Music moves us.
This sentence can be thought both metaphorically and indeed literally. Let's get a little more specific, it’s the rhythmical element of music that moves us. When we hear tunes that we like, we can shake our bodies back and forth, tap our feet, or snap our fingers. There are many other things we do in response to the rhythm we hear. We love to move with music. We prefer some music more than others based on our subjective preferences. Some dance to electronic music, some dance to metal music and some dance the charleston. So we move our bodies with music, but we also do have a preference in music we like to move with.
And it’s not just us humans. Other animals also give reactions to music. Maybe they also have a preference of what kind of music they like. For example, when I played the piano, my dog used to shake his tail when I played Für Elise from Beethoven. But for some reason he barked when I played Lacrimosa from Mozart. And I’d personally describe Lacrimosa to be a darker composition than Für Elise, but that’s my personal opinion. Does my dog prefer Für Elise over Lacrimosa? Of course my dog didn’t move rhythmically to me playing the piano. But I believe he preferred that I play some stuff over others.
And then there are the dancing parrot examples. For example Snowball the parrot apparently likes to move to the beat of Backstreet Boys. And Alex the grey parrot was also able to move rhythmically to the beat.
When one goes to YouTube and searches for a dancing animal, they can find tons of videos of different animals dancing. Do these animals have a preference in music? Do they just understand the beats per minute in a song, or do they also value the melody or the harmony?
My dancing animal research led me to another interesting creature that dances; the telegraph plant! And this plant has some serious moves.
Music moves robots, too.
Apparently dancing is not just something for non-artificial creatures, but we also share this trait with artificial creatures. Here is a Boston Robots creature grooving to some finest tunes:
GROOVIBOT
My artificial creature has some moves to show us! But my bot doesn't just groove to any music. This bot prefers some music over the others. Currently groovibot is getting acquainted with the world music so it can't tell you what it doesn't like yet, but to begin with, it likes up tempo electronic music with no vocals in it. Groovibot doesn't like vocals for some reason. And when I say electronic, I don't mean techno, although it's electronic. Techno is too rough for groovibot. It grooves so much and so fast, it can almost burn itself while dancing to techno. Groovibot cares for its health, so it doesn't want to burn itself dancing to techno. And groovibot also has a taste for reggae. When he hears the island vibes, it grooves like a breeze, not like how it reacts to electronic music.
But groovibot also has a limited stamina, so it knows when to stop, take a rest, and then keep enjoying the music!