Music and cats — the only two consistent things in my life that bring me joy, and possibly yours too. And perhaps, you too have tried to share your love of music with your cats as a form of affection only to be met with a scowl and pinned back ears.
There’s now a solution in the form of species-appropriate music: Music for Cats by composer and scientist David Teie.
It’s well established that listening to music reduces anxiety and blood pressure, while improving sleep quality, mood, and mental alertness (Keep Your Brain Young with Music, 2022). The question many pet owners ask is whether music has the same effect on them as it does for us.
The Ex-purr-iment
Researcher Ronald Koh wondered the same — how do cats physiologically and behaviorally respond to music? In his experiment, cats were randomly assigned to 20 minutes of either cat-specific music, classical music, or no music. Cat stress scores were recorded before and after a physical exam at a veterinarian’s office: pretests showed no difference in stress levels between the three stimuli; however, scores significantly decreased after the examination for those who listened to music made for them! The team even observed less stress-related behavior in those who listened to music incorporating features relevant to cats (Hampton et al., 2019). Beats similar to their resting hear rate, cat-related sounds like purring and suckling, and frequencies within their vocal range most effectively reduced stress levels (Solis-Moreira, 2022).
Mew-sic to their Ears
Much like white noise, it would make sense that cat music mimics the calming sounds of the womb. However, the size of a newborn cat’s brain is a mere ⅛ of its full size, whereas a newborn baby’s brain is ¼ of average adult size. Therefore, a more relevant sound to developing cats would be suckling. David Teie — the father of species-specific music — designed Music for Cats on the basis that each species responds to sounds in an intuitive, biological way. As a highly experienced composer and dedicated cat lover, he used the sounds of relevant stimuli which kittens would have heard as they were developing (The Science: Music For Cats: David Teie, n.d.).
Con-claw-sions
A study conducted at the University of Wisconsin supported his premise, concluding that cats did indeed show a significant preference for their customized music.
Response latencies were significantly shorter to the music composed for cats than to human music. Cats showed significantly more orient and approach responses to music composed for them compared to music composed for humans.
The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery also confirmed that Music for Cats has the ability to decrease cats’ stress levels and in turn improve the care received by vets in clinics.
What do you Pre-fur?
Music can even be designed to include structures that elicit approach, or be arousing or calming. It’s especially important to understand cats’ pitches, calls, and specific features to compose music that will obtain a certain behavioral effect. To make your cat more active, you can select sounds of alert calls and the environment. To calm an agitated animal, you can choose melodic vocalizations and rewarding sounds (Snowdon et al., 2015).
From Paw McCartney to Meowly Cyrus
If you’re planning to take your cat to the vet soon, do yourselves a favor and tune in to a Teie album on your drive.
Music for cats is just one piece in the puzzle that is environmental enrichment for cats. It might just work to reduce stress and aggression related to new people and places (Solis-Moreira, 2022).
Here, have a listen (Warning: Not for Human Consumption): David Teie – Music for Cats
