The riddle of the Mozart Effect

Natural Health, Jan-Feb, 1998 by Don Campbell

One-and-a-half pound Krissy

In recent years, the music of Mozart, who lived from 1756 to 1791, has become part of many doctors' pharmacopoeia as they've seen patients rebound under its influence. Krissy, for example, weighed just over one-and-a-half pounds when she was born prematurely in a Chicago hospital with a life-threatening condition. Doctors put her on total life support. Other than an occasional pat on the head, the only positive stimulation she received was from constant infusions of Mozart that her mother begged nurses to pipe into the neonatal unit. Doctors did not think Krissy would five; her mother, however, believes that the Mozart saved her daughter's fife.

Krissy could not sit up at age one and did not walk until she was two. Her motor skills were poor, and she was anxious and introverted. Despite all this, at age three she tested far ahead of her years in abstract reasoning. One evening, her parents took Krissy to a chamber music concert. For days afterward, she played with an empty tube from a paper towel roll, which she placed under her chin like an instrument, and she bowed" with a chopstick. Her mother enrolled Krissy in Suzuki violin lessons, and the four-year-old could immediately reproduce from memory pieces seemingly several levels beyond her physical ability. With the support of her parents, teachers, and fellow students, Krissy stopped wringing her hands in fear and began to socialize.

In the past several years, many stories like Krissy's have emerged. While we all know intuitively that music can alter our mood, the enhancing effects of music on creativity, learning, and health have become known to researchers around the world. (See sidebar "Musical Notes" on page 111.) And Mozart's music, in particular, is getting a strong thumbs-up from scientists:

* In monasteries in Brittany, monks play music to the animals in their care and have found that cows serenaded with Mozart give more milk.

* In Washington State, Department of Immigration and Naturalization officials play Mozart and baroque music during English classes for new arrivals from Cambodia, Laos, and other Asian countries and report that it speeds up their learning.

* The city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, pipes Mozart string quartets into the city squares to calm pedestrian traffic. Officials found, in addition to other benefits, drug dealings have lessened.

* In northern Japan, Ohara Brewery finds that when Mozart is played near yeast, that yeast makes the best sake. The density of yeast used for brewing the traditional rice wine -- a measure of quality-increases by a factor of ten when the yeast "listen" to Mozart.

The power of Mozart's music came to public attention largely through innovative research at the University of California in the mid- 1990s. At the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory in Irvine, a research team began to look at the effects of Mozart on college students and children. Frances H. Rauscher, Ph.D., and her colleagues conducted a study in which thirty-six undergraduates from the psychology department scored eight to nine points higher on the spatial IQ test (part of the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale) after listening to ten minutes of Mozart's "Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major" (K.448).