Erick+Editorial

Erick Martinez  12/15/10 Classical Music and its Effect on our Brain

What is it that drives us to be who we are? The one thing that we hear almost every day in different taboos: music. Music has been around for as long as mankind has existed and it has affected us ever since then. It has shaped us to a point in which it has an effect on our mind and actions.

Every genre of music contains its own style and story. It depends on what you listen to that helps you on your next actions. The most positive effective music is classical music such as the works of Mozart and Beethoven. Most people; however, don’t know the benefits of such music. There have been studies showing that music, such as Mozart’s pieces, improving the focus of students and actually help them study. The “Mozart effect” as some people refer to it causes “spatial-temporal reasoning” which increases the performance of mental tasks. A 1993 experiment done by scientists Shaw, Rauscher, and Ky showed that listening to Mozart increased the IQ, temporarily, of several participants when they went to take the Stanford-Binet IQ test. Another great example of such effects is the big genius himself: Albert Einstein. He was “stupid” at school and they told his parents that he was a lost cause. Albert’s parents didn't lose hope and decided to buy him a violin. After they bought him the violin, Einstein somehow “grew” smarter. How could this be? Well, an online article titled the " [|Music and the Brain]"  sums it up: “Mozart's music and baroque music, with a 60 beats per minute beat pattern, activate the left and right brain. The simultaneous left and right brain action maximizes learning and retention of information. The information being studied activates the left brain while the music activates the right brain. Also, activities which engage both sides of the brain at the same time, such as playing an instrument or singing, causes the brain to be more capable of processing information.” In other words, Mozart and Albert’s passion for classical music helped him. Don’t you hate it when you receive writer’s block; well an online article titled “ [|Classical Music and Your Brain] ,”explains how classical music helps  clear writer’s block. The way it works is that the beats of the music produce a sound that activates the creative side of your brain, thus ridding writer’s block. Excruciating pain is something to get rid of. According to an online article “ [|Can we help you find something?] , ” a study done in the Florida Atlantic University College of Nursing has shown that slow-tempo classical music helps relax and relieve patients of pain because of its slow tempo and because they found it as a distraction of the pain. With such a great effects, Julie Clarck founded a CD set called //Baby Einstein// . The CD set is for infants and contains classical music. The idea behind it is that infants that listen to the CD grow up smarter. This modern day use of old style music placed in CDs shows how far, as a society, we came. It shows us, how we care about our future by placing classics in CDs. We now know that they are beneficial and we can use them to shape our minds and thinking.