Does music really have charms to sooth the savage beast?

According to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, it does.

They've found that monkeys don't like Mozart. Instead, they like music inspired by sounds that they can make themselves.

Researchers created brief snippets of music that were inspired by the calls of the cotton-top tamarin, a very vocal species found in the rainforests of South America. The music included similar pitches, and sounds were of similar lengths.

When researchers played music similar to soothing monkey calls, the animals moved less often. If they played music that sounded like monkey distress calls, they became anxious. By contrast, the monkeys were indifferent when the researchers played calming and arousing music designed for humans, Snowdon said.

"Communicating emotionally through music is something we can do to communicate to other species as well," said pyschologist and study co-author Charles Snowdon.

Fortunately for musicians everywhere, the researchers aren't primarily interested in entertaining monkeys. Instead, they hope to get a better understanding of how primates communicate meaning through sound, and even to get a better understanding of how music evolved.

You can hear previews of the researcher's "monkey music" below.

Links:

• Voice, music and the cotton-top tamarin
• Threat (.wav)
• Affiliative (.wav)

James Lewin
Twitter @podcasting_news

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