Introduction
This essay will analyze Mozart classical music and the effects that it possesses to normal human beings. One of the most important evolution phases of music was the classical era. This era saw the transformation of music and the coming up of the world greatest artists. Mozart wrote a lot of music in his time. He made over a thousand songs, however; most of his songs do not fall into the same category. His music ranged from folk music to classical music.
Body
His music had so much effect on people that there are several studies done to analyze the effects. A study conducted by Rauscher and Ky (1993) on college students came to the conclusion that students who listened to Mozart’s songs for 10 minutes their IQ rose from 8-9 based on the spatial ability and Stanford subtest (Rauscher, 1993). To make the test more reliable, the students were compared with other students who did not listen to anything or listened to some other relaxation music. As much as the test conducted was limited to only college students, its effects were felt by people from all walks of life 1 . According to several researchers, the Mozart effect was the most reported unlike other nature articles at the time (Rauscher, 1993). The Mozart effect was so popular that in the year 1998 the governor of Georgia at the time proposed a bill that all newborn children should be given a cassette of the classical music.
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Another study conducted by Rauscher et al., (1997) involved a six-month keyboard training class. The research involved young children from the ages of three to five. All these children were taught separately each having a 10-minute class for six months. The group of children did test scores in the spatial-temporal abilities test. However, there was no much difference between the students who took the piano class and the ones who did not 2 . There were several researchers who wanted to replicate the Mozart effect, but they had zero to no success in the attempt.
The popularity of Mozart effect can be traced to entrepreneurs who were seeking to make profits as well as to find quick solutions to problems that would otherwise require some more expensive but proven programs (Bennett, 2013). Most scholars agree with the research of Hart and Risley (2015), their study mainly dealt with the upbringing of children from different socio-economic backgrounds and the way that their background affected their quality and quantity of utterance 3 . They did come to the conclusion that the higher the socio-economic background, the more utterance that will be heard from the child.
Mozart effect is way much more than the spatial reasoning, the notion that listening to music makes one smarter has become very popular among students 4 . This has led to actions like the Governor Millers classical music initiative. If one goes online or in any library and search for products or music for gearing infants to classical music with the aim of enriching their sensory to better their brain development, there will be thousands of products available. In short, these people want parents to believe that certain types of music make babies more intelligent 5 . The idea that classical music makes people smart it is really not that simple as one may imagine. A lot of scientists has failed t replicate the original Mozart effect. As much as the Mozart effect has been supported by several experiments, there are some scientists who have criticized it (Burkholder, 2014). There are some several questions that have been raised concerning Mozart effect on the development of children.
There was a study conducted on University of New York students in 2012; the study involved 30 students, each of the students were given three IQ spatial reasoning tests using the Stanford Benet intelligence scale. All the students were exposed to some sort of music including Mozart songs. After listening to the music they were all given a test, the test had a pattern analysis it also included multiple choice matrices and finally paper folding and cutting. The researcher came to the conclusion that indeed the Mozart effect was real and it helped in boosting intelligence, however, the intelligence did not last long it only lasted ten to fifteen minutes (Young, 2017). Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky concluded that the complexity of Mozart’s composition was the thing that stimulated the human brain resulting to high IQ, the researcher also came to the conclusion that music that was not complex interfered with the reasoning of people 6 . These findings made people believe that classical music improved the functions of the brain.
Don Campbell, a well-known author, wrote in his book that classical music stimulates sensory organs and increases neural connections in the brain this connection mostly benefits children (Campbell, 2000). A lot of scientists agrees that sensory stimulation is very essential in the growth of a child. From the studies conducted it is clear there is some relation between Mozart music and spatial reasoning. However, it is important to know that there was not even a single test done to prove that Mozart classical music improved intelligence all that was tested is the spatial reasoning test. Therefore, the spatial reasoning skill is the only thing that can be linked to Mozart classical music and not intelligence. Another important thing that people should not is that their improvements that were proved to exist are only temporary lasting only 10 to 15 minutes. The media has been selling the notion that the Mozart effect story and that it makes children smart it has to know been proved that this smartness will only last ten to fifteen minutes. One thing that researchers never talked about is the aspect of arousal. When the researcher was testing and monitoring the test subject’s heart rate they managed to detangle effects of Mozart from some extraneous variables, however, there must be some factors that link Mozart music to the spatial reasoning.
