Music has always been more than entertainment. Even the ancients spoke about the influence of consonances on the body and human behavior, and today some directions are used to fight for social justice. Modern science is also interested in music: scientists are conducting experiments to find out how it affects the brain and what benefits it can bring us. "Knife" tells why music lessons are useful to everyone and whether it is possible to increase IQ by listening to classics.
Listen and Smarter: Does the Mozart Effect Work?
The belief that listening to music, especially classical music, has a beneficial effect on intelligence is widespread. Many argue about the details, for example, which is more useful - Mozart's piano concertos or his works for violin, but in general the ability of the classics to make us smarter is rarely disputed.
The concept of the "Mozart effect" appeared in the early 1990s. In 1993, scientists from the University of California, Irvine told about the results of their experiment: volunteers who included the works of the great composer performed better on tests of spatial thinking. The authors of the work themselves did not give this phenomenon high-profile names. The "Mozart effect" was first talked about when a new hypothesis became popular outside the scientific community and generated many generalizations.
For example, the media often wrote that the classics have a positive effect on intelligence in general, especially in children. It was believed that the masterpieces of the golden age of music not only improve certain skills (the same spatial thinking), but also increase IQ. In 1998, the governor of Georgia even offered to allocate more than $ 100,000 from the state budget to provide recordings of classical music for every family where a newborn was born. The politician accompanied his speech with Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" - however, this did not help him convince the audience.
Gradually, an entire industry grew around the intended effect. The very phrase Mozart effect is registered as a trademark, and many music collections are sold under it. According to their creators, these compilations solve a number of problems: they help to concentrate, improve memory, and in children develop speech, spatial reasoning and emotional intelligence. Sounds tempting, but can you trust these promises?
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Victoria Williamson, a psychologist at the University of Sheffield in the UK, believes that listening to classics is far from being a super tool for brain development. She draws attention to what the authors of the original study themselves said: the intellectual rise after listening to the classics does not last longer than 15 minutes - but when the idea of the "Mozart effect" went to the masses, they began to remember this less and less. Later, other scientists received similar results. Music did improve certain skills, but only for a short time.
Let's say that it will not work to increase IQ for a long time with the help of piano concerts. But how to explain the fact that in the first minutes after listening a person shows the best result? The authors of the first article assumed that it was Mozart's gift as a composer and the complexity of his music: perhaps the intricate interweaving of melodic lines somehow stimulates thinking and makes us more creative. But modern researchers, including Victoria Williamson, think it's much simpler.
Several experiments confirm this. For example, Canadian psychologist Glenn Schellenberg, for the sake of science, recalled his youth and the experience of playing in a synth-pop group. He took the same Mozart sonata as the authors of the 1993 study, and recorded several new versions of it - in fast and slow tempo, in major and minor. The fret and pace were really important. On the same spatial reasoning test, those who listened to the fast major version scored an average of 16 points, while those who received the slow minor version averaged 8. In another experiment, Schellenberg and colleagues confirmed that sad music reduced test scores. The impact of Mozart's sonata was compared to the effect of the famous Adagio Albinoni, and it turned out that, although this work cannot be called simple, it did not help to solve problems better.
So, it’s not so much melodies that make us smarter, but good mood. This is indicated by another experience of the same scientists. This time, one group of volunteers played Mozart, and the other an audiobook by Stephen King. It turned out that the stories of the king of horrors also increase test scores quite well, especially among fans of King.
So if you want to listen to music for the benefit of yourself, choose any, if only you like it, and the positive effect - a good mood - will not keep you waiting.
Play as best you can: how music helps you grow
Does this mean that the wave of interest in the "Mozart effect" has not done anything good? Not at all. Discussions around this problem helped those who considered the classics boring or overly complicated to become interested in it and hear the familiar melodies in a new way. But, more importantly, thanks to the talk about the benefits of the classics, many parents thought about giving their children at least the beginnings of a musical education. Music lessons are not obligatory everywhere, but in vain: science has no doubts about their effectiveness.
Many scientists believe that practicing music (this includes singing, playing instruments, and other forms of learning) also helps to develop many skills that are not directly needed for producing sounds. For example, researchers at Harvard Medical School have noticed a link between education and job success.
Their experiment involved 59 ten-year-old children, two-thirds of them learned to play keyboards or string instruments for at least three years. As expected, those who studied music performed better on fine motor tests and recognizing differences in pitch. But in addition, they bypassed non-musical peers in other tasks.
How does music lessons develop these abilities? There are several versions. First, playing instruments is a complex process that requires many skills. For example, the need to read sheet music trains the ability to decode any text, so it becomes easier to build up a rich vocabulary. On the other hand, parents who send their children to play music may be more involved in parenting overall. Perhaps they are more careful not only to make sure that the child rehearses regularly, but also how he does school homework or reads. Here, of course, it is important not to overdo it: lessons from under the stick have not made anyone happy yet.
Another important point is motivation. It is not without reason that scientists have worked with children who have not abandoned the piano or violin for at least three years. Probably, they have a high general level of motivation to study, they do not give up difficult tasks at the first difficulties, hence their success.
A similar study has been conducted by scientists from the University of Southern California for 5 years. They watch nearly 70 low-income children in the Los Angeles area. A third of the participants in the observation played in a youth orchestra, and from time to time all children were examined using MRI. The scientists found that after two years of study, the brain structures of the "musicians" and "non-musicians" were different. Children who played in the orchestra developed more sound processing zones.
Natalia Pelezneva
