Known for their deep baritones and the ability to hold their notes, cows can be quite the connoisseurs of music. Especially, it turns out, of pieces on the saxophone.
A video of Oregon, USA resident Rick Herrmann playing to a field of cows demonstrates just that.
Posted by his son Erin Herrmann on Twitter, the video features physical trainer Rick explaining, “I’ve heard that music can tame the savage beasts...Actually, this is my first audition for a live audience.” Following the introduction, Rick begins to play, and miraculously, all the cows in the field gather around him, carefully listening to the saxophone rookie’s tunes.
“I’m better at coaching fitness and nutrition than I am at playing the saxophone but I’m learning,” Rick wrote in an Instagram post. “I started playing the sax seven months ago. I find it helpful to play in front of a large audience.”
Only, this isn’t the first time someone has played the saxophone to cows. Musical entertainment for our four-legged friends appears to be a popular concept on the internet. A video of a woman, Ave Maria, playing Les Dawson of Sax for cows at sunrise went viral in 2017.
This was preceded by other instruments – the trombone and the accordion.
Media platform Great Big Story also did a full feature on Florida dairy farmer Ed Henderson, who often plays jazz to his cows.
Which brings us to the question: do cows really understand jazz the way we do?
While there isn’t any study yet to explain bovine inclination to Western classical music, it has been observed by researchers from the University of Leicester School of Psychology, that cows react better to slower beats per minute, rather than specific artists or types of music. The 2014 study also observed a possible increase in milk produced by musically inclined cows.
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