Experiences with playing for/with animals
One of my first musical interspecies experiences was many years ago when
I started singing to a spider that was in my house, and when I was singing
the spider would one by one lift a leg and put it down again, and then another,
like it was doing a little dance on the spot to my spontaneous singin.
Do spiders use their legs to hear/feel vibrations, perhaps?

One time I was in the streets of Amsterdam, waiting for a tram, and I had a
yidaki with me and started playing to pass the time. A little time after I 
started a big black fly comes and lands on the far end of my yidaki. It started
walking in a zig zag fashion, climbing the yidaki, that I was still playing,
'till the fly reached my hand, and settled there. After a while the tram
came and I stopped playing, but the fly seemed kind of hypnotized, sitting on
my hand, untill the moment I put one foot into the tramwagon, it flew off,
flying real slow and seemingly relaxed. I noticed on other occasions that
flying insects like to sit on the yidaki when I play.

In the zoo in Barcelona I had a very humorous encounter with a dolphin. 
Unfortunately I didn't bring my didj, but, I did bring a pair of clapsticks
and started playing some rythms to the dolphin, who responded by starting to do
jumps and sommersaults, after a while more and more people started to gather to
watch the spontaneous show. Then the dolphin lifted its body out of the water,
balancing on it's tail, then dropping sideways in such a way that the whole
bunch of people that were just standing and watching got spattered with water
and I didn't get a drop:)
It's one of my dreams to play yidaki for dolphins / orcas / whales in the wild.

In the same zoo there was also an orca, Ullyses (sp?), and I also played the 
sticks for him and chanted overtones, he looked into my eyes, and I was impressed
by his gracious power and wisdom. After this I decided to go to several zoos
in the Netherlands (where I live), feeling that some of the animals might like
it when someone plays music for them. Apparantly some of them did appreciate it.

Some months after returning home from Barcelona I had a dream where I am swimming 
in a bay at night and I can more feel than see that there's an orca swimming behind me.
At first I feel a bit scared but as we swim for some time the fear fades and I feel thrilled and happy. 
The orca dives and the dream-images fade out.

I have been playing yidaki for animals in the zoo 
(especially the elephants and the tigers seemed to enjoy it. 
The elephants responded with a whole range of sounds wich I
didn't know they could make, and it was an impressive interspecies jamsession.
Some of the tigers started to roll on their backs like kittens.


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