Music for Cats was born out of David Teie’s scientific theory on the fundamental nature of music appreciation. He contends that every species has an intuitive biological response to sounds based on their brain development and vocalizations.

 

The idea is to use the recipe that we humans use for making music, but instead of using ingredients that are all designed by and for humans, species-specific music is created with ingredients taken from the voices and development of another species. For example, we have a pulse in our music because we heard our mother’s pulse in the womb for four months before we were born as our brains were developing. Since the cat’s brain is only 1/8 the size at birth of what it will be at 10 weeks, the cat’s pulse was not present as the little kittens’ brains were developing. 

 

David uses a sound like the suckling for milk in place of the pulse in the music he created for cats. With these premises, Teie composes music for cats by incorporating feline-centric sounds. An independent study conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science verified that Music for Cats resonates conclusively with its audience, writing that “cats showed a significant preference for and interest in species-appropriate music.”

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A second study was conducted at the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine that was published in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery in 2019 where the authors state: “We conclude that cat-specific music may benefit cats by decreasing the stress levels and increasing the quality of care in veterinary clinical settings.”