Facts About the Mozart Effect and Intelligence

In 1993, Gordon Shaw and Frances Rauscher, scientists from Irvine, California discovered that listening to Mozart can increase intelligence. Within weeks, record shops in the US rode the bandwagon with banners such as “Make Your Child Brighter!” and “Get Brainier Listening to This Music!” One state even allocated substantial funding to enable pre-schoolers to receive a listening diet of this classical ‘wonder music’.

Soon enough, this commercial frenzy triggered skepticism among critics. They had to know how good if this research could really stand up under scientific scrutiny.

Ten years later, after a number of studies, scientists were able to conclude that there is a so-called Mozart Effect – actually and impressive raising of spatial IQ (the ability to solve jigsaw-like tasks for 15 minutes after listening to Mozart) – but no proven case for a longer-lasting benefit.

To investigate the issues further, according to Paul Robertson, a professor in music and psychology, it is helpful to understand the background both of the original research and of the historic role music played in education and healing.

The systems of Western Music are based on the pre-scientific belief that music is a reflection of ‘universal laws’ predating even the Ancient Greek philosophers – Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras et al—who later created our basic cultural view.

The concept of the “harmony of the spheres,” which is now generally misunderstood as merely a poetic fancy, was used by all significant thinkers and scientists in their early scientific experiments and construction of musical instruments to comprehend the structure of the universe.

Though scientific apparatus and concepts have changed greatly since then, whole areas of musicality often seem to offer surprisingly similar insights.

Gordon Shaw, as a distinguished physicist, with the intention of setting an unshakeable foundation in modern science, made an algorithm of intelligence; a theoretical computation, in fact, of how neurons of the brain fire in order to ‘think’.

With this pattern Shaw was able to generate a whole raft of resulting patterns. He then generated color pattern printouts to make the raw information meaningful.

Shaw’s university colleague Frances Rauscher, a music cognition expert, pointed out that the human auditory system is best able to recognize both pattern and incongruity. So Shaw used the same computer brain algorithm to make tonal patterns instead.

What they heard coming out of the machine was something very close to 18th-century music. The next step was inevitable. If brain patterns resembled musical ones, surely those same musical patterns might prime the brain to function better.

Auditory specialist Dr. Alfred Tomatis then discovered that the music of Mozart and Gregorian chants are the most powerful way to reeducate and recalibrate the auditory system and brain coordination. The structural nature of these kinds of music helps clarify time/space perception. The nature of the music echoes the way in which the brain becomes familiar with the development of ideas.

Tomatis believed that because Mozart’s music most perfectly reflects the ideal pre-language vocalizing it creates an ideal learning condition.

Eminent psychiatrist Dr. Oliver Sachs suggests in some of his work that Mozart’s music is neurologically perfect, while the great educationist Lozanov also based much of his ground-breaking ‘suggestopedic’ work on the belief that Mozart provides a uniquely productive learning environment which favors the Alpha brain rhythms known to be associated with enjoyable and open, assimilating states of mind.

Dr. Peter Fenwick, a neuro-psychiatrist completed some studies of the unborn child’s responses to music. Once again, it’s Mozart that has the most beneficial effect – helping sleep and Alpha-wave patterns. From account of a certain woman named Margot Cleg, her husband benefited from Mozart’s music. Some years ago, her husband, Philip fell into a coma following surgery. Three days later, with Philip still unresponsive and in intensive care, Margot, remembering Dr. Fenwick’s lecture, was able to persuade the doctors to allow her to play her unconscious husband his favorite Mozart recording - The Clarinet Quartet performed by Jack Brymer and a certain quartet –the Medici.

Shortly after the music started Philip’s brain monitor began to flicker and by the end of the final variation he was almost completely coherent. The following day he was out of the intensive care and recovering fast.

Perhaps the Mozart effect could be the “real thing.” As far as experts know, there are no dangerous side effects.

Writing Career for Musicians

If you love music and you love writing, this career would be a logical path to follow.

What does it take to become music journalist or critic? You love music and writing. Are these enough for you to hack it in the competitive world of music journalism?

Most music journalists or critics originally planned to be professional musicians. Some start out as instrument majors in the music college while some hold a graduate degree in musicology. It is good not to be careful not to let your musical skills aside. If you love music and you love writing, this career would be a logical path to follow, but it is of great importance that you have a practical and theoretical background in music. The knowledge one must have to enter this field is incredibly vast. There is no clear-cut path to wealth and success in this field yet. As a start, get a musical education first, then journalistic experience second.

