Posts tagged "music"

Any cat owner will tell you that their beloved feline certainly knows how to pay attention when it comes to ... holding things. Feathers, yarn, you name it: if you hold it in the air, a cat will not take his eyes off the stuff. It's like candy to a baby, but only if the baby had amazing reflexes.

Someone captured this particular brand of kitty nuttiness on video, and made it into a sort of hipster-y music videos, replete with background music by the Magnetic Fields. It's called "Absolutely Cuckoo Cats," and the title is definitely apropos.

Poet Arthur O'Shaughnessy once said, "We are the music makers," but we doubt he had this pup in mind.

Watch a German wirehaired pointer drop a beat like the best of 'em, hitting that high hat like he's just one of the boys in the band! Now that the drums are all sorted out, all he needs is a lead singer, bassist and maybe -- if we're being picky -- someone on the slap bass?

Billie Holiday. B.B. King. Shot-Z the Weimaraner. These are just some of the names of the finest blues singers we've ever known. Holiday famously struggled with drug addiction, King with the fight against diabetes, and Shot-Z probably lost a Milk-Bone or two at some point, but that's what the blues are about: living with hard times.

Shot-Z, in fact, can belt out the sad-sack wail like the best of 'em the very moment she hears the sound of a harmonica, her owner's obvious instrument of choice.

Strange fruit, indeed.

A Brazilian man named Jarbas Agnelli was perusing the newspaper when he noticed the above picture of birds on electric wires (shot by photographer Paulo Pinto). Suddenly inspired, he didn't let an especially creative opportunity pass him by. Using xylophone, bassoon, oboe and clarinet, Agnelli composed a song using the silhouettes of the birds as notes on a staff. With the assistance of Apple Logic Studio and Adobe Photoshop, the 46-year-old turned the endeavor into a video, which he then uploaded to Vimeo, where it naturally caught attention on the world wide web.

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

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Move over, Keyboard Cat. There's a new feline pianist on the scene, and this one's got real talent.

Five-year-old Nora, a gray rescue cat from Philadelphia, is a feline virtuoso, reports USA Today. A few years ago, her owners Betsy Alexander and Burnell Yow were upstairs in their home when they heard someone tinkling the keys of the piano downstairs. They crept down the stairs and found Nora pawing at the ebony and ivory.

Alexander is a piano teacher, and keeps two pianos side-by-side. The next day, while she was giving lessons to her students, Nora hopped up to the idle piano beside them and started playing away. The students loved it -- and Nora loved the attention.

"Nora's for real," feline expert Beth Adelman told USA Today, who visited Nora's home to watch her play. "They didn't teach her to do it. It was spontaneous. She's a showman -- and very good at getting attention."

Since her musical debut, Nora has become a minor celebrity. Martha Stewart gifted her with a bust of Bach. The original Piano Man, Billy Joel, sent the talented cat a signed photo. (She responded by sending him a signed photo of herself.) Nora's first concert video was posted to YouTube in 2007, and since then her videos have garnered more than 20,000 views.

According to USA Today, Nora's music has reportedly been described as lying somewhere between free jazz and the work of composer Phillip Glass. What do you think?

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Oh, Dua, you are the best reason to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The small-clawed Asian otter is already top-notch adorbz, but, better yet, he plays the keyboard in order to extend his feeding time.

He's not about to sell out a grand concert hall, but we'd pay full price to see this cutie tickling those keys.



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