Mozart for Christmas

Hmmmm...do you think Mozart would approve? Actually, I think he would be quite amused! Mozart had a wonderful sense of humor and was very playful, as is this wonderful video!

Interesting Mozart Research

Mozart versus new age music: relaxation states, stress, and ABC relaxation theory.Smith JC, Joyce CA.Roosevelt University Stress Institute, Roosevelt University, Chicago, IL 60605, USA. jsmith@roosevelt.eduSmith's (2001) Attentional Behavioral Cognitive (ABC) relaxation theory proposes that all approaches to relaxation (including music) have the potential for evoking one or more of 15 factor-analytically derived relaxation states, or "R-States" (Sleepiness, Disengagement, Rested / Refreshed, Energized, Physical Relaxation, At Ease/Peace, Joy, Mental Quiet, Childlike Innocence, Thankfulness and Love, Mystery, Awe and Wonder, Prayerfulness, Timeless/Boundless/Infinite, and Aware). The present study investigated R-States and stress symptom-patterns associated with listening to Mozart versus New Age music. Students (N = 63) were divided into three relaxation groups based on previously determined preferences. Fourteen listened to a 28-minute tape recording of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and 14 listened to a 28-minute tape of Steven Halpern's New Age Serenity Suite. Others (n = 35) did not want music and instead chose a set of popular recreational magazines. Participants engaged in their relaxation activity at home for three consecutive days for 28 minutes a session. Before and after each session, each person completed the Smith Relaxation States Inventory (Smith, 2001), a comprehensive questionnaire tapping 15 R-States as well as the stress states of somatic stress, worry, and negative emotion. Results revealed no differences at Session 1. At Session 2, those who listened to Mozart reported higher levels of At Ease/Peace and lower levels of Negative Emotion. Pronounced differences emerged at Session 3. Mozart listeners uniquely reported substantially higher levels of Mental Quiet, Awe and Wonder, and Mystery. Mozart listeners reported higher levels, and New Age listeners slightly elevated levels, of At Ease/Peace and Rested/Refreshed. Both Mozart and New Age listeners reported higher levels of Thankfulness and Love. In summary, those who listened to Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik reported more psychological relaxation and less stress than either those who listened to New Age music or read popular recreational magazines. Results suggest the usefulness of ABC relaxation theory in comparing the different effects of music and relaxation techniques.

Mozart Effect Hits a Sour Note

It sounds too easy to be true. Play Mozart for your child and her or his IQ will jump 8 to 9 points, even while she or he is still in the womb.
These days parents will try anything to help Ashley or Chad get into the best schools, and politicians, teachers, and music marketers have all jumped on the bandwagon.
The state of Georgia now gives a cassette or CD of classical music to the parents of every newborn citizen, more than 100,000 babies a year. A bill recently passed in Florida mandates that all childcare and educational programs that receive state funding play 30 minutes of classical music a day for children under 5 years of age. Hudson Valley Community College in New York has a Mozart Effect Study Area in its campus library, and many music stores boast a "Mozart makes you smarter" section.
It all started in 1993, when a small research study concluded that listening to only 10 minutes of a Mozart piano sonata temporarily raised the "abstract reasoning" ability of 36 college students the equivalent of 8 to 9 points on a standard IQ scale. That provided enough "scientific evidence" for music marketers to sing about.
Other scientists did the same experiment, but most of them didn’t get the same results. Yet the idea that Mozart’s music could boost IQ continued to generate runaway popular support, and the research that produced contrary conclusions received little attention.
Last year, Christopher Chabris, then a graduate student at Harvard University, wondered about the net result of studies on the Mozart effect that had been done over the previous five years. He uncovered 16 studies and analyzed their conclusions.
"The results do not show any real change in IQ or reasoning ability," says Chabris, now a research fellow at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. "There’s a very small enhancement in learning a specific task, such as visualizing the result of folding and cutting paper, bu t even that is not statistically significant. The improvement is smaller than the average variation of a single person’s IQ test performance."
His conclusion: "There’s nothing wrong with having young people listen to classical music, but it’s not going to make them smarter."

