The Elephant

This post, while it may seem to be more suitable for another community, such as amazing nature, is not just a post about animals. More precisely, about one animal. An elephant. This is one music post, again, but with a little extra. Interesting facts about elephants. I think most of these curiosities are known to the general public, but it is always interesting to me to compare some characteristics of this large mammal with us, small, compared to an elephant, humans.
Elephant photo sasint

For example, memory. Sometimes I like to compare my memory to that one that elephants have. In college, I was the person to remember things, so some friends didn’t need to write down the deadline or assignments we needed to prepare. I was there to be asked for those details :) Well, still I can remember insignificant facts, numbers, or details, but not as before. I think my grey cells are going in a declining direction. Free falling, for sure.

The next interesting fact that characterizes elephants is that they can recognize themselves in a mirror, did you know that? They are self-aware. How nice is that; it would be good all humans could have that self-awareness feature, a bit more developed. Also, to have developed the capability to show emotions like joy or anger. Also, the attitude of play!?! We could learn many things from these large animals.

Elephants like to socialize. They live in families of 8 to 100 individuals, wow, that is a large number for a family. And you know what, the females rule in those families. We all heard that they are afraid of mice, well, they would be afraid of anything that is small and running fast around their feet. Maybe they would run fast in those moments, but usually, they walk slowly, at a pace of 6,5 km/h. This is how the composer Camille Saint-Saens also thought about elephants. Slow walking! A slow waltz kind of piece would be the best to represent this animal. Ok, let us listen to it and conclude if he was right:

So, this composer already came several times to my posts. He was a serious composer, but as I mentioned earlier here and here , he composed a musical suite that contains 14 movements, The Carnival of the Animals, that was a parody. I played with my niece some of the movements, like The Swan, Fossiles, and here comes the movement dedicated to this animal we read about a bit in this text. Elephant.

The piano where we played this piece...I showed it in this post

Do you know about other interesting facts about elephants? Do you know any metaphor or phrase where elephants are mentioned? Don't be shy to share with us in the comment section :)