Songs for Saturday: Music for Cats

I'd been thinking of posting about "The River", which may be my best love song, (or may not -- YMMV), but then Desti climbed into my lap while I had Music for Cats playing. So that's settled, then.

I don't remember where I first heard of Music for Cats, but I ordered both it and its sequel, Musicfor Cats Album Two, from their respective Kickstarter campaigns. They're wonderfully soothing both for cats and people.

Cats develop differently from humans, so they're not wired the way we are to respond to a heartbeat. The sounds that soothe kittens are their mother's purr (and occasional meow) and the sound of suckling at their mother's teats. Cats also hear a higher range of frequencies than humans -- higher than dogs, as a matter of fact.

The composer, David Teie, is a cellist, and takes advantage of the different frequency ranges to compose music with slow, soothing cello parts for us humans (which he speculates probably sound like traffic noise to cats), and higher-frequency sounds that appeal to our owners. Colleen and I find the combination wonderfully calming as background music, and so do the household felines.

There have been studies (e.g., Cats prefer species-appropriate music - ScienceDirect and unfortunately behind a paywall) to back this up.

There have also been reviews, including reviews by cats, who after all are the only ones whose opinion really matters.