Let’s listen to some music
Understanding animals’ reaction to music
Who is your favourite singer?
Well, for our handsome turkey Harold that’s an easy question: definitely Ariana Grande! Or wait, actually, Beyoncé and Britney Spears are just as good for him and the other birds in the sanctuary. 😊 Turkeys change the colour of their head and throats depending on their mood. When a male turkey is feeling stressed his head will turn bright red. And in our case, Harold’s colour changes to blue while listening to music, which shows how happy, calm and relaxed he is. He and the other turkeys even allow themselves to be cuddled, which is not always a given.
What about other nonhuman animals? Different animals show different reactions to music depending on the genre. This makes absolute sense because every animal is unique and has a personal music taste or doesn’t care much about music and prefers silence over music. It also depends on the situation the animals are in. Therefore, it’s clear that we can’t and shouldn’t assume that all animals like a certain kind of music.
A recent study found that fast-played music increased playing behaviours and tail wagging of piglets. The results of another study about the behavioural responses of piglets to different types of music show that piglets are more sensitive to tempo than to musical instruments in their response to musical stimulation. They also seem to prefer slow-played string music and fast-played wind music to fast string music and slow wind music. Furthermore, the results suggest a need for further research on the effect of music types on animals.
Moreover, another research team analysed the effect of short-term stimulation of classical music on the behaviour of pullets. It concluded that the pullets that had been exposed to music displayed more comforting and preening behaviours, but less aggressive and feather-pecking behaviours than those pullets of the control group.
Dogs get more nervous while listening to metal and more relaxed while listening to classical music. But we can’t claim that classical music has a relaxing effect on animals in general and rock music the opposite. Instead, there is considerable variation within each genre. For example, some classical music can be relaxing and calming, while other pieces may induce fear or anger.
Of course, the effect music has on animals also depends on the frequency range and the region of best sensitivity which varies among animals. What some might like, others might find noisy or even painful. Pigs for example react to sounds from 42 Hz to 40.5 kHz, with a region of best sensitivity from 250 Hz to 16 kHz. Loud sounds that meet the definition of noise can therefore lead to aggressive behaviour and weakened immunity.
The vocal communication systems of nonhuman animals are different from our own with different sensitivities to both pitch and tempo. That’s why cats usually don’t care about “human” music but are much more responsive to music assimilated to their sense of hearing. A study published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science showed that cats have a significant preference for and interest in music especially written for them.
Unfortunately, most of the studies regarding animals and their reaction to music are carried out for farming purposes, i.e. to know if certain music types increase the milk production of dairy cows. We live in a time of intensive animal farming. Millions and millions of animals are kept in these horrible production systems that cause them a huge amount of stress. As a consequence, dairy cows for example suffer not only from stress itself but from many stress-related diseases such as mastitis and Johne’s disease. This can lead to an economic loss in the animal farming industry. Some parts of modern agriculture try to reduce the animals’ stress levels, but don’t be fooled - it’s not about the animals’ well-being but the quality of the final product and to meet the demands of the customers that prefer to buy meat of “happy” animals to eat it with a better conscience.
New sound-based methods have been pursued to achieve the reduction of external stress in farmed animals. However, we have a better solution to reduce animals’ stress levels: Don’t keep them in captivity in the first place and stop exploiting them!
Oh, and one more thing: Irish Punk! Harold and the lady turkeys enjoy Irish Punk as well! 😉
Mika Sing is a Surge Media volunteer, currently studying a bachelor’s in English Language & Literature and Dramatics in Munich, Germany. She’s interested in using film and journalism to raise attention to animal rights and veganism.