A couple of times, my friend Barbara has wondered aloud if Gus might enjoy real music, not just the random cacophony he produces himself. So I unearthed a big keyboard that Sandy had found and stored in a tack room, because that one has some 40 songs and some 80 rhythmic backgrounds that it can play on its own. The idea is to see if Gus would pick up on the beat of the sampled music and be able to clash his cymbals or honk his horn in anything like the same meter.All the songs are electronic-sugarpop affronts to any ear, but we select a couple with simple signatures (“Sur le pont d’Avignon,” “Oh! Suzannah”), and we see how Gus reacts when they start hooting and twittering in his face.
Sudden loud music? Ho hum. No concern shown, no offense taken. All Gus wants is to play those keys, same as with his smaller piano. Failing that, he grabs a nearby traffic cone and flaps it up and down — in time to the music? nah, not really — by way of demanding a click and treat from me.
As with the boom of the bass drum, this twangy music leaves Gus utterly unfazed, green-lighting us for step two: set the music going at a slowed-down pace, stash the keyboard out of sight, then present him with his regular instruments and try cuing him to stomp his hi-hat cymbals to accent the music. The experiment begins . . .
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