30 July 2009 — Even a Chimp Can Tell Good Music When He Hears It
According to this article by the BBC, scientists have discovered that chimpanzees "are biologically programmed to appreciate pleasant music". The young chimp, Sakura, "pulled on the cord to voluntarily listen to the pleasurable music significantly more often than to the dissonant passages."
More important than any of this, though, is how incredibly adorable Sakura is. Watch her look of complete annoyance when the dissonant music comes on. Kids(Chimps) sure do say(do) the darnedest(cutest) things!
Of course, there are all manner of arguments here that other people could make about the nature of consonant and dissonant music in our society. But, as a comment on human relationships with music, it's no revelation. Pitches tuned along the harmonic series aren't just consonant because we think they are; they're consonant at a base physical level. Is it surprising to learn that we have some unconscious appreciation for that fact?
One wonders how Sakura would react to this (via Kottke). It's cats! Playing Schoenberg! As long as nobody pretends that Sakura offers and sort of "proof" that consonance is somehow better than dissonance, I'm happy. Very happy, because I get to watch animals both perform and respond to music.