Keep abreast of the current music scene, regularly patronizing a library of CD or audio collection (acquired either from stores or online), reading constantly, branching out beyond classical music, and being prepared for what may be a long journey with primarily abstract rewards.

Listen to everything you can in as many versions as you can and get as many scores as you can. Pick apart the details and pay close attention. With that, you have more to say.

Exploring Music Criticism Career

The Role

It is a very broad job that could range from high-intensity, full time writing of features, reviews and previews for one or a large number of different publishers (newspapers, magazines, websites) to low-intensity part time work, perhaps as a supplement to another job.

The Highs

Autonomy, particularly in staff positions; freedom to follow your own schedule; conversations with great musicians; attending concerts; feedback from readers; writing about what you love; community respect.

The Lows

Meager pay; lack of job security; no steady paycheck or medical benefits for freelancers

The Salary

Pay varies hugely. Before accepting a job, try to find out how much the money will buy in the locality. Being paid in US dollars is often a better deal than receiving local currency.

The Training

There is no formal career path but it helps to play an instrument well, have a degree in music performance, musicology, composition, or music history and to obtain some formal training as a writer (like a degree in English, communication, or journalism). Beyond that, experience is what counts.

Where to Find Work

Anywhere. Get your name on every arts and music mailing list, and try to make contacts at newspapers, magazines, and websites that publish music reviews or music feature articles. Get to know the critics and arts editors in your local community in person and meet other professionals in the national field.

Vivian Schweitzer, a New York-based freelance writer said, “If being a music critic is your dream then hold out for it, by all means. But you have to be realistic. If you want to write about classical music full-time, it’s going to be very hard.”

Everyone has a chance, but you may have to wait a little before money comes in.

A Guide to Appreciating the Japanese Instrumental Koto Piece - Rokudan

Among the most renowned koto pieces is titled "Rokudan," or "Six Sections." It is distinctive of the danmono type of instrumental pieces comprising of various "steps," or sections, called dan. Each dan carries 104 beats and is iterated several times, with distinguished variation. A short intro of 4 to 8 beats (four beats in the instance of "Rokudan") sets out the piece, and each dan succeeds the last without a break. The first 4 beats are followed by 6 dan, each having 104 beats long. Listening to the piece once, nonetheless, could indicate that the danmono is anything but a mere theme-and-variation form, as the sections are hard to differentiate. Even after hearing the piece many times, one may not be able to tell apart where a new dan starts since the melody of each dan is comprised of short figures that are normally hard to distinguish. The second and third dan are probably recognizable as associated to the first, for they’re closer to the melodious content from the first dan; afterwhich the similarity in thematic material begins to be less clear. Some fundamental melodic figures can be heard once more, but in another pan of the dan, or in another range or rhythmical pattern.

Hence, instead of trying to differentiate every section, it makes better sense to listen for the repeated short melodic figures as well as greater overall patterns. Some of the short melodic-rhythmic patterns that recur have a settling dotted figure and octave jumps. As for bigger patterns, the jo-ha-kyu construction could be employed to the piece as a whole. The first two dan constitute the introductory section or the jo; the 2nd two dan determine the tempo increasing, as in a ha section; then the tempo gains its height in the final two dan, or the kyu section. The pace slows down just toward the end, in the last 22 beats or so, finishing in a long glissando. This figure is also observed in individual dan, in which one can also feel a gradual building up of tension.

In listening to this courtly piece, we hear from the start four beats of "introduction" a long note of 2 beats followed by a coming down note a 4th away, then an interval of a 5th (ex. 8-4). This figure is easily heard throughout the piece. The accompanying beat of silence makes up the first beat of the material doubled in each dan.

A deliberate listener can hear an assortment of timbres and engaging tonal effects. Occasionally the pick of one finger slithering down the string creates a pitchless sound; sometimes glissandos sweep the strings. There might be changes in pitch that sound almost like a sliding from a note to the next and then back again. This is an effect of altering the pressure maintained in the left hand on the string when the right hand plucks it. Such soft shifting of pitch and tone color afford koto music a particular beauty.

Koto: The Ancient Japanese Musical Instrument

The Koto is a 13-string Japanese musical instrument which produces a unique sound through plucking. This ancient instrument was said to have been brought to Japan from China in the 9th century. It is considered a distant relative of the ancient Chinese instrument- the qin, which dates back to the 5th century.

