Do cats like music?

Cats like music, just not human music.

In 2015, researchers designed an experiment with music created in a tempo and frequency range similar to that of cat communication. 47 cats got to listen to human music and to the songs created for cats – and pretty much ignored the things we enjoy. The “cat appropriate” music peeked their interest.

One of the songs composed for cats – Cozmo’s Air – is available here.

Cats have excellent hearing and most cats dislike loud noises, so you may want to keep the volume down, or give kitty the option to leave the room if they want to. There are also cats who will curl up right in front of a speaker for a nap, but it should be their choice.

A fun fact is that cats and humans have about the same range of hearing on the low end of the scale, but when it comes to high-pitched sounds they have even better hearing than dogs. The average cat can detect sounds nearly two octaves above the average human, and one octave above a dog.

Cat on a piano


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