Who Claims What

Chabris’ results appeared in the August 26 issue of Nature, the same journal that first published claims of the positive effect of listening to Mozart. Another paper published by researchers at Appalachian State University in North Carolina and at two Canadian universities echoes the Harvard conclusion.
Kenneth Steele and his collaborators repeated the original experiment and decided that, "there is little evidence for a direct effect of music on reasoning ability."
Steele’s group included the paper-folding and -cutting test in its experiments. The test requires the reader to visualize a series of folds and cuts that have been made on a sheet of paper, then to select from multiple-choice offerings an image of what the unfolded sheet looks like. The group found no effect on the performance of test-takers after listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, the music played in the original experiment.
Steele and his collaborators compared test performances after hearing this sonata, sitting in silence, or listening to either relaxation instructions, relaxation music, or minimalist music. "The Mozart sonata produced no differential improvement in spatial reasoning in any experiment," Steele notes.
"A requiem may therefore be in order," he continues, referring to the title of the last piece that Mozart wrote.
However, the lead researcher on the original experiment is not ready for a funeral. Frances Rauscher, now at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, notes in Nature that she and her colleagues never said that listening to Mozart enhances intelligence.
"We made no such claim," she insists. "The effect is limited to spatial-temporal tasks involving mental imagery and temporal ordering."
Chabris, however, insists that Rauscher did make such a claim. Rauscher’s original 1993 paper reports that, "We performed an experiment in which students were given three sets of standard IQ spatial reasoning tasks." These consisted of paper folding and cutting, plus two other "abstract/spatial reasoning tasks. Each task was preceded by ten minutes of [either] (1) listening to Mozart’s sonata for two pianos in D major, (2) listening to a relaxation tape, or (3) silence. . . . The IQs of subjects participating in the music condition were 8-9 points above their IQ scores in the two other conditions."
This last sentence, Chabris says, "explains why readers of the original article and secondary reports of it believe that the Mozart effect applied to a variety of tasks and reasoning abilities – in other words, to general intelligence."
In the rebuttal published along with Chabris’ and Steele’s critiques, Rauscher claims that four new studies all demonstrate a Mozart effect on not one but three different spatial tasks. The results of these studies, however, are yet to be released. She also noted that rats exposed to the Mozart sonata while in the uterus and for 60 days after birth learned to run mazes faster and with fewer errors than litter mates who had not heard the music.
Chabris calls the study with rats not relevant to the facts. "Even if one limits the Mozart effect to spatial-temporal processing, as Rauscher now insists," he says, "it is still about 75 percent smaller than originally claimed, and not statistically significant."
These disagreements aside, all those involved in the studies now agree on one major fact: listening to Mozart does not enhance general intelligence.
The state of Georgia might spend the $ 105,000 it allocated for classical music tapes and CDs on more important things, Chabris believes. "And parents can help their young children more by reading with them and playing with them than by leaving them alone with classical music CDs," he says. "You can enjoy classical music with your children without believing that it will grow brain cells or boost IQ."
As you might expect, Rauscher still maintains that children will learn spatial tasks better with than without Mozart, so the last note about the controversy has yet to be sounded.
This article first appeared in the Harvard Gazette, 1999

If Mozart Had had Better Healthcare...

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI NYTimes

POOR Mozart, who died at 35, must have inherited at least the potential for longevity from his parental gene pool.His father, Leopold Mozart, died at 67, a ripe old age in an era when rampant illnesses claimed the majority of European children in infancy. Sadly, Mozart’s indomitable mother, Anna Maria, died at 58 while in Paris, having contracted viral infections and a severe fever during an arduous trip with her rambunctious, opportunity-seeking 22-year-old son. Mozart’s sister, Nannerl, who had also been a musical prodigy, died in 1829 in Salzburg at the impressive age of 78, having well outlived her husband, an officious Austrian prefect and two-time widower with five children, who resented their stepmother.
Mozart’s death in 1791 was probably caused by streptococcal infection, renal failure, terminal bronchial pneumonia and a matrix of other illnesses, some dating from his childhood, when the Mozart family spent years touring Europe to show off the boy genius and, to a lesser extent, his sister.

Music and Stress Management...Try Mozart!

The latest research, by the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and the University of Sussex, had provided new evidence about how music boosts the immune system.

The researchers carried out two studies looking at the effects of music on stress hormones. After exposing around 300 people to happy dance music, the researchers measured levels of immunoglobulin A or IgA and hormones including cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone.