In the Japanese literature, the earliest mention of this instrument was written in an ancient handsroll in the Genji Monogatari or The Tale of Genji 12thC (translated in English as follows):

“Is my lord aware

Of an agitated heart

Unsteady as the rope

Slackened when our vessel halts

Charmed by the sound of a koto?” -Gosheki lady

The refined music of the koto is well known to several foreigners because it has become familiar outside Japan thanks to concerts, records, and CD’s. Whether performed as a solo instrument or in an ensemble, having a vocal part or without one, for several centuries the koto has been among the most popular traditional music instruments of Japan.

The modern-day koto is a long (nearly 1.8 meters), wooden instrument with 13 strings, traditionally silk but now, also nylon is used. Bridges (known as ji) bear the strings above the surface of the instrument, one bridge for every string. These bridges can be moved so that the player can adjust them at various places across the string, depending on the needed tuning.

Similar to the prototype of the shakuhachi, the ancestor of the koto came to Japan from China in the early centuries of cultural interchange, then the instrument was slowly adapted to its current form. After many centuries of use by an elite few, in the Tokugawa period the koto slowly spread in popularity to other segments of Japanese society. At this time, changes in learning and in the koto repertoire induced numerous men and women to learn it (Malm 1959:169). Growing numbers included merchants, the class that formally held the bottom status but which was advancing quickly in riches and influence. Near the beginning of the Meiji period in 1868, the koto could be discovered in numerous private homes and in teahouses and theaters, and skilled koto operation had become a mark of good upbringing for young women. A lot of of the sokyoku (or koto music) pieces played today were composed in the Tokugawa period, when fresh schools and styles of performing rose up. During this time the koto was involved in ensembles with the shamisen, and later, the kokyu or shakuhachi, combinations that contributed a significant form of chamber music into Japanese life.

Japanese Music: The Komuso, Shakuhachi, and Zen Buddhism

The Komuso (Japanese mendicant monastic) became organized into the Fuke religious sect of Buddhism in 1600-1868 during the Edo period in Japan. They developed a Zen style of shakuhachi playing. Zen Buddhism is a philosophy that’s propagated all-over Asia and the world in diverse forms, but it’s established on the idea that intellect is not required in the pursuit of truth. We can explore to know about matters, but we don’t actually know them. To recognize them, we must cast away our notions of scientific investigation and coherent reasoning and rather trust on heightened consciousness and intuition about life.

Several means for attaining that state of heightened awareness of enlightenment (satori in Japanese) have been suggested. These include pondering (koan) or paradoxical enigmas (the most famed is "What is the sound of one hand clapping?") and the practice of zazen, seated in silent meditation. To the Fuke sect, playing the shakuhachi was also reputed a means for attaining enlightenment. For this reason, the shakuhachi wasn’t regarded a "musical instrument" by its performers, but a hoki or "spiritual tool." The spiritual approach to the "playing" or use of the instrument is known as suizen, or "blowing Zen"

The goal of shakuhachi, according to suizen, concurs with the goal of Zen: to attain enlightenment, carrying on into limitless "knowing." How this is done isn’t developed precisely (as it cannot be from the Zen perspective), but one basal notion is called ichoon jobutsu or "enlightenment in a single note." As stated by to this theory, one may reach enlightenment all of a sudden when blowing a single tone.

Breathing is important in shakuhachi playing and its association with Zen. The exhaling of breath is listened upon in the dynamic level and tone quality of a pitch, at the same time, it bears with it the possible action of instant spiritual enlightenment. Thus, each instant of "performance," whether the intake of breath or its very slow release, whether the elusive, delicate filling in of a tone or the explosion of air via the instrument, can be translated in the context of a bigger spiritual life.

The breathing pattern is crucial in determining to play the shakuhachi. Each phrase takes one entire breath, with striking shifts in dynamic level according to how quick the air is expelled. The typical set phrase in shakuhachi honkyoku music conforms to the instinctive breathing pattern, the sound getting fainter toward the end of the phrase when the air in the lungs runs out. If this dynamic pattern is interrupted by a gradual or sharper increase in volume, it creates a marked impression on the listener.

In the zen shakuhachi playing, the concept of ma (meaning “space” or “interval”) is very much observed. Basically, ma revolves around the idea that sound is enhanced by silence and silence is enhanced by sound conforming to the concepts of emptiness and space of the Zen.