The Mozart Effect
It has long been believed that listening to classical music can help you focus and maybe even make you smarter. I’d like to pair today’s Thoughtful Thursday Music post with a post about figuring out if this is fact or fiction.
This “Focus Effect” is actually named the Mozart Effect and was popularized in 1991 when a study was done by a French doctor and researcher by the name of Alfred A. Tomatis. He believed that by listening to Mozart you could “retrain the ear” as well as develop the brain.
Retraining the ear has come to refer to people who suffer from Tinnitus, which is the noticeable buzzing or ringing sound in the ear when no sounds are present. You’ve probably experienced the feeling after leaving a loud concert or club and there seems to be a continuous ringing in your ear.
There is also a belief that when you hear that ring it is the last time you will ever hear that frequency or sound. Wouldn’t that be sad? Good bye Mr. Frequency, it’s been a nice 25 years but because the Foo Fighters rock so hard live, they’ve scared you away for good. Alas this is just a myth and the sound is your brain compensating for an imbalance of sound. Now this imbalance can last for a bit of time but it generally will repair itself.
A study done in 2012 did show that people suffering from that ringing in their ears (Tinnitus) did notice a significant improvement when listening to Mozart or classical music so, hey, there’s that!
But if classical music make your brain and ears turn into Wolverine and heal themselves, can they help us focus and maybe even become smarter?
Answer is yes…aaaannnd no.
Early studies done in the 90’s showed that there was an improvement of brain function and IQ when listening to classical music and thus Mozart, Bach, Beethoven-for-your-baby was born. But more recent studies show, ehhh, not so much. Sorry kids Magic does not exist because, I mean, imagine what that would mean? I could become the next Einstein, Hawkins, or Neil deGrasse Tyson just by listening to classical music? Give me some headphones and see you later, I’m gonna rock this stuff on repeat for the next 10 years!
There is good news though! What the study did find is that you can in fact improve your performance when listening to some Mozart pieces… but wait! There’s more! The study went onto say that the actual cause for this was an elevation in mood for those who enjoyed the music! What does it all mean Basil??!?
WELL, It means that if you listen to music you generally genuinely like when working, studying, drawing, driving etc., you will see an increase in performance because "you’re just feelin’ it." Now, one caveat is, this does more specifically apply to a kind of music and the reason Mozart is so often cited is because he follows some of those “good music rules” I mentioned in my first post. The music shown to help most is generally upbeat, at a certain tempo, and features mostly Major chords over Minors (that means it literally has a happier sound- sad songs are made with Minors… /;)
So key takeaway from all this: LET PEOPLE LISTEN TO MUSIC WHILE THEY WORK, STUDY, LEARN, BLAH BLAH BLAH. If you can keep them in a good mood, they’re going to do good, if not better, work. And hey, maybe you can make them perform better by just being nicer too. Isn’t that cute!
