In my TV I also have 3 guitars connected to an amp. On Friday my cat came in here, he was on the floor in front of the couch, and when I reached down to pet him I heard some very faint static on the amp. This happened twice but I didn’t think anything about it, just assumed that the cable to one of my guitars was loose and that when I leaned forward it caused a vibration on the floor that went to the amp, on one of the guitars the nut where the cable goes in was a little loose and I tightened it.
But just a few minutes ago the same thing started happening, this time with Mickey on the coffee table in front of me. I made absolutely sure that my foot wasn’t on a cable and that a cable wasn’t touching the couch and that the guitar that is leaning against a side table isn’t touching the couch. I leaned forward and “air petted” Mickey, moving my hand just above his body. Nothing, but when I actually petted him I again heard the static, as I did just a few minutes ago petting him as he sits beside me on the couch. And the faster I petted the louder the sound got. Still not really loud
The only thing I could think of, and this sounded crazy to me, was that petting him was causing some static electricity in the air. Well, I just looked it up and some cats have a fair amount ot static in their fur. I’ve never gotten that little shock you sometimes get from static, but now I remember a few times when he has smelled my hand and pulled away briefly, he must have gotten a tiny shock. And once again I patted him on the head a few times to verify, I am not going crazy.
Does the static have a tonal quality? Like, does the frequency of the static change with petting speed, or any other factor? What I’m getting at is, maybe you could play some avant-garde music with your cat, kind of like the way Jimi Hendrix used guitar feedback to play The Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock.
Ah ok, I see. And I guess there was a bit of Gaudere in there too, since I did misspell “Aristocrats”, however intentionally for the purpose of the joke.
My research group and I use a radio telescope to study lightning. So, we’ll do a demonstration for reporters and students where we set up a wimshurst machine (makes sparks) and an old radio, and you can hear the wimshurst machine making static noise in the radio. Doing this experiment we can show that it is actually the very small sparks that get picked up, and the antenna of the radio is actually not important. It’s probably a similar thing with your cat.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that you could probably do some good lightning science if you put your cat on top of your amp and pointed it at a lightning storm…
The couch is about 5 feet away from the amp, but last night I noticed while he was on my lap in a chair 10 feet away it didn’t happen. I was just thinking that if I could train him to sit directly on the amp I would really have something.