Results show that cortisol levels dropped significantly, while IgA levels went up considerably in those exposed to music for around 50 minutes. Effects on compounds involved in inflammation and behaviour were also seen, and mood improved noticeably in those exposed to music.

These findings provide clues to the understanding the role of music in health. Cortisol is a hormone produced in response to stress and it increases blood pressure and blood sugar levels, and weakens the immune system. The drop in levels of the hormone in response to music may explain the reduction in blood pressure and risk of infections found by other researchers.

The rise in IgA is also an important finding because it is an antibody that plays an essential role in protecting the body against infections and allergens.

In some cases, music has been effective as drug therapy. At the Hospital Mutua de Terrassa, in Barcelona, doctors compared the effectiveness of music to that of diazepam or Valium in reducing anxiety before surgery in 207 patients. One group had the drug, while the other listened to music on the day and eve of surgery. Just before the operation, heart rate and blood pressure were tested, and there was no difference between the two groups.

How was Mozart's Health?

Recently one of my clients/patients asked me about Mozart's health. What an interesting question! After all that's been in the news about how Mozart's music can do all kinds of wonderful things, we come back to Mozart's own physical and mental health. Some of the things he is purported to have suffered from include:

depression
mania
addictions (both sex and spending)
narsicism (understandable!)
poor overall physical health (Thus his death at age 36!)
insomnia

One might ask, why didn't the music he was writing help him? Of course that's not an easy question...already, volumes have been written about it. One of his over-riding problems was poverty! He lived in cold, drafty quarters and often spent th money he earned with commissions on more velvet clothes, powdered wigs and fun out on the town! At least that's what "Amadeus" seems to be protraying.

Mozart was one of the greatest musical geniuses that ever lived. Today, no one would deny that. It's too bad he couldn't have benefited from the "Mozart Effect" himself!

Dr. Mozart: Mozart Comes to the Surgery Suite

The operating room of a hospital is a highly stressful place. Surgeons and assistants have to be extremely attentive, moving quickly but carefully. Playing music during surgeries has been shown to relax the staff and the patients. Some of the benefits that extend to the recovery room are lower heart rate, blood pressure and reduced need for pain medication.
Dr. Claudius Conrad, now a senior surgical resident at Harvard Medical School, suggests music can go even further. He’s published a paper suggesting that music can stimulate a 50 percent jump in pituitary growth hormone. The hormone is associated with stress but, paradoxically, can help exert healing. Dr. Conrad is also a classically-trained pianist with a doctorate in music theory.
Also, the study of music therapy has evolved in the United States for the past half a century, and there’s growing evidence that music is as good for the body as it is for the soul.

Mozart's Power Music!

Katia Eliad, a Paris-based artist, was stuck in a rut. She felt blocked in her creativity, out of touch with herself and for some inexplicable reason unable to use green or blue in her abstract paintings. So last spring, she started an unusual treatment: daily two-hour sessions of Mozart's music for three weeks at a time, filtered through special vibrating headphones that sometimes cut out the lowest tones. The impact, she says, was dramatic. "I'm much more at ease with myself, with people, with everything," says Eliad, 33. "It feels like I've done 10 years of psychoanalysis in just eight months." Blue and green are back in her palette. As for Mozart, "he's become like a grandfather who calms you when you wake up in the middle of a nightmare."

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born 250 years ago, on Jan. 27, 1756, and lavish celebrations are being planned around the world to celebrate his anniversary. This year will be filled with his music, but it will also be a time to re-examine the contradictions and conflicting interpretations of his brief 35-year life. He has been cast in many roles: the infant prodigy paraded around European courts by his father, Leopold; the foulmouthed brat whose letters attest to a fondness for off-color practical jokes. One widespread misconception has him buried in a pauper's grave in Vienna's St. Marx Cemetery. Another unproven legend, given widespread credence thanks to the hit movie Amadeus, depicts him as the victim of his jealous court rival Antonio Salieri. Fervent admirers have argued that he was divinely inspired, but some modern psychologists detect an infantile-regressive personality. And if he were alive today, says Herbert Brugger of the Salzburg tourism office, he would be "a pop star — somewhere between Prince, Michael Jackson and Robbie Williams."

