It’s our last guitar lesson of the term tomorrow, and we are going to take our teacher out for a drink. We really love our lessons, so we will miss them during the summer break. We are not sure that our teacher will feel the same, but tant pis.
When I was practising the guitar recently, Louis Catorze pushed the door open from the other side. Usually he would pitter-patter in immediately afterwards, tail aloft and screaming, but this time he didn’t. He peered nervously into the room, then rethought his decision to come in.
It was a hot day so I imagine he was coming in for water. And it seems that my guitar-playing is so bad that he would rather shrivel into a brittle husk than endure the sound even for a short time whilst having a drink.
We mentioned this to our guitar teacher at the following lesson, and he told us that his cat, Steve, “wasn’t a fan” of the guitar, either. Oh dear. It doesn’t fill us with hope to know that Steve doesn’t even like proper music produced by a proper guitarist. Our noises – it would be very flattering indeed to call it “music” – must feel, to poor, sensitive Catorze, like hot pokers being shoved into his ears.
Our teacher then told us that one of his musician friends recorded special music for dogs. (Stupidly, I asked him to send me the Spotify links so that I could listen, and he said, “Erm, you won’t be able to hear any of it.”) He also added that one of the songs on the Sergeant Pepper album contained a dog whistle sound, and our later research revealed that it was A Day In The Life. Apparently John Lennon chose to add the sound to the song just after the 5:00 mark, to wind up dog owners. I wonder what – or, rather, who – gave him that idea?
I’d rather he’d put in some Judas Priest-esque subliminal message which, when played backwards, declares that hell awaits those who don’t pick up their dog shit, but I guess you can’t have everything.
We don’t have a dog, obviously, but we asked Dog Daddy to try it out on Disco, and this was the result:
1. Song was played.
2. Disco looked up.
3. The End.
I also tried it on Catorze, and his reaction was as follows:
1. Song was played.
2. Catorze yawned.
3. The End.
The second experiment proves one of two things: either cats can’t hear dog whistles, or Catorze shares his mamma’s view on A Day In The Life. I know that this is not popular opinion but, much as I enjoy The Beatles, I find that particular song a bit Emperor’s New Clothes. (Herman, if you’re reading this, just breathe deeply, have some ice cream and pretend I never said any of it.)
Here is Disco, looking cute:
And here is Catorze, pictured not long after I played him the song. I guess this is one way of ensuring that I don’t play the guitar:
louiscatorze.com 
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