There seems to be a substantial body of evidence in support of the Mozart Effect. While skeptics advice us to take the whole "Mozart Effect" thing, with a very large grain of salt. Whatever the truth, maybe there are other effects that have come from studying Mozart that have had tremendous influence on whole music learning, piano playing through the study and research and practice of new methods and technology aids. And it does seem to work for many people, similar to the Mozart effect.
Mozart was probably the greatest improviser on the piano, ever. Mozart revolutionized various forms of music and put unusual combinations of instruments together. He had an interesting head start, he began listening to his parents play the piano and the violin months before he was born, while most people develop a special fondness for the music they listened to during adolescence.
Plato in ancient Greece believed studying music created a sense of order and harmony necessary for intelligent thought. Plants exposed to classical music grow larger and give higher yields than plants without this stimulus. Countless studies have shown the physiological benefits gained from listening to enjoyable music, as well as studies on the use of music to improve memory, awareness, and the integration of learning style. A relationship between music and the strengthening of math, dance, reading, creative thinking and visual arts skills has also been vastly reported in the literature.
Some of the research and methods utilized today, need to be tried and experimented with when allowing our children to take advantage of the options that are available to them. If you have a piano, let your children bang on it, notice their facial expressions, and see if they enjoy doing it. Give the child the confidence that they need to untapped a new world of experiences and talents. Imagine one note struck upon the piano by them is a melodic concert for him, never heard before. Let him enjoy the moment and the many more that will come, if you just let him.
There is a wonderful method that is on the market today that can speed the keyboard learning process tremendously – Piano Wizard. It comes bundled up in a software package that works with a home computer and a keyboard. It shows that beginner student all the fun elements of music learning in an easy, colorful environment full of instrumental sound options.
By: Jesse Fisher
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First of all, I would like to thank you for writing this post. It was very thought provoking and of a subject matter that has had much debate in the past few years. As a music student myself who is very interested in the relationship between music and cognition, I have done much research into this phenomenon known as The Mozart Effect and would like to touch on and expand some of the points that you made.
First of all, you stated that Mozart “had an interesting head start… listening to his parents play the piano and the violin months before he was born.” I appreciate that you recognize this as being significant. Many people might not agree that this exposure to music while in the womb could have influenced Mozart. However, there has been much research conducted that shows that exposing unborn babies to classical music, and Mozart’s music in particular, can be greatly beneficial. It can stimulate a baby’s heart rate and can even cause more movement inside the womb. It can also enhance the baby’s development by minimizing or completely eliminating developmental delays. Doctors even recommend playing music for premature babies because it has been shown that premature babies who are exposed to music early on have higher survival rates than ones who are not.
I would also like to expand on the “countless studies [that] have shown… the use of music to improve memory, awareness, and the integration of learning style.” It is proven that between six and eight years old, a child’s skull and brain grows in size, and, as it grows, new links are formed between the child’s visual, speech, and motor regions. The child begins to be able to link what she sees directly to what she hears. Also, her logical reasoning and abstract thinking improves. The more music that the child is exposed to during this time, the better the brain’s neural integration. The rhythm in music helps the child’s logical reasoning, and the melody helps her intellectual discernment. On top of that, actively making music, or actively learning, combines mental and sensory memories, which enhances memory more than passive learning does. Musicians’ brains are different than everyone else’s because musicians combine mental and sensory learning daily.
Finally, I would like to briefly mention how “studying music [creates] a sense of order and harmony necessary for intelligent thought.” With its physical vibrations, rhythms, and patterns, music alters the brain in a way that regular learning cannot. This type of learning advances a person’s reading and language skills, and, if exposed to music at a young age, it can help raise a child’s test scores.
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