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Show ANIMALS AND MUSIC. A Composer Thinks All Living Things Sensitive Sen-sitive to Musical Tones. "The Influence of Music on Man, Animals Ani-mals and Plants" was discussed by Director Di-rector Asger Hamerik in a lecture at the Peabody conservatory. Of the second part of his subject he said: "There 13 no doubt of music's power in animals. All singing birds are subject sub-ject to the influence. The spider, the mouse and the snake can be charmed with tunes. I saw on St. Paul street one day a runaway horse stop suddenly where a street organ wTas being played and tremble all over. I had once a Gordon Gor-don setter that would play with his paw on the keyboard of my piano and, with a kind of murmur, try to imitate the human voice, making an effect that, if I not musical, showed at least that the dog's mind attempted something in that direction. "I have had personal experience with the musical qualities of mice, for I once used to play the piano in a room where there were manv mice. When I nlaved for a little while, out would come trooping troop-ing a critical audience of mice, which seemed perfectly tame so long as the music lasted. I experimented with them again and again and arrived at the conclusion con-clusion that they undoubtedly were in some way influenced by and very susceptible sus-ceptible to music. I grew tired of my faithful auditors after awhile and closed the doors of the concert hall to them by having a tinner cover the holes and cracks in the floor, i "The song of the bird and the crowing of the rooster are not their conversation. They have a kind of chirping for that. What, then, do the song and the crowing mean? Joy, contentment, exultation as wun man. When a rooster has had a good dinner, or when the sun shines brightly and warmly, or when any other cause makes it think that life is worth living, the rooster crows joyously. Music Mu-sic is with man also an expression of emotion, but with him it has been reduced re-duced to a science and is not, therefore, used naturally for every expression of happiness, as with the uneducated and unscientific rooster or songbird. "I believe that everything created, like ourselves, with ears, is susceptible to musical mu-sical tones, and it is probable that, if we could only find it out, there is- musical material in all such animals that could be developed and cultivated in some way." Baltimore Sun. |