A groundbreaking experiment conducted on infant animals demonstrated a very important anchor of the Mozart effect argument. The experiment proved that there was a critical period in the growth of an infant that external stimulation was very important 7 . The experiment could be used to prove that the complexity of Mozart music can be used to stimulate the sensory organs of an infant and that the music is used more frequently on a child the child can become more intelligent. However the study does not fit perfectly with the Mozart effect it is actually a poor argument, one of the main reason that this is a poor argument is that it was done on animals (cats) one cannot compare a cat to a human baby. Another reason is that the study was based on sensory deprivation on eyes. The findings of that research cannot be conclusive on other sensory organs.
Without a doubt, there is a link between cognitive ability and musical training. And also verbal memory skills are usually good for musicians than they are for other people 8 . Some scholars have come to the conclusion that musical training does help in the development of nonverbal abilities this is because music training helps develop the auditory areas of the human brain. Scientists have come to the conclusion that verbal memory processes especially those used in music usually deal with the left hemisphere structures and eventually it causes some structural differences in the brain. The main reason these happens is that the processes both short term and long term makes use of the left hemisphere.
It is true that musicians have a better verbal memory than other people, this verbal memory starts early in their childhood. Musical training does strengthen the auditory temporal processing, and in turn, it mediates verbal recall 9 . This finding has proved that music does help in text recall however it only happens to people who regularly practice music (Rindermann, 2015). It is a well-known fact among musicians that the best way to learn song lyrics is by avoiding its melody. The melody interferes with a person’s recall ability. It is important to know that vocal learning is a privilege this is because it helps in some of human most sophisticated traits that is music and speech. If there is something to be learned from Mozart effect is that it helps in using some alternative verbal processing models.
Conclusion
After the original study of the Mozart effect in 1993 Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw there has been a lot of theories and claims put forth to support the Mozart effect 10 . The main purpose of this report was to critically analyze the Mozart effect and determine the validity of the claims that come with this effect. While a lot of studies have been conducted on the Mozart effect, the researchers came to one understanding that indeed there was some benefit of the Mozart effect despite the fact that its effects did not last long. In recent times the idea of the Mozart effect has been expanded to include a permanent intellectual enhancement. Parents all over the world took the Mozart effect to a whole new level; they totally believed that the effect would help their children become more intelligent. There have been a lot of replica of the Mozart effect, but none of them have been proved that they work. As much as it is believed that Mozart effect is the only effect that works there are some scholars who question the actual result of the Mozart effect. In conclusion, there is something that lacks in all these studies, and that is proving that is music has a long-lasting effect on the intelligence of a person.
Reference
Bennett, D. E. (2013). Understanding the classical music profession: The past, the present, and strategies for the future . Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Burkholder, J. P., & Grout, D. J. (2014). A History of Western Music: Ninth International Student Edition . WW Norton & Company.
Campbell, D. (2000). The Mozart Effect [R] for Children: Awakening Your Child's Mind, Health, and Creativity with Music . HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York.
Caplin, W. E. (1998). Classical form: A theory of formal functions for the instrumental music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven . Oxford University Press.
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Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G. L., & Ky, C. N. (1993). Music and spatial task performance. Nature , 365 (6447), 611-611.
Rindermann, H., & Baumeister, A. E. (2015). Parents' SES vs. parental educational behavior and children's development: A reanalysis of the Hart and Risley study. Learning and Individual Differences ,
Shaafi, S., & Gaemian, N. (2017). The Mozart effect comparing in children and adults with intractable epilepsy. Journal of the Neurological Sciences , 381 , 687
Verrusio, W., Ettorre, E., Vicenzini, E., Vanacore, N., Cacciafesta, M., & Mecarelli, O. (2015). The Mozart effect: a quantitative EEG study. Consciousness and Cognition , 35 , 150-155.
Young, S. (2017). Book Review: From Mozart to Messiaen: Reflections on a Lifetime of Music. Bridgewater Review , 36 (1), 39-40
