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"Mozart Effect" Has A Molecular Basis
pingbak writes "The 'Mozart effect,' where students were observed performing better after being exposed to a Mozart sonata, appears to have a basis in reality. According to New Scientist, two researchers have found the underlying biomechanics in mice stimulated by the effect. They don't know the details why Mozart's sonatas really cause this effect, but they know where to look. Guess I'm going to have to switch Shoutcast streams now..."
(Boy, am I opening myself up with this one!)
P.S. 1st post.
~~~
Just the opposite. They seem to have found some end results of this process in some gene expression. How the hell listening to Mozart could cause this has yet to be explained.
People who listen to Mozart score better on their exams than those who listen to Britney Spears. I'm sure this is all about some kind of mysterious electromagnetic interaction with synapse electric fields and not about better taste being highly correlated with higher intelligence. When those rats start quoting Shakespeare, get back to me.
This sort of phenomenon has to be triggered by something _other_ than Mozart. Like the pitch or frequency or some voodoo like that. But not because Mozart wrote it. I'm sure the same thing works with lots of classical music.
The article lists a few things Mozart's music stimulates. However, I wonder if there are any chemicals that have same or similar effects? The jocks have been doing steroids for years now. Don't you think it's time for us geeks to develop better learning aids than caffeine and a few other common stimulants?
Or does anyone know of a few already? If so, enlighten me. I'd love to try them out if they can really help me concentrate or if they help me memorize things better.
I'd much rather see a Honda Wigger blasting Mozart in his car, than the wretched "Niggas N Hoes" shake-fest. If it has any positive effect on his intelligence that's a much needed bonus.
But I think these research efforts would be better invested towards designing rap music that kills its listener.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
That would be a violation of the first law of car stereo dynamics: The price of the car stereo system is inversely proportional to the quality of music that it plays.
(On a side note, I'm curious if there's a way to create some sort of HERF gun that reliably disables subwoofers but nothing else. Is this even theoretically possible?)
Maybe it has something to do with overly compressing music, as seems to be the case on 98% of modern records. In classical recordings the music has it's ups and downs volume-wise, on modern recordings the volume is almost flat. Maybe our brains get the energy for listening to progressing sounds of pitch, rhytmical qualities and volume? I trust that these scientists tested on music that is not loop-based, but progressive.. but did they test on a record that is not overly compressed?
I find that I have an easier time thinking when I'm listening to certain kinds of electronic music, such as some (say what you will) IDM.
I always figured the must be similar to the Mozart effect since a lot of the electronic music I like to listen to is structurally similar to various kinds of Classical music.
Obwohl Sie Leuten benennen möchten, haben Sie bitte das Anstand zum es in ihrer eigenen Sprache oder in Ihrem eigenen Namen zu tun.
(Probably full of errors, but wtf)
there's also that old german stuff, what's it called? I believe it's non-addictive, if anything. Yeah.
The powdered Kola nut, however, is dangerous unless you dose it properly. Apart from that, it's completely legal (at least in DK) and harmless. I can really recommend trying to look it up on the net. If you really want what you describe, you will take the time to find out what it is, what it does, and where you can buy it - for yourself.
Remember, dose low.
A magnetron from a microwave oven + a suitable waveguide , whilst not being very selective, would likely knock out any power amps / head units at quite a distance.
.... well, maybe as a precaution you shouldn't point that thing at yourself :-)
It'd also only (probably) cause minor heating effects to people at any appreciable distance from it, considering the amount of time it would take to fry the electronics (a few seconds,say)
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Here is how you get that to work:
... ...
1. Buy up 1st tier suppliers for radio mfgs.
2. Implement "secret" feature to disable these with a simple RF frz.
2.5
3. Wait 5 years.
4. Enjoy the ability to disable almost anyone's car radio and equipment.
5.
6. Build a device that disables your disabling system. Sell to youngsters.
7. PROFIT!
8. See secret item 2.5 where you built in a second disabling device.
9. Enjoy your power.
UID 1000000 is just around the corner.
(On a side note, I'm curious if there's a way to create some sort of HERF gun that reliably disables subwoofers but nothing else. Is this even theoretically possible?)
Wouldn't an ordinary CB and a 100 watt linear mess with the electronics?
That's all well and good, but regardless, can someone at least give the name of the sonatas in question ? Even if the report is to be believed, (and heck, if one reads the linked article, it makes sense, especially the part about mouse toys) there are a lot of compositions by Mozart ... to say they do better than other music in general, is, in and of itself, too vague and unscientific. I'd like titles, please ?
And while we're at it, shouldn't we examine what makes them so powerful ? We certainly have no shortage of great minds: every University and College *I know of* has an incredibly grueling music theory degree, and after taking a simple piano appreciation class, this CS student knows better than to take any more music courses regarding song analysis!
PS - (I'm actually *shocked* no one has said it yet, but... this story reminds me of Neal Stephen's book, Snowcrash !)
--I gots 99 problems but a new machine ain't one!
AMD! Asus! Whoot! 6 years!
Always check your spelling before you post:
Ihr ist 3. Person pluralis.
As a composer and an on-going student of music (you never really stop learning), I feel I should comment on this.
Mozart's music may be extremely structured, but it was also innovative because of it's lack of structure. If you listen closely, you can see that Mozart would write out "improvised" sections, as his best asset was his ability to improvise just about anything. Calling a simple chord progression structure is like saying, "This pile of mud is a house."
A lot of new music, and I don't mean anything you can find on the radio, is highly structured. Minimalists, such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich, build their music off of a few (or many) simple rhythmic/melodic elements that are repeated.
