I have an adorable grey pussycat who has two african dwarf frogs (yeah, I feed them!). Singing seems to have no effect whatsoever on any of them, but when my friend comes over with his octave mandolin and I break out the harmonium, the frogs just go nuts! They might have been placidly floating in the water balanced on a toe, or lying on the bottom, but they flit rapidly between the surface and the bottom for a while when we first start playing.

An African grey parrot once played an intriguing game with me. He wouldn't say or sing anything until I left the room (he was shy). But as my friend and I were about to leave the her boyfriend's house, Dirtybird whistled a few notes. Just for a lark (har!) I whistled them back. Then he whistled some different ones, which I whistled back. He kept going, and would change the pattern each time. I finally messed up on the 7th or 8th series of notes, which he repeated! so that I could get them right, after which he went on to another new series! It was one of the neatest things I've ever experienced, and I was sure sorry to leave!

My cousin's son looked at me with that deer-in-the-headlights expression when I sang him songs in gaelic. His father speaks Spanish to him, and my cousin only knows English, so he wasn't sure what was coming out of my mouth, but you'll never see a baby concentrate harder....Happily, I was present at the birth of the newest one, and the first thing I did was sing him a Scottish lullaby as he cooked in the warmer - almost the first sounds he heard outside the womb, and certainly the first music!

ciarili