Parrots and Music

This posting is a brief excursus into the seemingly surreal. I have a question for those who use this newsgroup. Do any of you out there own a parrot or parakeet? Furthermore, if you own a parrot or parakeet, what type of classical music do you gravitate towards and how has your owning a parrot affected your appreciation or apprehension of classical music? If your parrot or parakeet has exhibited musical preferences, are they congruent with or at variance with your own and how?

I don't even own any recordings by Andrew Parrot, maybe I should get some

This is a very sensible question. The complex and multifaceted relationships between parrots, parakeets, parrot owners, parakeet owners, and classical music listeners are to this day hardly explored, let alone satisfyingly reported and coherently summarized.

Anyway, how 'bout this (I didn't make this up): acquaintances of ours actually have a parrot (an African Grey) who's nuts about anything sung by Pavarotti. Whenever Pavarotti is singing, this parrot flies to the source (TV, CD, etc) and sits down quietly and attentively. It has to be Pavarotti, though, other tenors don't seem to have this effect on him.

This doesn't really address the original question, but I once saw a cartoon about parrots and classical music. A guy and his parrot are listening to the radio...

Announcer: 'You have just heard Vivaldi's Four Seasons performed by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields...'

Parrot: '...conducted by Sir Neville Marriner.'

(For those of you with long memories, this was one of the Rodriguez cartoons in the late Stereo Review magazine. I wonder what ever happened to Rodriguez?)

I onced played a concert at a retirement home where they had a parrot. After a few minutes we had to stop and remove the parrot as he was singing along.

My friend has an african grey. He says about 200 things. He loves when I sing to him. If I paly rock and roll loudly and dance he will bob up and down

Believe me his is incredibly smart. He knows each person individually. He says goodbye when you open the front door. He says don't before he bites and ow after.

He is also politically correct. He says 'reinforce the Mason-Dixon line now' So he can stand on either side and not make any enemys

Abbedd

Twenty years ago, I had that cartoon pasted on my mantel where I could see it whenever I sat in my easy chair to listen to music. And I believe the parrot's punchline was actually, 'Neville Marriner conducting.'

Our parakeets are pretty hardcore early music fans

I later got a Finch's Amazon parrot which I subsequently gave to my dad. He's had it for over 27 years and it's still going strong. It doesn't, as far as I know, show any particular musical preference, though it is very cosmopolitan in its eating habits. It loves to sample everything my dad eats

My conure and I become quite animated and begin dancing, bobbing, whistling, singing and conducting (I do most of the conducting, he does most of the bobbing; we both appear to be crazy, or perhaps transported) to the following: Rachmaninov Piano Concerto #3, Enesco Roumanian Rhapsody #1, most pieces by Kodaly, Bartok, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, and generally anything rhythmic and percussive.

Jean Petree

If it is period instruments it must be the lack of vibrato . Or maybe it's the catgut.

Abbedd

Exactly my speculation.