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The Mozart Effect Of Music On The Brain

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The phrase ‘The Mozart Effect’, aptly named after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, describes a phenomenon where children, under the age of three, listened to Mozart’s music and have improved brain function. According to Claudia Hammond, this phenomenon originated in 1991 when a study at the University of California Irvine showed that students who listened to Mozart and then attempted spatial puzzles completed those puzzles more successfully than students who did not listen to Mozart. A farmer in Italy claimed that when his “buffalos were played Mozart three times a day, they produced better milk” (Hammond) and some studies have found that simply listening to as well as practicing music “can increase IQ by as much as three points” (Hammond). Even …show more content…
The Harmony Project, as described by Locker, is a music program that serves low-income children in Los Angeles. According to The Harmony Project’s website, since 2008, 93 percent of Harmony Project seniors have gone on to college, despite their neighborhood having a dropout rate of about 50 percent (Locker). These students in this program are from poverty stricken areas, where most students do not succeed and drop out of school. There is a clear link to their music education and their success compared with other students in similar surroundings. There have also been many studies which prove that music education can help to increase students’ IQs. Hammond discusses a study where Jessica Grahn, a cognitive scientist at Western University, claimed that “she discovered a year of piano lessons, combined with regular practice can increase IQ by as much as three points” (Hammond). Another study, described by Brown, by E. Glenn Schellenberg at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, found “a small increase in the IQs of six-year-olds who were given weekly voice and piano lessons” (Brown). Not only has it been proved that music education can help raise one’s base IQ, but it is proven that students who receive music education do better overall in school. A study published in 2007 by Christopher Johnson, professor of music education and therapy at the University of Kansas, discovered that students in elementary schools with strong music education programs scored 22 percent higher in English and 20 percent higher in math scores on standardized tests, than schools with low-quality music programs (Brown). There is ample evidence that music can positively affect children. But, why does music education have such positive effects on the brain? Locker describes how making music involves more skills than simply the playing of an instrument, it involves children learning how to tap into multiple skill

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