When the CymaScope team learned about Moss, a dog who loves to sing, we were intrigued to learn whether the geometry embedded in her song would resemble human song when imaged with the CymaScope instrument. We invited Moss’s owners, Dr. Julie Carter and Mandy Glanvill, to the CymaScope laboratory to capture Moss’s song. Julie and Mandy explained:
“Moss is a trailhound, a type of dog related to Foxhounds and bred in the English Lake District to compete in running races. Trails of scent are laid and the dogs are set off round a very hilly course up to 10 miles which they often cover in less than 20 minutes. However, Moss has never raced as we got her as a puppy to be a running companion. She is well known in the human UK fell racing scene as she often entertains the runners with her singing. Moss loves to sing but we sometimes think there is more meaning in her singing than we understand.”
Moss and all canines evolved from the wolf species and some researchers believe that wolf howls are often a reaction to a particular emotional state. It seems possible that Moss’s singing is also an emotional expression. Interestingly, at least one moment captured within Moss’s song resembles the geometry we see in human vocalisations, in this case a 10-fold CymaGlyph.