All Creatures
Headline:
Communication through music is as old as human kind
Ginger the “accordion dog” has been back at the Civic Center BART station during the morning commute this week. Ginger and her human (whose name I don’t actually know) have made quite an impression on me, and I look forward to seeing them each day. Ginger’s human is a colorful character, an accordion player, and his repertoire ranges from Beatle’s tunes to Beethoven. Often his play list is a work in progress, and it’s quite apparent when he’s developing a new arrangement or trying out a new piece. Ginger’s performance, by contrast, is pretty much the same every day. She sits with him, either sleeping or gazing adoringly, always dressed to the nines in a scarf or cape that matches her human’s costume. And, Ginger is an extraordinarily sensitive being. I came to this realization about a year ago, when I first spotted her rolling rapturously and rhythmically in the middle of the Civic Center BART corridor, in response to her human’s rendition of Schubert’s Ave Maria. Ginger’s performance, or more accurately her response to her human’s performance, was transcendant. (Ever since that morning I have referred to her as the “Ave Maria” dog.) More recently, she was in similar raptures as her accompanist tested his version of the Ode to Joy theme from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Ginger has pretty good taste.
Another talented canine was featured last week on a fundraising video for the New York Public Library, which is in serious need of financial support right now. If you’d like to catch Tillman the skateboarding dog in action in the hallowed halls of the “lion library” on Fifth Avenue, you can find it on Youtube. I hope he was helpful in bringing in some bucks.
Here at SFGC, we’re mostly a cat loving crowd. There are a couple of staff members (and board members, and even a consultant) who are solely devoted to dogs (schnauzers and terriers and boxers, oh my!), but among our 14 full-time faculty and staff members, more than half of us are truly cat people (plus one bird devotee). I’m not aware of any particular talents, fundraising or otherwise, among the SFGC staff pets, but I think they must do fine jobs all around in supporting and amusing their humans. My own cat’s talent lies mainly in self-expression – she has a wide vocal range and vocabulary, and the most expressive tail I’ve ever seen.
All of this makes me think about communication and self-expression, the many forms it takes, and how essential it is to all our well being. Call me anthropomorphic, but I think Ginger the dog is both expressing her pleasure (in music?) and communicating that enjoyment to all in her own special way during the morning commute at the Civic Center BART station. Communication through music is as old as human kind, and maybe even older. And this may be the answer to the question about the real purpose of a musical performance -- it’s one of the oldest and deepest ways for us to communicate with each other (and maybe even with other species…)