There's little new about such typecasting. But over the past decade, Mozart has increasingly been placed in a role that is perhaps the most controversial of all: as healer of mind and body. In this New Age interpretation, Mozart is the ultimate composer-therapist whose music can help treat ailments ranging from acne to Alzheimer's disease and even, it is claimed, make you and your kids smarter. Some of these claims are based on science. One neurosurgeon in Chicago has conducted studies that show certain Mozart pieces can reduce the severity and frequency of epileptic seizures in some patients, while researchers in Irvine, California, have found that some people with Alzheimer's are better able to perform mental tests after listening to Mozart for 10 minutes.

But much of the supporting material is anecdotal. French actor Gérard Depardieu says Mozart helped to cure his childhood stutter. Eliad, the painter, received her treatment at an institute founded by a Paris physician named Alfred Tomatis, who pioneered the use of Mozart's music to treat all sorts of childhood disorders as well as adult ailments including depression. Few national authorities officially recognize the treatment, and traditional music therapists are deeply skeptical. Still, Poland is currently introducing Tomatis' methods nationwide in centers that help children with learning difficulties. And in the London suburb of Richmond, Jackie Hindley credits it with helping her 6-year-old son Lawrence. He was a slow developer and hyperactive, Hindley says, with a particular language difficulty: whenever people spoke to him, he would stay quiet for half an hour before coming back with an answer, she says. After several sessions of listening to Mozart, "he's now a very active speaker who responds immediately to whatever is said to him," Hindley says. "He's taken very profound steps forward."

By far the most widespread — and most disputed — recent claim is that Mozart can enhance your brain power. That notion was first given scientific support in a 1993 article in Nature, which found that college students who listened to the first movement of Mozart's Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos performed better on a spatial reasoning test that involved mentally unfolding a piece of paper. The study's main author, Frances Rauscher, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin who is also a cellist, went on to do a similar test using laboratory rats. They were exposed to the same piano sonata in utero and for two months after birth, and then let loose in a maze. There they navigated their way out far quicker than three other groups of rats, which had been exposed to white noise, silence or a highly repetitive piece by American composer Philip Glass.

In the decade since, these studies have sparked an academic storm, with many of Rauscher's peers either refining or debunking her findings. Other researchers have had mixed success in replicating her results. But her work received widespread media attention and gave rise to a pop-psychology trend known as the "Mozart effect." Dozens of Mozart compilation CDs that promise to enhance intelligence are now on the market, with titles such as Mozart for Mommies and Daddies — Jumpstart Your Newborn's IQ. The claims have had social-policy repercussions: in 1998, the U.S. state of Georgia began handing out classical-music CDs to the parents of all infants, and there are similar but less official programs in Colorado, Florida and elsewhere.

Benefits of Mozart in Surgery...scientific and empirical!

For Claudius Conrad, a 30-year-old surgeon who has played the piano seriously since he was 5, music and medicine are entwined — from the academic realm down to the level of the fine-fingered dexterity required at the piano bench and the operating table.
“If I don’t play for a couple of days,” said Dr. Conrad, a third-year surgical resident at Harvard Medical School who also holds doctorates in stem cell biology and music philosophy, “I cannot feel things as well in surgery. My hands are not as tender with the tissue. They are not as sensitive to the feedback that the tissue gives you.”
Like many surgeons, Dr. Conrad says he works better when he listens to music. And he cites studies, including some of his own, showing that music is helpful to patients as well — bringing relaxation and reducing blood pressure, heart rate, stress hormones, pain and the need for pain medication.

