This concert pianist got tired of playing for humans, so he packed up his piano and headed to Thailand to play for elephants!

It all started when Paul Barton travelled to Thailand in 1996 in the hopes of finding adventure. During his time there with his wife, they enjoyed caring for old rescued pachyderms at Elephants World near Kanchanaburi, in Northern Thailand. After working with these elephants for ten years, Barton decided to fulfill his lifelong dream of playing piano for the mammals.

He managed to get his piano up the mountain to where the elephants were roaming and started playing Beethoven for them. The elephants loved his music, especially one named Pla-Ra, who is blind.

“Each time I played music for Pla-Ra, whether flute or piano, there was an identical reaction,” Barton said. “Pla-Ra would stand for a while, and then he would curl his trunk and hold his trunk in his mouth until the piece was over. No matter how long that piece was, he would stay like that.”

Barton posted video of him playing for the animals to YouTube as a means of raising funds for the donation-run sanctuary. However, when he saw how much the elephants loved his playing, he began hosting regular concerts for them!

The original video of Barton playing for them went so viral that a documentary was eventually made about him called “Music For Elephants.” You can find out more about this documentary in the video below, and please SHARE this story so your friends and family can see this as well!