Making Music That Monkeys Don't Mind

Music, as a form of human expression, is for us and by us. Our animal companions generally couldn't be bothered by the stuff, not so much as to tap their paw to the beat, and in fact generally prefer silence to our infernal racket.

This indifference within the animal world to human music has presented a real obstacle to research into the evolutionary aspects of creating and response to music, an obstacle humorously reflected upon by cellist and University of Maryland professor David Teie, as reported at Discovery.com:

"Did we really think that bats would get little tears flowing up their little faces when listening to the 'Ave Maria'? Music is a human construct designed for humans. Absolutely everything about human music is based on human development and perception, from the speeds of the pulses to how high the melodies are. Every part of human music is based on human appeal."

Teie's recent work composing animal-specific music represents a significant breakthrough in the evolutionary aspects of the brain and music relationship.

Professor Teie has recently composed monkey music incorporating actual tamarin vocal sounds made when the animal is in a fearful state and when socializing. Observations of the test subjects while they were listening has determined that, when presented with music that they can relate to, there is an actual behavioral and, most certainly, emotional response by the animals to what they were hearing.

University of Wisconsin's Charles Snowdon, co-author of the new study, sheds light on the significance of the findings:

"We think that the emotional communication part of music has an early history that predates humans. If music based on tamarin calls can alter their behavior, then our ancestors would have been able to use similar components of music to influence one another, and perhaps simple words to name things or to express actions."

Further study would be necessary, although sadly none is announced as being in the works, to uncover why it is that of all human music -- again, nearly all of which the subject monkeys had no use for -- it was the song stylings of Metallica (seriously!) that actually seemed to please the simian listeners.

Photo courtesy of Stavenn, via Wikimedia Commons