In a paper published last December in the journal Critical Care Medicine, he and colleagues revealed an unexpected element in distressed patients’ physiological response to music: a jump in pituitary growth hormone, which is known to be crucial in healing. “It’s a sort of quickening,” he said, “that produces a calming effect.” Accelerando produces tranquillo.
The study itself was fairly simple. The researchers fitted 10 postsurgical intensive-care patients with headphones, and in the hour just after the patients’ sedation was lifted, 5 were treated to gentle Mozart piano music while 5 heard nothing.
The patients listening to music showed several responses that Dr. Conrad expected, based on other studies: reduced blood pressure and heart rate, less need for pain medication and a 20 percent drop in two important stress hormones, epinephrine and interleukin-6, or IL-6. Amid these expected responses was the study’s new finding: a 50 percent jump in pituitary growth hormone.
No one conducting these studies had yet measured growth hormone, whose work includes driving growth, responding to threats to the immune system and promoting healing. Dr. Conrad included it because research over the last five years has shown that growth hormone generally rises with stress and falls with relaxation.
“This means you would expect G.H., like epinephrine and IL-6, to go down in this case,” Dr. Morley, of St. Louis University, said of growth hormone. “Yet here it goes up.”
He added, “The question is whether the jump in growth hormone actually drives the sedative effect or is part of something else going on.”
Dr. Conrad argues that the growth hormone does have a sedative effect. In his paper he cites a 2005 study showing that growth hormone releasing factor, a chemical messenger that essentially calls growth hormone to duty, reduced activity of interleukin-6. This suggests, he said, that growth hormone itself may reduce the interleukin-6 and epinephrine levels that produce inflammation that in turn causes pain and raises blood pressure and the heart rate.
This explanation gets a mixed reception among stress researchers. “The two dynamics aren’t necessarily the same,” said Dr. Keith W. Kelley, an endocrinologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an expert on inflammatory responses. “I personally don’t buy the particular cellular mechanism he’s proposing.”
Yet Dr. Kelley and other stress-response experts, including Dr. Morley and Dr. Bruce S. McEwen of Rockefeller University in New York, say Dr. Conrad’s study clearly suggests that a rise in growth hormone may somehow dampen inflammation and stress responses.
“This is a really intriguing possibility that bears a closer look,” Dr. McEwen said.

Music and Genetics: What creates a Mozart?

Music under the microscope: the relation between biology and genetics and human music, its peculiarities and reasons. These are the main themes of the International Workshop on the Biology and Genetics of Music, to be held in Bologna, May 20 to 22, with leading scientists currently involved in researching the mysteries of music, invited to explain their recent findings to the audience. The meeting is organized by the European Genetics Foundation and the Fondazione Pierfranco e Luisa Mariani, in collaboration with the Orchestra Mozart, the Municipality of Bologna and the University of Bologna. It is part of the agenda of the second edition of the Festival of Music and Genetics, taking place from May 12 to 22, 2007 (http://www.musicagenetica.it/).
The topics of the meeting are various: from the research of genes responsible for our becoming great pianists (or, on the contrary, being completely tone-deaf), to the evolution of music in the history of mankind through the comparison with other animal species; from the role played by music in children's education, to the study of children to understand the musical mind. Why do infant prodigies exist? Why haven’t we all become one? Are there any types of music that are objectively better suited to be more appreciated than others? And especially what is the purpose of music? These and other questions will be addressed by geneticists, psychologists, biologists, but also anthropologists and musicologists during the open conferences hosted in the Palazzo del Podestà. “All this is not just caused by curiosity: studying the way music is read, interpreted and appreciated by our brain enables us to understand many things about the workings of the mind – adds Maria Majno, Executive Director of the Fondazione Pierfranco e Luisa Mariani. For example, it opens the way to research certain pathologic conditions or track and even modify children’s cognitive development. Also, it leads to imagining possible applications for patients with different medical problems as well as potential treatments based on listening and producing music”.

Do cats like Mozart? Meet "Meeow-zart!"

I have gotten so many responses to the first Nora video that I knew you'd want to see the sequel. One friend suggested today that the kitty might be a little deaf and really enjoys the vibrations that she creates with her paws. What do you think?

