# Listening to Classical Music Makes You Smarter, let me explain...



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Listening to Classical Music Makes You Smarter, this is the wrong way to phrase it: _*Understanding* Classical Music Will Make You Smarter!_

Does anyone agree with me? 
Perhaps someone disagrees?


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

If it were true, then how do you explain five pages on composers who'd make great couples?


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Listening to classical music makes you understand it.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Seriously, I think learning to play an instrument can make you smarter, and learning music theory can do the same. Heck, and some level, learning about any subject helps develop your brain.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

GreenMamba said:


> Seriously, I think learning to play an instrument can make you smarter, and learning music theory can do the same. Heck, and some level, learning about any subject helps develop your brain.


Then you affirm the premise. I guess the point here is that Classical Music, in contrast to more popular forms of music, has a greater capacity, if understood, to impart a greater intelligence. But in order to conduct this empirical experiment we would have to test people who listen to popular music against people (who not only listen to classical music) but actually understand it. We could also say, understanding mathematics makes you smarter, why should it not be the same with classical music?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I don't know about increasing intelligence? One can increase knowledge, understanding, and insight through study and concentrated listening. But I wish it could make me as smart as Boulez, Bernstein, or Ligeti, but that isn't going to happen.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Well, I don't affirm the premise that Classical has a greater capacity to impart greater intelligence. In fact, my guess is it's just one of many interests that can impart intelligence. We develop our brains by attempting to understand things.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

GreenMamba said:


> Well, I don't affirm the premise that Classical has a greater capacity to impart greater intelligence. In fact, my guess is it's just one of many interests that can impart intelligence. We develop our brains by attempting to understand things.


*Greeman*, I was quite specific here, I said in contrast to popular music.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

starthrower said:


> I don't know about increasing intelligence? One can increase knowledge, understanding, and insight through study and concentrated listening. But I wish it could make me as smart as Boulez, Bernstein, or Ligeti, but that isn't going to happen.


I know how you can become as smart as them but you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Classical music scores are harder to understand than pop, so a sustained effort to understand Classical would presumably make you smarter.

But what do you mean by "understanding" Classical? How many of us fully comprehend it? I don't believe just listening to Mahler makes you more intelligent than just listening to Johnny Cash.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

GreenMamba said:


> I don't believe just listening to Mahler makes you more intelligent than just listening to Johnny Cash.


Neither do I. That's why I said 'understanding' it makes you smarter. In this sense, by understanding I'm really just referring to being able to follow the composer. One doesn't have to be able to read a score. If a person can follow along with Mozart or Beethoven they have already increased their intelligence. But what one cannot do is just listen passively, there must be a comprehension of the piece... doesn't need to be exhaustive. [_By "follow along" I mean get the gist of what the composer is trying to say._]


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I would be skeptical of the notion that 'understanding' music without being able to follow the score makes you smarter. For it to make you smarter - not just to make you more knowledgeable about that piece, but to actually increase your intellectual capacity - I suspect it has to be pretty deep level of study.


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## Guest (Mar 1, 2016)

No, it most certainly does not.

And such shameless attempts at self-affirmation are annoying at best and truly harmful at worst.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

GreenMamba said:


> I would be skeptical of the notion that 'understanding' music without being able to follow the score makes you smarter. For it to make you smarter - not just to make you more knowledgeable about that piece, but to actually increase your intellectual capacity - I suspect it has to be pretty deep level of study.


Okay, okay, you win, listening to Classical Music, in contrast to popular music, makes you dumber.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Corollary: All pop music eventually becomes classical music, so listening to Justin Bieber will make you smarter in 2075.


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## R3PL4Y (Jan 21, 2016)

While I agree that there are certain things that one can find almost exclusively in classical music, I don't agree that simply listening to it makes you smarter. I don't see why understanding what the composer is trying to say is any more likely to increase one's intelligence than listening to more simple music. I could see how one could make a point for analyzing the music very deeply, but that is entirely different from listening to it.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

nathanb said:


> No, it most certainly does not.
> 
> And such shameless attempts at self-affirmation are annoying at best and truly harmful at worst.


Well... I think you might be misunderstanding me here. My goal is really to induce musical literacy. If science proves that understanding classical music makes people smarter (which we now know thanks to *Greeman* that is does not) then we have a good reason to tell people to listen to classical music. When it comes to my case, I doubt there is any amount of classical music that could make me smarter, my dad said I was slow since the day I was born.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Listening to classical music makes you understand it.


I second this, :tiphat:


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Listening to classical music makes you understand it.


So let's think about this. If reading Einstein makes you understand Einstein, what does it mean to understand Einstein? I hate connecting the dots for people.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Science isn't art.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Science isn't art.


But to stick with my analogy, I think you mean to say, "music isn't a language." What do we understand when we understand music? (I really don't want to do this, it annoys me to have to explain this by juvenile steps).


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

No, I do not mean to say that. People don't care about Einstein for his language.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> No, I do not mean to say that. People don't care about Einstein for his language.


