Could Mozart Save Ariel Sharon?

Saturation coverage of this study in the media has even created a new phrase, “Mozart Effect.” A U.S. musician named Don Campbell, who has nothing to do with science, made a fortune by publishing two books titled “Mozart Effect,” and 10 edited Mozart music CDs.

Professor Rauscher claims that her study was wrongly interpreted. She said, “I didn’t say that listening to Mozart music necessarily make a person smarter. I just insisted that listening to Mozart music could temporarily and restrictively boost one’s spatial reasoning power.”

Campbell doesn’t care about the criticism from professor Rauscher and the scientific circle. Campbell noted, “I don’t think we can prove the Mozart Effect. Nobody knows how music affects a brain.”

Why should it be the music of Mozart? What about music by Bach, Beethoven, or Chopin? Some even say that many kinds of music, from Hindu music to sound of the waves, have healing effects.

Gerard Mortier, a director of the Paris Opera, thinks that Mozart is not the only composer who provides calming effects on people. Mortier says that one could calm down by listening to Bach’s “Goldberg Variation,” and another could be peaceful by listening to "Tristan und Isolde” by Wagner.

Professor John Hughes, an epilepsy specialist of the Illinois Medical University, doesn’t agree with Mortier. Hughes says that 29 out of 36 epileptics who listened to Mozart music had a fit far less frequent than before and added, “No other music was as effective as Mozart in keeping epileptics remaining calm.”

Regarding the reason for this, Hughes explains, “The key to the Mozart Effect lies in the way Mozart repeats his melody. The way Mozart repeats melodies interests a person who is listening. Bach, Mendelssohn, or Hayden don’t do that. Our brains like patterns. Measures of Mozart music repeat every 20 to 30 seconds, and this is almost the same as a cycle of brain waves.” In other words, the repetition of patterns in Mozart’s music trades off the irregular attack pattern of an epilepsy.

Time concluded, “Controversy on the Mozart Effect will continue. Even if the claim that Mozart’s music makes a person smarter is false, it is true that Campbell helps introduce a composer who is still being loved even after he died 250 years ago to many people.”

pisong@donga.com