
Listening to Mozart does not make you smart - fogus
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2010/05/listening-to-mozart-does-not-make-you.html
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williamjames
We've been had! It's a shame that we will have to tell this to all the kids
today who are constantly listening to Mozart.

All jokes aside, when I was a little bit younger and took my first philosophy
course, I remember the professor saying something like "Garbage in, Garbage
out." So let's say that listening to Mozart doesn't make you smarter. This,
however, has no bearing on if other forms of music make you less smart (which
I believe is very possibly true). Besides that, I find the most amazing thing
happen when I listen to great classical music: I can actually think without
the music interrupting my thoughts 95% of the time. The 5% of the time it does
happen is only if I accidentally chose something to listen to that has vocals
(Opera, which is amazing how great it sounds even though I have no idea what
they are saying), or if it is something particularly raucous by Stravinsky.

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ewanmcteagle
I have the same experience but I don't do it anymore. Doesn't it just mean
that with certain types of music we can ignore it enough to do other tasks?
Why do we want to have inputs that we then ignore? If the music is worthwhile
doesn't it deserve our attention?

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williamjames
Well my experience with it is that I believe that it actually influences my
thought patterns and helps my train of thought progress. Of course this is
anecdotal evidence and it would seem that the article contradicts my belief,
which is why I failed to allude to it in my original posting. Besides that, if
my train of thought does come to a conclusion, I get to enjoy some great music
until my next thought begins.

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philk
Well this ruins my strategy to become smart. Time to move onto plan B,
"reading War and Peace and telling everybody about it".

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jgg
Don't forget "Atlas Shrugged". I hear that one mentioned at least twice a day
by patrons of my local Starbuck's, so I know it must be _deep_. (-:

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philk
If that doesn't work I'm just going to learn some French words and randomly
sprinkle them throughout my conversations. Merci. Baguette. Champagne. [1]

[1] See? I sound erudite already.

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ghfdrvtsyup
using words like 'erudite' is a perfectly cromulent way of displaying your
intelligence.

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pyre
How uncouth!

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andreyf
Sure, listening to one piece before taking a standardized test doesn't help,
but I would wager that truly appreciating Mozart, and certainly playing an
instrument of any sort, does.

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stcredzero
It's probably not enough to play an instrument. Being passionate about and
engaged in music to the extent that one analyses the experience and actively
experiments -- that level of engagement might help. I know plenty of musicians
whose approach to playing an actual instrument isn't much deeper than playing
Guitar Hero.

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GiraffeNecktie
I do recall at least one study that said that high school students who take
music do better academically. Could have been some serious selection bias in
that study though.

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rodion_89
Mozart may not make you smart, but maybe it's that smart people listen to
Mozart.

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seldo
And _truly_ smart people are too busy taking over the world to find time to
listen to music anyway.

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vrode
I believe that the effort to understand something you or the general
population does not, does make you smarter.

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ChRoss
I guess this explains all <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_effect> I
myself likes Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel. It help me think calm and clear
(it's the peaceful and fun feeling).

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marilyn
Listening to Baroque music might:
[http://brainbasedbiz.blogspot.com/2007/04/baroque-music-
help...](http://brainbasedbiz.blogspot.com/2007/04/baroque-music-helps-you-
focus.html)

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moolave
And I thought it was all about the theta waves that tap our superlearning
abilities. Baroque had that form.

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stretchwithme
uuhh, really. oh. this explains a lot

