Wired reports on an experiment done by a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a composer at the University of Maryland to create music that monkeys will respond to. Apparently, just putting your iPod on shuffle leaves our simian friends indifferent, so the two recorded various forms of calls by tamarin monkeys, composed music employing certain tonalities found in those calls, then played the result for the monkeys and sat back to enjoy the results.

From the article:

The researchers played each piece, as well as several samples of human music, for 14 tamarin monkeys that hadn’t heard music before. An independent observer recorded monkey behavior for five minutes before and after playing each selection. The monkeys didn’t respond at all to Nine-Inch Nails, Tool or Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” but oddly enough, they did become slightly calmer after listening to “Of Wolf and Man” by Metallica.

Monkey music, on the other hand, had a significant and predictable effect on behavior. After listening to the fear-based track, the animals became anxious and upset, as indicated by increased activity and nervous behaviors like urination and scent marking. After hearing the calm music, the monkeys became more relaxed and social.

Interesting that the only human music that got a rise out of the monkeys was Bob Rock-era Metallica. Not really a vote of confidence.

Take a moment to listen to the two short excerpts Wired has up — “Happy monkey music” and “Fearful monkey music.”

(It may be admitting too much, but I really enjoyed the latter.)

(I also think that pretty much all the music on my own iPod could be organized into one or the other of those two categories.)

Though the researchers conclude that that monkeys only respond to tones that are familiar to them, the article doesn’t make clear how long they spent playing Nine Inch Nails or Samuel Barber or the rest to them. After all, there’s all kinds of music that leaves people indifferent at first, but which, after some acclimatization, or especially if linked to an intensely emotional event, will become imbued with new significance.

Though this brings forth the image of a jilted male tamarin sitting by himself and listening to “Happy monkey music” over and over again and saying, “This was her favourite, man…”

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