Let's just leave it at *Greenman's* powerful conclusion: listening to classical music makes people stupid.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Why? What I wrote doesn't imply that.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Why? What I wrote doesn't imply that.


Let's face it, a person that is unable to understand Einstein is smarter than a person who understands Einstein. This same syllogism applies to classical music. I knew there was a reason I bounce my head to hip-hop.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

The things you have to do to understand Einstein aren't the things you have to do to understand music.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> The things you have to do to understand Einstein aren't the things you have to do to understand music.


I know, anytime I understand any genius I grow more stupid.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

GreenMamba said:


> If it were true, then how do you explain five pages on composers who'd make great couples?


Who says with being smart, I forfeit my capacity to be stupid?


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Klassic said:


> I know, anytime I understand any genius I grow more stupid.


No, but maybe, any time you better understand any genius, you grow more aware of the extent of your own stupidity (even if you're a genius yourself, which I of course am) - which brings us to Socrates 101.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I believe it depends on how you approach the music. If you approach it merely as aural pleasure, then it does nothing for you. But if you approach the music as an education, then of course it makes you smarter (in the sense of better-educated, not in the sense of more intelligent). 

To me, music is an aspect of history and human culture. I don't care very much about "feeling good" or whatever as I listen; instead, I hope to understand humanity a little better, not in some woo-woo metaphysical way but actually understanding why some people have enjoyed this music, what it reflects about the society that produced it, and so on.

Edit: Just want to be clear that for these purposes "classical" music is not unique. All (or almost all) music makes you smarter if you approach it correctly.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I have a pretty good ear, and listening to classical music has given me a tool set, without studying very much theory, to compose pieces with counterpoint and accurate, even interesting, voicing. It's amazing how much my compositions improved the more I was able to differentiate and understand different Haydn symphonies, for example.

A different point entirely: Classical music, for those who are creative already and love it, really can fuel the fire. It can create memories and add to wisdom in tandem with coinciding life experience.

Some of these guys posting here annoy me with their dry attitude, afraid to claim anything for it as though they are humble, or have such a cultivated distaste for arrogance and the simple minded assertions of "The Mozart Effect". Klassic is not supporting that.

There is no way to know if I am improved for my very active involvement in classical music(though it's currently not as active and entirely listening based). But a more wholesome, big picture perspective of my interest and obsession, reveals that my subconscious has been enhanced. I have a more active imagination than ever, wild dreams, and these days I feel comfortable owning that I am creative. I used to be much less abstract.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

And I also disagree with this study/entertainment dichotomy. The best thing classical music has to offer us is through deep entertainment. It's like a meditation or deep imaginative play. It depends on how open you are to letting it enrich your imagination and introspection, and how you cultivate that. And it's always a work in progress. I maintain that I am in certain ways a better abstract thinker and certainly more open minded now(as long as I refrain from the seductive taste complex you can get from knowing about 'esoteric' things)

I beleive that something similar is true of reading good fiction.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

clavichorder said:


> Some of these guys posting here annoy me with their dry attitude, afraid to claim anything for it as though they are humble, or have such a cultivated distaste for arrogance and the simple minded assertions of "The Mozart Effect".


I'm all for claiming things for _The Marriage of Figaro_. Claiming much of anything for Albinoni or d'Indy, on the other hand, or claiming more for Vivaldi than for the Beatles (all due respect to both), is a different story.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

science said:


> Just want to be clear that for these purposes "classical" music is not unique. All (or almost all) music makes you smarter if you approach it correctly.


Actually, because hip-hop patterns are so exceedingly complex if you can follow them they are bound to make you smarter. But classical music all in all, is very common and simplistic, it is really the low point of our species, a kind of audible regression takes place when we learn its patters.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> And I also disagree with this study/entertainment dichotomy. The best thing classical music has to offer us is through deep entertainment. It's like a meditation or deep imaginative play. It depends on how open you are to letting it enrich your imagination and introspection, and how you cultivate that. And it's always a work in progress. I maintain that I am in certain ways a better abstract thinker and certainly more open minded now(as long as I refrain from the seductive taste complex you can get from knowing about 'esoteric' things)
> 
> I beleive that something similar is true of reading good fiction.


The limits of language might be challenging us. There are shallower and deeper pleasures. I don't want to get into that too much because that language can be used to suggest that the "low" arts cannot offer deeper pleasures, and I think that's a half-truth at best, certainly a complicated issue.

A professor I had used to quote some other scholar (who might've been Gershom Scholem but I don't remember): "Nonsense is always nonsense, but the study of nonsense is scholarship." Pleasure isn't nonsense but the bon mot works: "Pleasure is always pleasure, but the study of pleasure is scholarship."


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Klassic said:


> Actually, because hip-hop patterns are so exceedingly complex if you can follow them they are bound to make you smarter.


Actually, a lot of hip hp is very complex, just perhaps not in the ways you're used to thinking about music. And even if you're uninterested in those sorts of complexity, learning more about the cultural contexts and the situations that produce hip hop would definitely make most of us smarter.



