Pet Sounds: Sydney to put on music concert for dogs (Feature)

By Sid Astbury Jun 2, 2010, 7:39 GMT

Sydney - Contemporary arts glamour couple Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson are inviting dogs and their arty-farty owners to a free music concert this weekend on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.

The best bit for the dogs is likely to come right at the end when they get a bone biscuit for listening.

'It seems very anthropomorphic to me,' Sydney University veterinarian Peter Higgins said. 'That's my concern. I haven't seen anything in the literature that says dogs can appreciate music.'

Higgins has not met New York-based Lollabelle, the avant-garde US couple's rat terrier.

'She likes things with a lot of smoothness but with beats in them,' Anderson said. 'Things with voices and lots of complicated high-end stuff - chk-chk-chk-chk-chk - that kind of stuff.'

Anderson, co-curator of Sydney's Vivid Live arts festival with her rocker husband, said the inspiration for Music for Dogs came while she was backstage at an event and thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if you were playing a concert and you look out and you see all dogs?'

It would be the first public performance of Anderson's piece, mercifully brief because 'dogs don't have a giant concentration span - 20 minutes tops.'

A professional dog handler is to be on duty to keep the audience in line. Dogs won't be allowed off the leash and are to be segregated in pens according to size.

The Opera House has billed the event as 'an absolute must for any dog and their two-legged friends' and an 'interspecies social gathering on a scale never seen before in Australia.'

Music for Dogs producer Andrew Spencer was expecting 'every pooch to behave and be captivated by the live performance.'

That did not happen earlier in the week for Lollabelle's co-owner and his group Metal Machine Trio.

Iain Shedden, music critic with The Australian newspaper, reported that the Opera House audience, 'some of whom left after the opening 20 minutes, got a taste of what was to come as they took their seats to the sound of a loud, engine-like drone.'

Spencer would not say whether Music for Dogs would be more melodious than Lou Reed and the Metal Machine Trio's 90-minute gig.

'Laurie is the only person who knows what it sounds like - and no doubt her own dog, Lollabelle, has heard it too,' he said. 'Some bits of the 20-minute piece we believe will be audible to the human ear, so it can be a shared experience between human and canine.'

Higgins does not have serious qualms about the music. 'It's not going to do any harm,' he said.

Dogs can pick up frequencies over a range that is double that of humans, so deep bass notes and high-pitched squeals inaudible to us can be heard by them.

'We have better peripheral vision than dogs, but they have better hearing,' Higgins said. 'They are good at picking up noises and isolating them. They hear something and know precisely where it is - and know to attack or run away.'

Some dog species - beagles, for example - have a sense of smell many hundreds of times more acute than ours. Hearing, though, is standard across canine breeds.

How different breeds respond to Music for Dogs might enliven the performance. Malamuts and basenji yodel rather than bark while Chihuahuas and bichon frise yap.

Spencer was not saying how many bone biscuits are in store. Dozens of dogs, rather than thousands, were expected. Despite having 182 dogs for every 1,000 citizens, Australia is not a pet-friendly place and dogs are usually unwelcome around the Opera House.

In Sydney, dogs and cats are banned on trains, buses, ferries and even taxis. The only way most dogs are going to get to the Opera House is by private car.

'It's very limiting,' Dogs New South Wales media manager Kerry Christofi said. 'It would be an ideal situation if people could have them on public transport.'