Beethoven for Elephants - Thailand

I took my piano to the mountains of Kanchanaburi to play for some very old, injured and handicapped elephants, especially a blind elephant Plara immediately behind the piano.

*Elephant-lovers please rest-assured - all keys on modern pianos (such as this one) are made from synthetic plastic material and have been manufactured this way for some considerable time.

Plara arrived at breakfast time and stopped munching the juicy grass when he heard music, so, (?) perhaps he was listening ...

Music: Slow movement (2) from Beethoven's Pathétique Sonata.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• elephants
• Kanchanaburi
• elephant
• conservation
• music
• Beethoven
• Pathétique
• sonata
• slow
• movement
• Thailand
• Elephant's World
• Paul
• Barton
• piano

[kdl0]

I wonder what wagging ears means in "elephantese!" :)

[PaulBartonPiano]

@kdl0 -- not quiet the same as a dog wagging its tail. Elephants flap their ears to help keep cool in hot sun. The African elephant has ears about 3 times the size of an Asian elephant so they are better at it. Blood passed through the ear is cooled when flapping as it returns to the body.

[PaulBartonPiano]

@PaulBartonPiano -- As Asian elephants constantly flap ears to help keep cool, their ears being smaller than their African cousins have to flap harder and more frequently to do any good. 'Not' flapping in "elephantese" could therefor be interpreted as ? ...

[PaulBartonPiano]

@KeeFCrook - Nothing, I've played Plara Fauré's songs in the forest at night from my computer on occasions. Plara, before being bought and donated to Elephant's World, worked all his life in the logging trade. Logs were often so heavy he had to drag them on his knees. He was blinded by sharp branches during that unhappy time. I guess wanted to make an effort and carry something that was too heavy for me as a human and play for him while he was having his breakfast. Thanks for your comment.

[PaulBartonPiano]

@rubinsteinway - I was playing against the backdrop of 8 elephants munching bana-grass. Plara, the elephant behind the piano, had his tusks removed and sold by his previous owner so has a serious infection by his ears - that on top of being blinded by sharp branches carrying logs. No one was sure about the state of Plara's hearing and I played accordingly. Beethoven of all composers would have understood the need to consider Plara's hearing rather than be dogmatically correct.

[PaulBartonPiano]

@j814wong -- Trade in ivory was banned in 1990. Keys on modern pianos (such as this one) have been made from plastic since then. The elephants in this group are female and have gentle temperaments towards humans (and pianos). The blind elephant in the group is male, even in must is still gentle - unusual for males in must. These things considered, my piano's survival chances were pretty high, though I didn't know it at the time.  If only the same were true of the elephant itself ~

[j814wong]

@kuan12345 Those piano keys better not be made of ivory. But if they were, I'd suppose that the elephants would of crushed the piano already,

[kuan12345]

The ivory trade stinks. What a lovely gesture. One wonders though, if the elephant decided to do something, what would happen to the poor guy hanging on to the elephant.

[Holls2thewall]

Very heartwarming, thank you. Exceptionally gorgeous.

[mystrdat]

People like you make this fucking world worthwhile.

[lissi88]

What a lovely video.

[PaulBartonPiano]

@PaulBartonPiano Other animals that seem to like music: In YT search "‪Chant Hindu Beatrice Harrison Nightingales In Her Garden Oxted‬" you can hear one of the BBC's first outdoors radio broadcasts of a cellist playing in her garden accompanied by a nightingale.

‪Also: "Glenn Gould on Animals" where he talks about his thoughts about music and sings to elephants ...‬