Klassic said:


> But classical music all in all, is very common and simplistic, it is really the low point of our species, a kind of audible regression takes place when we learn its patters.


Honestly, I don't believe you actually think I meant anything like this. If you have to distort someone's position so violently in order to respond to it, perhaps you need to reconsider your own position.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

If one is going to conduct an empirical test on classical music and intelligence, then one has to conduct a test on people who _understand_ classical music (can follow along with it) not just people who listen to classical music (passively).

Test people who understand

Mozart,
Bach,
Beethoven
and
Mahler

Also, there needs to be a test taken before the person understood the music, and then after the person understood the music.

Some of us have already taken this test on ourselves. (Please do not misunderstand me, I am not claiming to be some kind of genius because I listen to classical music, that would be nonsense.)


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

We are scholars of Nonsense in the group Talk Nonsense. Or at least we think we are. 

"Talk Nonsense, a group where misunderstanding is often a virtue."

But to seriously respond a little more(to science), I have come across a number of people who know well how to discuss popular culture phenomena without irony. You can sharpen your mind on a lot of different things, as long as you are authentically immersing yourself in it.

On talkclassical, I believe many of us do that here with our metacognition about and deep listening to classical music, which happens to be an art that often involves these things and more from the get go.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

clavichorder said:


> We are scholars of Nonsense in the group Talk Nonsense. Or at least we think we are.
> 
> "Talk Nonsense, a group where misunderstanding is often a virtue."
> 
> ...


I appreciate your thoughtful and careful manner. I have observed it many times. I always appreciate people who think about what is being said, as opposed to merely judging by what is being said.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> We are scholars of Nonsense in the group Talk Nonsense. Or at least we think we are.
> 
> "Talk Nonsense, a group where misunderstanding is often a virtue."
> 
> ...


Yes. Most television and many movies are stupid in some ways, but a lot of intelligence goes into producing that stupidity. I'd say this is true of popular music, even the apparently stupidest, not to mention the apparently "popsiest" classical music.

I wonder, as so many of us put down hip hop music so confidently, how many of us could actually produce a song, or run a soundboard during a performance? I wonder how many of us know what dancehall is, or could hear the Cuban influence in the chants of Mardi Gras Indians. I even wonder how many of us instinctively clap on 1 & 3 rather than 2 & 4.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Depends what you mean by 'smarter'. Most people who listen to classical music tend to be the more educated variety but educated people can be dumb on certain things. If we're thinking of 'smart' (successful in business) we ought to ask what music people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson go in for.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

but im an idiot


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Likewise, even music so seemingly simple as the blues, requires an intensely refined creative skill to compose and perform at the highest level. Music theorists can't touch it much with chord analyses, voice leading, ect, but a certain 'it' factor remains that could perhaps be better approached with a very different musical theory.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Cosmos said:


> but im an idiot


My Stupidity Quotient is more than high enough as well. But we are Anti Intellectual dwarves compared to Dim7.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Cosmos said:


> but im an idiot


Not to worry friend, I'm probably the biggest ignoramus on this thread. After all, I created this thread.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

It has not worked for me. Look at all my dumb posts.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

^^^
True! Simple is not necessarily easy. It were true, everybody would be writing catchy pop tunes and making money.

Edit: In response to Clavi's #43 post.


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## nbergeron (Dec 30, 2015)

I tend to disagree. While it does take more concentration and effort to follow a Bach fugue than say Pet Shop Boys I doubt that has any lasting significant impact on the listener's intelligence. Some people choose to focus more energy on various aspects of their lives, whether that's listening to music, reading, watching sports, etc. We music fans may allocate extra brainpower toward listening to more complicated music but I tend to see that as more of a personal choice than a function of intellect.


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## Guest (Mar 2, 2016)

Klassic said:


> Then you affirm the premise. I guess the point here is that Classical Music, in contrast to more popular forms of music, has a greater capacity, if understood, to impart a greater intelligence. But in order to conduct this empirical experiment we would have to test people who listen to popular music against people (who not only listen to classical music) but actually understand it. We could also say, understanding mathematics makes you smarter, why should it not be the same with classical music?


To test your premise, you'd need to be clear what you mean by 'intelligence' and how you'd test for it. You'd also need to rule out the possibility that any additional 'intelligence' gained, was acquired by listening to music and not any other means. I'm not sure that such conditions could be created, but if they could you might have some data for consideration.

Until then, your hypothesis is no more than an assertion based on the reasonable intuition that classical tends to more complicated forms requiring greater 'analysis' than pop. However, what is less reasonable is the idea that any activity 'imparts' intelligence. In other words, you've got it round the wrong way: classical music is more accessible to those who have the relevant apparatus (skill, soul, will) to access it in the first place than it is to those who haven't.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

arpeggio said:


> It has not worked for me. Look at all my dumb posts.


Self knowledge is a virtue 
But not necessarily true


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