Content
- the cat's ear
- Interpretation of sounds by cats
- Music for cats: which is the most appropriate?
- Music for all ears
if cats like music or not is a question that is often repeated among cat lovers, and thanks to numerous studies and scientific experiments it is possible to clearly answer that: cats like to listen to certain types of music.
Cat lovers know that loud sounds often bother felines, but why is that? Why are some sounds yes and others no? Can the sounds they emit be related to musical tastes?
At PeritoAnimal we will answer all your questions about the topic, keep reading and find out: Do cats like music?
the cat's ear
The favorite language of felines is smell and that is why it is known that they prefer odorous signals to communicate. However, they also use sound language with, according to experts, up to twelve different sounds, which often they can only differentiate between them.
Unsurprisingly, cats have a more developed ear than humans. Not physically, but in the sense of hearing, they detect sounds that we humans often never notice. Their universe ranges from a soft childish purr to the growls and snorts of adults in the middle of a conflict. Each one of them happens according to a duration and frequency, which would be the sound intensity in its measure, through hertz.
Now let's go to a more scientific part to explain this, as it will be useful when understanding your pets' reactions and determining if cats like music. Hertz is the unit of frequency of a vibratory movement, which in this case is a sound. Here's a short summary of the ranges these different species can hear:
- Wax Moth: the highest quality hearing, up to 300 kHz;
- Dolphins: from 20 Hz to 150 kHz (seven times that of humans);
- Bats: from 50 Hz to 20 kHz;
- Dogs: from 10,000 to 50,000 Hz (four times more than us);
- Cats: from 30 to 65,000 Hz (explains a lot, doesn't it?);
- Humans: between 30 Hz (the lowest) to 20,000 Hz (the highest).
Interpretation of sounds by cats
Now that you know more about this topic, you're closer to knowing the answer if cats like music. You higher sounds (near 65,000 Hz) correspond to the calls of the pups by the mothers or siblings, and the lower sounds (those with less Hz) usually correspond to adult cats in a state of alert or threatening, so they can arouse restlessness when they are listened to.
Regarding the meow of the cat, which to the astonishment of many readers is not part of the repertoire of communication with the species, it is just a sound to communicate with us. The cat's meow is an invention of animal domestication through which they can communicate with humans. These sounds are short voices from 0.5 to 0.7 seconds and can reach 3 or 6 seconds, depending on the need to be answered. At 4 weeks of life, in cases of cold or danger, there are infant calls. According to some experts specialized in this subject, cold calls occur for up to 4 weeks, as they are then able to thermoregulate themselves, and tend to be more acute. Loneliness meows are longer in duration, as if it were a maintained tone, and confinement meows have a lower tone.
the purr it tends to be the same at all stages of life, it does not change, unlike children's calls that disappear after a month of life to make way for meowing. But these would be the forms of communication that the cats have depending on the situation, but we also have the murmurs and growls, which are lower tones, through which they indicate a threat or that they feel trapped.
It is important to learn to interpret the sounds of our felines to understand the language, what they want to convey and, in this way, get to know them better every day. For that, don't miss our article on cat body language.
Music for cats: which is the most appropriate?
Many animal behavior scientists have begun to replicate cat sounds in order to provide cats with "cat music." Species-appropriate music is a genre that is based on the cat's natural vocalization combined with music in the same frequency range. The aim of this study was to use music as a form of auditory enrichment for a non-human ear and, according to studies, it has proven to be very successful.[2].
It is possible to find some artists, mainly from classical music that offer specific music for dogs and cats, for example the American musician Félix Pando, made adaptations of songs by Mozart and Beethoven with the title of "classical music for dogs and cats" which can be downloaded from the Internet, like many other titles. You should find out what sound your pet likes the most and try to make him as happy as possible when listening to music. If you are interested in creating a better environment for your pussy, check out our YouTube video with music for cats:
Music for all ears
Humans relax with harmonic sounds, but there are still questions in felines. What we're certain of is that very loud music stresses and makes cats nervous, while soft music makes them more relaxed. Therefore, when considering adopting a cat and when it is part of your family, try everything possible to avoid loud sounds.
In short, do cats like music? As has been said, they like music that is soft, like classical music, that does not disturb their well-being.To learn more about the feline world, check out this article by PeritoAnimal "Gato meowing - 11 sounds and their meanings".
