Do intelligent animals react to music in a major cord differently from music in a minor?

My dogs definately react differently to tones and chords. The deeper the note or the more shrill, the more agitated they get. It would be interesting to see formal data though.

Ha! I used to test this on my cat when she was sleeping in my room. The only thing she would respond to was when I played a really loud chord. I have another cat now, so I can see if he responds. In another thread, I learned that animals other than humans lack a prefrontal cortex which makes them incapable of experiencing subjectivity. This may mean that they cannot distinguish emotions within tones.
My hypothesis is that non-sentient animals will react more to tones that have frequencies that don’t match up very often (I’m not smart enough to use mathematically correct terminology, but it’s sort of like how frequent the graphs meet up at a maximum point). For instance, two or more notes that have low frequencies will provide more of a response to an animal (if that’s what @KNOWITALL means by “deeper”, then my hypothesis is being verified).
Also, it’s very Western-centric to consider that major is happy and uplifting while minor is sad and what not. I know little about Eastern cultures, but I do know that their perceptions of tonalities differ greatly. Maybe a Siamese cat will respond differently? haha
Beethoven wrote Moonlight Sonata in C-sharp minor. According to me, there’s a big difference.

@dxs Yes, they whine with the deeper frequencies, like we’re growing at them. Harmonica’s get them amped up, wild doggin around the house.

Oh yes, I think so. My grandmothers bird, for example chirps happily with upbeat music and squawks with disdain when slower, sadder music plays. I have similar experiences with my dog before he passed away. I would imagine that animals would also react to different volumes. I don’t know if they understand the music or react to something too loud. There are funny animal antics all over you tube, for example. It would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between tones and reactions than cross reference that with volume. This would make a great science fair project for the Flutherers with kids!

@KNOWITALL Thanks. Very interesting.

@dxs This site deals with the differences in major versus minor key and in the minor inflections Easter music adds to pieces. From the landing page, click Next and on page 2 of 3 there are great sound links comparing snippets of music in each.

Thanks for the correction on the Moonlight Sonata. My bad. Indeed it is in C-sharp minor.

@DWW25921 Strangely enough, my birds don’t seem to be very interested in music. I’ve played music myself, watched other birds on youtube with them, used instruments, sang to them, whistled and the only thing they really seem to enjoy is the singing and whistling. Talking seems to fascinate them though, my female green-cheeked conure is saying “Love you” now and it’s so stinkin cute!!

@KNOWITALL Thanks for the feedback. I never did succeed in getting my Peppi the Parakeet to talk. He sang to beat the band though. Congratulations on getting yours to speak.

@ETpro I handraised Pedra the conure, she is my baby. She says ‘bath’, “pretty”, “night night” and now the ‘love you’. A lot of bird owners say theirs are loud and all that, but my two are sweet and quiet. Petey the cockatiel only does the whistles and “pretty bird, pretty bird, pretty Petey”, but he broke his abuse cycle this weekend actually, and got on my finger (stepped up) and got on my shoulder for awhile, it was very cool, only took six years.

Well, conures are really small parrots, but check out this YouTube video of a parakeet just chattering away. To cute for words.

@ETpro That’s cute, seems like you can tell good bird parents by what the birds say right?!

I remember reading something which explained how dogs probably do not hear chords like we can. To be more specific, they are able to hear all of the overtones which “clutter up the sound” and make it sound bad.

Any note produced on a musical instrument also creates a huge series of overtones following the harmonic series(music). The first few notes in the series sound harmonious, but the higher notes in the series create more dissonance. Dogs are able to hear more notes than humans, so any music they hear sounds more dissonant and less beautiful. If a human could hear everything a dog could, most music would sound simply awful.

So, I’d wager that animals (like dogs) do not appreciate the “beauty” in music and cannot distinguish between different musical modes/keys.

What would an animal understand? Probably these three things:
Tone (harsh electric vs classical voice-like music)
Range (high/medium/low tones)
Volume

These don’t provide a full understanding, but it is enough to convey some emotions, such as “aggression.”

My cat used to not mind me playing the piano, but whenever I played the guitar or the saxphone, she’d run off and hide.
Oh, and if I ever decided to play that plastic recorder…

My goose Marwyn loves the djembe drum and reggae music.
He would bang the drum with his beak and we had “our” song.
I’d play and sing to him…“you’re my darlin’ Marwyn, closer than my peeps you are to me…..He loved it! lol

Our amazon likes music but I haven’t noticed any difference in her reaction to minor keys vs major keys. She especially likes music that we are playing, whatever it is (piano, harmonica, theremin) except for drums.
In recorded music she is partial to flutes and violins.

@KNOWITALL Birdie parents. I love the concept.

@PhiNotPi I hadn’t considered dogs’ far greater range of hearing. That’s an excellent point.

@dxs Spoony THE Cat used to love classical music of all kinds. The one sound she truly detested was the vacuum cleaner. I tend to agree. Not that fond of it’s sucky sound myself,

@Coloma Aw! I am so sorry you to couldn’t be together till death do you part. But at least you were able to see that Marwyn got a nice new home where he is still loved.

@dabbler Very interesting. Amazon as in Amazona parrot?

@ETpro and new friends, going to a Marwyn party at his new home on Supergoose Sunday. lol

@Coloma I hope there is lots of cheerful music and singing at his Supergoose Sunday.

(@ETpro Yes, she’s an Amazon parrot, not quite as vocal as the singer though…)