Does Listening To Music Aid Learning?

There's no doubt, on various levels, that music can effect your mood, pace and perhaps even your concentration, but since the early '90s a theory has been evolving about music's link with intelligence.

Most notably 'The Mozart Effect' has commanded the majority of attention - primarily by frantic mothers desperately trying to mould their child into the pinnacle in modern offspring. The crux of the idea has been widely interpreted to be that “your child can increase their intelligence by listening to Mozart's music”.

As a theory that is primarily adopted by parents, mother of one Shradha Sarogi explains why she chose to live by it: "'My father studied in America and he reads a lot of books on child psychology. He told me to listen to Mozart because it's very important. Especially when I was pregnant.”

“I got the music because I read that the beats of Mozart coincide with the heartbeat of the foetus. So it makes the child intelligent”

"They [the children] become more sharp. They respond more and they become brighter. I play them any classical music, not the rap or the pop music because I think that makes them very violent and disturbed."

Where there is (shaky) evidence to support this vague theory, if taken at face value, surely any piece of music at 60 BPM would have the same effect? Incliuding tracks by Coldplay, U2, Franz Ferdinand and even Deep Dish.

However, during its conception and evolution over the past two decades, the original findings have developed into a game of Chinese whispers. More modern understanding would lead us to believe it is effective to learn to play the instrument rather than just listen to it. American Career Music Educator Mamianka explains:

“We all hear about left-brain, right-brain skills. One side governs mathematical reasoning, maps, charts, logic. The other side controls language, expression, emotions. The two hemispheres are separate in your cranium, but have connections between them. The process of studying and performing classical music - which has a FAR more extensive vocabulary and emotional range that other styles of music - increases the growth of connections or bridges in the brain that link the two halves. The more connections, the faster the transport of intelligent thought. You become smarter.”

Equally she applies social reasoning to ideology:

“The higher incidence of classical music FANS among smart people may have more to do with socio-economic status. Smarter people make more money - often, these fans studied classical music when young, and now enjoy listening to it. They expose their children to this art form, and support them with lessons - and the cycle continues.”

Along the same lines as the above viewpoint, people's need and want to believe in a theory can be so strong that we see the affects separate from the action. This creates a placebo effect often seen in medicine. That is to say, although the parents put their all into feeding their children with classical music, it is still the surroundings of their upbringing and the external factors that ultimately shape their future.

From a purely academic view point Dr. Alexandra Lamont from the University of Keele firmly states: “There's no evidence that just listening to music has any effect at all”.

Although the arguments balance understanding for both sides they also appear to meet in the middle in the belief that music, in some incarnation, does affect learning ability. Which way is the most effective is yet to be proven.

Photo attributed to lrargerich