# The Mozart Effect...



## KidClassic (Jun 27, 2013)

Hey All,

I'd like to start a discussion about the so called "Mozart Effect"

True? False?

What is your experience?

Then it is said that not all classical (piano) music enhances the brain...

:tiphat:
Kid


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

You know what I think the Mozart Effect really is? That an education can help you think clearer. Exposure to great ideas can inspire, that's what I think the gist of it is. It isn't confined to Mozart, but that's a catchy name for it, given who he is.

My experience? That Mozart made me some clevererer than what I used to be was...


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Not just ideas but great music. That Mozart, great guy, guy can write, guy can play. 

Inspires me and others to be brighter.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Hmm - interesting. 

It must be difficult to devise a 'double-bind' test. People who choose to listen to Mozart may already be bright, patient, cultured etc. I think that if you are exposed to any intricate art form, you will get better at following it, trained to detect its artfulness, and in time that will improve your - ability to follow the stated art form... 

Concentration is all, really.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

False, of course.
Well, maybe not, I _do_ notice an effect... boredom-induced coma counts?.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Explained by Doctor (of comedy) Carlin at :55.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The Mozart effect? It's helped me greatly in getting in touch with my feminine side...~giggle!~


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Its false. Load of rubbish.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

What about the "Stockhausen effect"?... the experience is like flying to Sirius they say!.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> The Mozart effect? It's helped me greatly in getting in touch with my feminine side...~giggle!~


Well the Ives effect has helped me get in touch with my masculine side... *grumble grumble* get me some meat and something to punch!


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Try the 'Lully' effect. It turns you into a French aristocrat and you start shouting at your XflunkeysX *family*.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The Stockhausen Effect affected me differently. I began to gaze up at the stars at night, and tune into distant short-wave radio broadcasts...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> Well the Ives effect has helped me get in touch with my masculine side... *grumble grumble* get me some meat and something to punch!


Ha haa! Watch out later for more long-term effects, such as seeing Civil War ghosts limping by on crutches, mysterious jaw-harp sounds at night, invisible marching bands crossing-through your head, a generally more grizzled appearance, and sleepwalking through public parks.


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## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

Not sure what this “Mozart Effect” is meant to be, but I’ll always have soft spot for Mozart because he was the composer that got me into classical music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

presto said:


> Not sure what this "Mozart Effect" is meant to be, but I'll always have soft spot for Mozart because he was the composer that got me into classical music.


Nice biceps! ~giggle~ Oops, sorry, I'd better go listen to some Ruggles...


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

FWIW currently listening to WAM, while viewing *Wet Grass Effect* at Wimby. :tiphat:


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

millionrainbows said:


> The Mozart effect? It's helped me greatly in getting in touch with my feminine side...~giggle!~


a convenient excuse


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Ingenue said:


> Hmm - interesting.
> 
> It must be difficult to devise a 'double-bind' test. People who choose to listen to Mozart may already be bright, patient, cultured etc. I think that if you are exposed to any intricate art form, you will get better at following it, trained to detect its artfulness, and in time that will improve your - ability to follow the stated art form...
> 
> Concentration is all, really.


I had a brilliant idea for a double-blind test for the Mozart effect. Get 100 infants and have them all raised in the wild by packs of wolves. For a randomly selected half, pipe Mozart into the forest. Twenty years later, see which group (or "wolf gang", if you prefer) is cleverer. Simple really. So far my grant application has been rejected by over thirty major universities.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Pseudo-science combined with perfect marketing hype has left subsequent generations born after the fad of the Mozart effect still thinking it is a phenomena which has a real effect.

The whole reputed effect was "proven" by seriously sloppy pseudo-science, and later easily dis-proven by science, which needed no extraordinary procedures to take that Mozart Effect sucker apart in a few paragraphs.

What has proven, it seems, to more permanently improve certain thinking processes is learning to read music combined with playing an instrument, the connectivity of learning those skills and practicing them for some years is a workout for several areas of thinking which seem to not be exercised by much of anything else -- proverbially taking the brain to the gym.

But, hey, 'Mozart effect' -- where is that generation that should be with us by now, the generation with the extraordinarily high percentage per person IQ? Right.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> I had a brilliant idea for a double-blind test for the Mozart effect. Get 100 infants and have them all raised in the wild by packs of wolves. For a randomly selected half, pipe Mozart into the forest. Twenty years later, see which group (or "wolf gang", if you prefer) is cleverer. Simple really. So far my grant application has been rejected by over thirty major universities.


I should add that in order for this study to be truly double-blind, all the wolves would need to be deaf.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Nereffid said:


> I should add that in order for this study to be truly double-blind, all the wolves would need to be deaf.


That's the Beethoven Effect, surely?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> The Mozart effect? It's helped me greatly in getting in touch with my feminine side...~giggle!~


You know, your masculinity was not in question until you said that about Mozart's music.

Next you'll be spouting that other cliche about Chopin's music being "effete" (when you really meant effeminate - the misuse of effete being part of the cliche.)

There is an interesting lesser known phenomenon which also involves the music of Mozart, though. 
Often enough, people who don't get Mozart don't really get music


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## julianoq (Jan 29, 2013)

Kieran said:


> That's the Beethoven Effect, surely?


So the kids must listen to Mozart, and the wolves Beethoven? So will the wolves evolve to deaf romanticism and the kids remains classical? And if the birds listen to Cage, what will happen? I am confused.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Yes it definitely makes you smarter if you listen to him.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

This must be the Official Mozart Effect Logo.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Vaneyes said:


> This must be the Official Mozart Effect Logo.


Smart Dresser! ........................


