does classical music make you smarter?

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If you notice, in movies evil geniuses always listen to classical music...maybe classical music makes one eeevillle...

Yes, but it only works on those with a British or German or Russian or French accent. If you are American and you listen to orchestral music you are a the hero. (Jack Nicholson in "Five Easy Pieces", Tom Hulce in "Amadeus", Richard Dreyfuss in "The Competition" etc) :D
 
What a Great excerpt from a Great Movie!

What a difficult thing it is to be Salieri-like!

Amadeus:

Salieri: On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse - bassoons and basset horns - like a rusty squeezebox. Then suddenly - high above it - an oboe, a single note, hanging there unwavering, till a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing a voice of God.

That said, In my humble opinion, among my favorites, Beethoven is excellent; Bach is best. :cheers2:
 
Karl Barth had a Mozart painting in his study and began each day listening to some of the master. Whether or not that was what inclined Barth to have a mistress/assistant, Lollo, live with the family or not for all of those decades is a matter of conjecture.

Personally, I prefer Bach and Bob Dylan. Try to analyze Dylan's exposition of Genesis 22 sometime in his classic "Highway 61 Revisited."

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61."

Interesting take on the teleological suspension of the ethical, don't you think? Perhaps Dylan, like Barth, cut his teeth on Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling."

One of my non-Calvinist theology profs used to say that Bach was too controlled and mechanical. "It was almost as if he was a Calvinist." Frankly, I like Bach a lot, Mozart a little, and always am ready to listen to Bob Dylan. :rolleyes:
 
The sounds and structure of classical music will probably stimulate areas of your brain in a way that would be difficult to duplicate. It has been suggested that one reason for the vitality often seen in old musicians is the stimulus given to their brains by the high, pure notes.

Beethoven is sufficiently great, but Bach is the musician.
 
Here is an interesting link about the Mozart effect:

ttp://www.indiana.edu/~intell/mozarteffect2.shtml
 
"For toddlers it may make a difference because they do not listen passively, but intensively." This is very true. I used to play classical music pretty constantly when I kept a 2 yr. old as her nanny -- she was constantly stopping in play and pointing to the cd player, her mouth falling open and her face absolutely stunned with joy. She loved Kathleen Battle and Pavarotti. My nephew came in one Sunday morning (about 5 yrs old?) while we were playing some of Bach's organ music. He stopped abruptly in the doorway and got something of the same expression on his face and said excitedly, "Hey guys, what is this?" They don't listen to the music 'in the background' -- there world is all vivid and out front, they haven't learned perspective yet.

Vivaldi is my favorite composer for sheer vividness especially in his vocal pieces, and the most intricate, turning beauty.
 
The Mozart effect is bunk.


Here's some links:

FOXNews.com - Experts Discuss Whether Mozart Really Does Make Babies Smarter - Health News | Current Health News | Medical News

Mozart effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fact or Fiction?: Babies Exposed to Classical Music End Up Smarter: Scientific American

Classical music does not a genius make - BabyCenter


ALso, for those who use music to aid task-doing, any sort of music will do...as long as you like it. The rythmic beats of techno would aid repititous tasks much better than elevator music I would think. Barry Manilow would score low on all counts probably, except for sleeping.


Also, as far as complexity of pattern, heavy metal often is more complex than most musical forms - but I see no one advocating the Metallica Effect.


Why is the Mozart Effect such a popular scientific urban legend? Because it is popular to try to separate "high brow" froms of entertainment from "low brow" forms of entertainment.
 
I've heard a lot about baroque helping in concentration, thus aiding in learning. It has something to do with having one beat per second and drawing the body's system into the same rhythm. This article involving dementia is interesting.
Baroque music & dementia
 
No, listening to classical music will not make you smarter. You'd have to be fairly with-it intellectually to be listening to it in the first place. As to having your toddler (or unborn baby) listen to classical music, that's just the latest in a long line of educational "fads" that we are afflicted with (especially here in wacky California). It'll eventually disappear and be replaced with whatever the next educational fad will be - like: eating brocolli when you're pregnant will make your kid smarter.
 
I'm not sure that classical music will universally make people smarter; will algebra make you smarter? It didn't me, but it does for some people. And I'm not a fan of being a snob about highbrow entertainments -- as in, ascribing some kind of spiritual superiority to people because they like Beethoven rather than the Beetles. Nevertheless I think it's equally dangerous to say that all kinds of music are equal: that the efforts of a child pounding on the piano are objectively as 'good' or intelligent as those of Bach, or that a constant immersion in the works of children pounding on the piano will have equally the same effect as listening to Bach (not that I believe in any sort of redemption by loving good music: the Nazis loved good music). This is to deny that there is an objective beauty or that some things are more entirely conformed to it than others: I believe God is the objective beauty and I do believe that Bach expresses His beauty with more intensity and range than my own compositions for instance. I think egalitarianism -- everybody's efforts are as worthy as everyone else's because it's from the heart etc-- is as destructive a spiritual and societal error as snobbery. Lewis writes some good articles about this.

For the record I don't think Vivaldi is the greatest composer: I am simply more in love with his sacred music than even Bach's, with which I am very deeply in love.
 
If you read the article I mentioned above, it points out that the only thing that Mozart's music has done is improve spatial learning. Other than that, it has no other effect. They did note, however that for some, it helps their concentration when testing, but not studies have been done to show why. In addition, the study has only been done on college students, never children or babies.
 
As a side note (no pun intended), I have had my children listen to very little, if any, classical music (a failure on my part for which I am repenting). The other day, I was driving him to school and a piece by Listz was playing on the radio. Zach (age 6) immediately spoke up and said, "Is this Beethoven?" I commended him for having a good ear and at least getting the right musical period and recognizing that it sounded similar.
 
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