In all honesty, there may not be any logical explanation. Have they tried other recordings of this piece? Or just one? What about some of his other piano sonatas? Or maybe Beethoven's Piano Sonata in Cminor (which was based, nearly measure by measure on Mozart's Piano Sonata in Cminor)? What about Bach? Or Haydn?
Before they can make any real conclusions, I think they have a metric butt-ton of research to do.
Mozart was deaf, remember. All he really had to go on was how the music looked and felt, but not really heard. They say when you lose a sense, your other senses become more acute. Perhaps he was "tuning" his music to some sensory reference we wouldn't normally be conscious of, which had something to do with neuron development.
Sure. The woofers should have a fairly narrow freq. range. Inductance is the word you're looking for. Second law of car stereo dynamics: the louder the music, the cr4ppier the car.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
Why is it always Mozart used in these kinds of tests? Why not some more interesting classical music? Mozart always sounds like elevator music to me. How about some Lizst or Rachmaninov or even Bartok? Something with a little "chest hair"?
Let's face it, Mozart was the Britney Spears of his period...
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
I've found that the way I improvise has a lot to do with what I listen to on the way to a gig. This was most wonderfully illustrated one day when I was listening to some really abstract jazz (Coltrane, Sun Ra, Sam Rivers) before playing a gig that was predominantly rock and blues. I had a lot of fun playing my solos that night, but the audience didn't want to hear whole-tone scales and half-step transpositions during a Rolling Stones song.
The moral of the story - get your head into the style you'll be playing.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Disable!? Why not find some way of causing the subwoofers to explode! Now that would be much more satisfying =)
This statement is misinformed.
While Mozart was born in the same year that Bach died, there was no stylistic relationship between them. It wasn't until much later in his life that Mozart even discovered the works of Bach. Even in his day, Bach was considered old fashioned, and was very much "out of style".
While Bach looked back to the old contrapunctal methods of structuring a piece of music, Mozart (and his contemporaries) were involved with largely homophonic music written in the Sonata form. In terms of texture, music from the classical common practice (including Mozart) consists of a melodic subject, and an accompaniment, whereas textures in Bach's music relies heavily on imitative counterpoint.
My thinking has always been that if the "Mozart effect" actually has any basis, it's in the structure of the melodic phrasing: antecedent consequent.
In classical common practice, melodic phrasing usually followed the convention of an Antecedant phrase (often moving harmonically from the region of tonic to dominant), followed by a Consequent phrase (often harmonically moving from dominant to tonic). This creates a very strong sence of symmetry. To pick a tune probably everyone here is familiar with, think of the opening phrases (or any other for that matter) from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.
It is this powerful effect of aural symmetry that I suspect has the most profound effect on our minds. It also typifies classicism in every sence: reason, order, symmetry.
BTW, I really find no basis for the all-too-common assertion of the link between mathematics and music. Composers (excepting people like Stockhausen perhaps) do not conceptualize music in mathematical terms. There is a relationship in that both music and mathematics have a symbolic notation, and that one can describe anything using mathematics, but that's about it.
All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. - Johann Sebastian Bach
I'm reading so many comments about the way listening to Mozart may affect genetic expression or the firing of neurons, etc., and it's seems fairly obvious that the spiritual side is being left out of this discussion. For those who don't believe in Creation, there is still the classical definition of the soul of man (gender inclusive) - see Aristotle.
The point to be taken is that the physical and spiritual are tightly integrated in human being, such that an influence on one necessarily affects the other. Styles or categories of music affect us differently. It's universally recognized that some music relaxes us, while another type gets us pumped up. Given this, it seems hyper-logical to me, to the extent that it's really boggling that we even question it's validity.
The only explanation I can think of is that maybe we don't want to admit that we have tastes that don't contribute to our fullest potential, and that recognizing such would imply some responsibility to reassess our listening habits?
On a related vein of thought, there is the argument that there is an objectiveness to beauty, and the beauty has degrees. Assuming it to be true, this certainly is related to the above.
"The qualities of measure and proportion invariably constitute beauty and excellence."
Plato (Philebus).
People who listen to Mozart score better
Not that I've seen.
But if you've got proof of scoring better with Britney then I'll reconsider that conclusion.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
more like why not find a way to delete the subwoofer?
DELETED!!
www.homestarrunner.com
Well, I'm slowly going deaf and frankly the only sense that I've noticed getting sharper is the ability to smell the litter box before my mate.
Frankly, I think that kinda' sucks as a super-power.
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
"...visited a young Wolfgang Mozart, who was three days old at the time.
"PDQ sensed a great potential in the boy, and told his father that with the right training and encouragement, he could become one of the greatest billiards player the world had ever seen."
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I wish I could design a HERF gun that disable blanket statements.
Subwoofers existed well before rap was born. We just didn't call them subwoofers back then, we called them ground pounders. Ask any classic rock fan and you will be shown 15 and 18-inch woofers that can turn Keith Moon's drumming into a deadly sonic weapon.
I use a subwoofer right at my feet as part of my home studio/stereo. It is tuned very low so that it admirably completes my near-field monitors' frequency spectrum almost transparently. You can hardly tell it's there, you're just led to believe my monitors have exceptional sub-bass (which they definitely don't).
Now in the car I do have roughly a kilowatt of sound, about 3/4 of it being subs. It's not nearly as obnoxious as a Honda with rattling license plate and no high-range, but it is certainly "loud enough". Most importantly, it's FUN! Play any music in there and it sounds great, whether it's Finger Eleven with the kick drum shaking your rib cage, or Diana Krall's bassist lulling you into a mellow jazzy groove.
-Billco, Fnarg.com