IMHO this is just woo-woo (http://www.skepdic.com/woowoo.html)...

Also see http://www.skepdic.com/mozart.html

Victor

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Akbari" 
To: 
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 10:38 PM
Subject: [Csnd] Mozart effect


> Hi List,
>
> I found this article today in the Journal of the Royal Society of
> Medicine (JRSM) on the so-called "Mozart effect" where listeners were
> able to demonstrate an increase in temporal-spatial ability and IQ
> following exposure to K448 from the standard repertoire.
>
> http://jrsm.rsmjournals.com/cgi/content/full/94/6/316-a
>
> My question is, have any of you out there done musical experiments or
> research involving similar types of phenomena.
>
> The above paper cites the rate at which musical events are occurring
> as key to producing this effect. Because of this, I immediately I
> thought of the synthesis technique we have available in Csound scanned
> synthesis contributed by Mathews et al. Since this type of synthesis
> uses haptically varying modulation parameters to affect timbre, I'm
> wondering if any investigators have observed this phenomenon with
> synthesized sound stimuli in modern research or clinical contexts. If
> not, what musical strategies might be useful in eliciting a similar
> response pattern?
>
>
> Thank you for your time and consideration,
>
>
> David Akbari
>
>
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> csound" 

Agreed.  This music is very much bound to a particular (Euro-centric) 
musical tradition.  I might accept the idea that if a person had a 
background in this music (meaning: some training or education, or at 
least immersion) that listening to it might have some beneficial 
effects, because then the listener had some cognitive and perceptual 
preparation.  But if you are from a completely different musical 
culture, I don't expect it would mean very much at all, and might even 
be perceived as cacophonous (no offense to cacophony).

I'm not sure if this is part of the "theory", but if there's an 
assumption that Mozart is *objectively* or *inherently* beneficial to 
one's neurology, then that seems to me to be pretty arrogant.  (This 
criticism is not aimed at you, David, just trying to put the idea in a 
more objective or culture-neutral context.)

Personally, as someone who grew up in the States and heard both 
classical and folk music all the time growing up, it was years before I 
was able to listen music from the classical era with any interest at all 
-- it just left me cold.  For me, Stravinsky was the way in, and I 
worked both backward and forward from that.

- Dave

Pedro Ferreira wrote:
> I think that _teaching_ music to kids is a great way of stimulating
> their intelligence and the development of their abilities, but I find
> it hard to believe that the simple fact that they just _listen_ to
> music will make them smarter. Maybe your intelligence actually
> increases (for a limited amount of time) in response to sound
> frequencies: you can stimulate it artificially by other known means,
> though with no permanent results. However, all the hype around this
> effect seems to be a huge load of BS (actually, the "Mozart effect" is
> widely known as a classical example of a scientific myth).
> In any case, teach your kids the practice of listening to good music
> :). It won't hurt them for sure...
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Pedro