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> Its false. Load of rubbish.


Oh damnn... Better to sell all the Mozart albums i have bought.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

PetrB said:


> There is an interesting lesser known phenomenon which also involves the music of Mozart, though.
> Often enough, people who don't get Mozart don't really get music


Oh, c'mon!: It's not that I don't get it... I simply can't stay awake in order to try to get it!. 
Ah!, and those gorgeous appoggiaturas... quoting MR: "~giggle!~".


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Hey, if it gets gullible parents to listen to classical music and get their young children to do same, it can't be all bad. Unless, of course, it puts off said kids and parents simply because they think everything is like the first movement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (not even the whole thing).


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Ingenue said:


> Try the 'Lully' effect. It turns you into a French aristocrat and you start shouting at your XflunkeysX *family*.


Careful with the baton, or you may have major foot problems


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

jani said:


> Oh damnn... Better to sell all the Mozart albums i have bought.


Now, _that_ would be stupid


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

aleazk said:


> Oh, c'mon!: It's not that I don't get it... I simply can't stay awake in order to try to get it!.
> Ah!, and those gorgeous appoggiaturas... quoting MR: "~giggle!~".


You are the one to write the tome: The Soporiphic Mozart


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

My interpretation of it is that it's just a placebo effect: An example would be performing better on their exams or retaining more because believing the music will help makes them more alert. That just means they're using their brain at its full capacity, which is probably more than they're used to; but it doesn't mean they're actually smarter(If you define intelligence as IQ which is relatively stable).


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

trazom said:


> My interpretation of it is that it's just a placebo effect: An example would be performing better on their exams or retaining more because believing the music will help makes them more alert. That just means they're using their brain at its full capacity, which is probably more than they're used to; but it doesn't mean they're actually smarter(If you define intelligence as IQ which is relatively stable).


One group of students, about to take an exam, were in a room where Mozart recordings were played for, oh about 20 minutes. 
The other group sat in a room just waiting.
With no distraction, the average person about to take an exam is going to go into some sort of 'spin' of worry, tension and anxiety.
Anxiety is known to be *the* force majeur in sabotaging quality of performance.

IF the second group were also given a distraction, say as radically opposed to listening to Mozart as playing violent video games, they too would have been distracted and not had time to ramp up their anxiety about taking that exam, and might have performed as well as the "Mozart group."

Pseudo-science, at its very best, is the result extracted from that experiment as it was set up


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

PetrB said:


> One group of students, about to take an exam, were in a room where Mozart recordings were played for, oh about 20 minutes.
> The other group sat in a room just waiting.
> With no distraction, the average person about to take an exam is going to go into some sort of 'spin' of worry, tension and anxiety.
> Anxiety is known to be *the* force majeur in sabotaging quality of performance.
> ...


That's interesting. I didn't know about how the experiment was set up. I just meant their success really wasn't about the music, just that they were confident it would help them. By 'they' only mean people who've reported it worked for them (mostly on youtube).

i also read anxiety has a curvilinear relationship with performance: Just the right amount can improve test performance, but too much can obviously mess you up completely. I should know from one of my piano recitals.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

trazom said:


> That's interesting. I didn't know about how the experiment was set up. I just meant their success really wasn't about the music, just that they were confident it would help them. By 'they' only mean people who've reported it worked for them (mostly on youtube).
> 
> i also read anxiety has a curvilinear relationship with performance: Just the right amount can improve test performance, but too much can obviously mess you up completely. I should know from one of my piano recitals.


There is good 'nervous energy' and then there is anxiety ~ two entirely different things.
One, you're "nervy" and / but _*stoked!*_ The other, just nervy-terrified


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Smart Dresser! ..
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What a horribly repellent image. I'll just reproduce it again, to make sure.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> What a horribly repellent image. I'll just reproduce it again, to make sure.


Smart dresser as in listening to Mozart makes you smart. Actually, looking at this image makes my eyes smart.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Anything that makes you think in new ways is likely to create more connections in your brain and so increase your intelligence.


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## IBMchicago (May 16, 2012)

But, you have to admit, the Mozart Effect, like any warm and happy belief, makes life sunnier and purposeful. Which is why I wish I had come up with it first....rats.


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

Mmmm... the Mozart effect...

His music makes me happy; the kind of blissful one. Helps to overcome moments of sadness, relaxes the mind preventing the emergence of tainted mental states and, in settling the mind, stilling the turmoil of thoughts, is excellent for preparing for meditation. Listening to his music there's in no room for other states than those happiness and joy.

I haven't experienced this, with such intensity and clarity, with other composers, but I am sure that this effect can be experienced with different music for different listeners. 

By the way, I have never read Don Campbell's 'Mozart effect'. I am not really interested. The effect is there while listening.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Oh, yes. There's a Mozart "effect". But there's also a Bach effect, and a Beethoven effect, and a Brahms effect, and a Debussy effect, and a Bartok effect...


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

i think they said it had no greater effect than any other composer or style of music. so it's music that stimulated the mind for a short period of time. 

the ones that listened to music did better in a test compared to the ones that listened to silence.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Proof that the "Mozart Effect" actually works!!!


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

True and False. It's true listening to more complex music can help exercise the brain, and could help improve memory or some academic abilities. But it is false to say that making a baby listen to mozart, or classical in general, is a sure fire way to create a future genius.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

It's not repetitive enough to produce trance states. 

I listen to it for a certain cerebral "all my ducks are in a row" effect, of Platonic satisfaction. I arch my eyebrows. All is well, all is balanced....Apollonian perfection and restraint...CLOSE THAT DAMN DOOR!


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