I can already see people’s reaction, dolphins are such hipsters! The reality may be a bit different but the way it is reported by Radar On Line, it sounds way too cool. If you have ever gone to Las Vegas and visited the ‘wonderful’ Siegfried and Roy’s secret garden at the mirage hotel, you know about the dolphin habitat. Yoga instructor Willow Withy, who animates the class ‘Yoga with the dolphins’, because people think dolphins exist for their own pleasure, did notice that the cute marine mammals were attracted by a certain type of music:
‘Our dolphins seem to really resonate with Radiohead music, and especially the song Lotus Flower. As soon as I put it on, they come up to the window and their play patterns become more fluid, friendly, and they are curious about what is going on in the yoga room. They rub against the windows, walls, and express more sensory connection. It feels like mutually shared experience as they appreciate the yoga and music together. I would say they are happy.’
Happy? Right! Do not forget they are in prison, they can’t be happy! But she later explained what she noticed:
‘The speakers do not go into the water, but through the windows the dolphins absorb the vibrations of the music. Dolphins don’t have great hearing, but hear and see through sonar resonance. It is how they interpret the world.’
Okay, so does it mean that Radiohead’s music sends more vibrations than other types of music? May be, but Willow exposed them to other bands such as Sigur Ros, Earth Rise Sound System, Andrew Bird, Inspired Flight, The Beatles, Pink Floyd and MC Yogi, and she noticed they also liked The Beatles and Pink Floyd,… ha these animals are so classy! Anoushka Shankar’s sitar was also a big hit on the dolphins’ chart. Tori Cullins of the Wild Dolphin Foundation has also done some research and she concluded that dolphins love percussive tunes, adding that ‘it is common knowledge among our community that they like new-agey music like Enya’…Enya? err suddenly dolphins have dropped considerably on the hipster scale. Plus they hate rock music which seems to stress them, and especially jazz. Dolphins can’t stand jazz! Is that too brainy for their aquatic world? On the other hand they are cool with country and classical, which seem to relax them.
I am not sure this is totally scientific, how many dolphins are in this habitat? Plus these ones are captive, and music may resonate differently in the wild, right? My guess is that dolphins are like humans, they are too intelligent to be a monolithic group and there is no reason you may not find one who prefers Miles Davis to Thom Yorke.