Least Surprising News Ever: Sharks Love Miles Davis
It's officially the first day that New York City is fully shut down. Yesterday, things came to a head rapidly, and shit got real. Currently, I'm sitting in my apartment, fighting every instinct to watch wall-to-wall coverage of 'Rona news, trying to write, while my Pomeranian is watching me, perched on my lap.
Anyone else having trouble getting in the groove?
It's been said that music has a positive effect on the brain. Some parents play classical music for their babies in hopes of turning their children into little geniuses. This theory is called the "Mozart Effect". Other "experts" say music can help focus and productivity, depending on the genre. Right now, I've got the soothing tunes of B.B. King on to get my creative juices flowing. I think it's working? Not sure. I have checked Twitter alerts like a hundred times to find out where Tom Brady might be heading since I started this post.
Anyway, we now know what the king genre is when it comes to "attacking the day" or in this case, your prey. And it's not classical music. Take that Entrepreneur Magazine.
It's Jazz.
How do we know this? Look to nature. The baddest fish in the sea are not just the subject of movies like Jaws and Deep Blue Sea, they are jazz-loving maneaters.
I'm talking sharks, and they are big-time Miles Davis fans.
Sharks and most fish use soundwaves to find their food source and communicate with other creatures. Scientists wanted to find out whether sharks could identify musical genres when associated with a treat (no humans were harmed in the completion of this study).
According to a Classic.FM article,
To test out the theory, researchers played jazz music at one end of a tank, and taught eight young sharks to swim towards a feeding station for a tasty reward.
When they introduced classical music, the sharks were much less likely to swim to the feeding station. Same reward, new genre, new result.
“Right off, I would probably guess that the jazz music happened to have more of a regular beat that would be more what the sharks are used to being attracted to,” explained Phillip Lobel, a biology professor at Boston University
If Jaws had a soundtrack to swim to, to calmly let humans know that they should make peace with their imminent death, it would surely be Charlie Parker. For shark performance optimization, it really makes sense. Soothing yet stimulating, with its rhythm and room for improv… A perfect musical muse for a shark to get into the "flow state" of killing.
But this news should surprise no one. Miles Davis is lit. Bach is boring. How are you supposed to muster up the motivation to rip human flesh apart with no drumbeat? You can't. Because nothing says I'll eat the next surfer quite like The Well Tempered Clavier.
So if you're at home, struggling to find a Spotify playlist to get you in the mood to "kill it" in this time of Corona crises, maybe its time to take a lesson from one of the most aggressive creatures of the sea.
Time to move off the Uzi album, and listen to "Kind of Blue" instead.
You're welcome.