A medical maestro: Can Mozart treat heart disease

Listening to Mozart can reduce stress, boost intelligence and treat heart disease. Doctors could soon be prescribing his music for epilepsy too, says Roger Dobson
A Mozart effect has also been linked to behavioural and other changes, including stress, depression, arthritis pain, foetal development and performance on eye-test charts. Every treatment had been tried for the patient's severe epilepsy. Seven epileptic drugs, and brain surgery, had failed to have any effect on the seizures and fits he had suffered daily for much of his 46 years. With no sign of any improvement, and with tests confirming a deterioration in learning skills and memory over a nine-year period, surgeons decided that he should be assessed for further brain surgery.
But, shortly before the patient was scheduled for tests, there was a remarkable improvement. The gelastic (or laughing) fits he had suffered up to six times day subsided. Instead of uncontrollable laughing fits, they became six- to nine-second-long involuntary smiles that he was able to control. He had also been having about seven generalised seizures a month, but he had had none in three months.
When doctors investigated, they found that the transformation was down to a lifestyle change. He had started to listen to Mozart for 45 minutes a day.
The case of the 46-year-old man, being reported by doctors at the Institute of Neurology in London, is the latest success put down to the "Mozart effect", which has been linked to benefits as diverse as improved mathematical skills, enhanced foetal brain development, reduced stress, improved learning and IQ, less arthritis pain, and improved performance on eye tests. Rats exposed to the music also perform better in maze tests, while fish appeared to be happier and healthier.
The original Mozart-effect research looked at the effects of the K448 piano sonata on the performance of spatial IQ tests. Volunteers had to visualise correctly the unfolded shape of a piece of paper that had been folded several times. The performance of those who listened to the Mozart was quantified as being equivalent to a temporary increase in IQ of eight to nine points.
One theory put forward to explain this performance is that areas of the brain involved in processing music overlap those concerned with spatial perception, which become stimulated, or warmed up. But, while some researchers found similar effects, others found none or proposed countertheories, including the suggestion that the increased performance is simply due to people becoming more aroused when exposed to music. As a result, the concept of a Mozart effect has become mired in controversy.
A Mozart effect has also been linked to behavioural and other changes, including stress, depression, arthritis pain, foetal development and performance on eye-test charts. And it is now attracting attention as a potential treatment for epilepsy.
Some research offers clues as to just why this composer's music seems to have such an effect. It suggests also that the music does not have to be appreciated, or consciously listened to, to have an effect. Only a small number of studies have been carried out on the Mozart effect and epilepsy, but most of them show a beneficial effect. Neurologists at the University of Illinois found that a child with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy, had fewer seizures while exposed to K448 for 10 minutes every hour. A second study at the centre found changes in brain activity in 23 out of 29 cases when Mozart was played. In some cases the changes occurred during coma, suggesting that any effect is not conditional on the music being appreciated; it appears to have some kind of direct effect.
But what could it be? According to Dr John Hughes of the University of Illinois, it may be that Mozart's complex music has an effect similar to pulsating electrical stimulation, bringing order to malfunctioning nerve cells in the brain. "The architecture of Mozart's music is brilliantly complex, but also highly organised. The organisation of the cerebral cortex would seem to resonate with the architecture of Mozart's music to normalise any sub-optimal functioning of the cortex," he says.
"Part of his genius is to repeat themes in a way that was not boring, but instead was engaging to the listener. A theme would be repeated, not necessarily with the same notes but with different notes and the same interval. Repetition and periodic changes are found in all aspects of our brain function and also of our bodily functions."
It's suggested that the same effect isn't seen with other composers because this technique of musical construction is unique to Mozart, who repeats melodic lines much more often than composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Wagner and Chopin do. According to epilepsy researchers, it is this repetition, acting rather like repetitive electrical stimulation, which may be responsible for the effects being seen.
And some research does suggest that electrical stimulation can work in epilepsy. In a study of nine patients implanted with electrodes, four had a 95 per cent reduction in seizures, and four a 50 to 70 per cent drop. "Electrical stimulation provides improved seizure outcome," say researchers from Hospital General de Mexico. Epilepsy researchers believe it's time for more research: "We report a remarkable improvement in seizure control in one patient with refractory gelastic epilepsy and suggest that it is now time to study further the Mozart effect," say the team from the Institute of Neurology in London.
Increasing research into epilepsy may also trigger more study on other aspects of the Mozart effect. Could the same repetitive stimulation in much of Mozart's work account for the reported changes in behaviour and intellectual performance? The final verdict on the Mozart effect may soon be given, but whether it will be a prelude or a requiem remains to be seen.
Listen to a clip from Mozart's Sonata K448 - courtesy of EMI
Medical notes: the healing power of the Mozart effect
Epilepsy
Research is showing that Mozart may reduce brain activity involved in epilepsy. A study in Chicago found that 23 of 29 patients had a significant drop in the kind of brain activity that is followed by a seizure. In one case, this activity dropped by more than 60 per cent while the patient was in a coma. One theory is that the effects may be due to the repetitiveness of melody and periodicity – wave forms that are repeated regularly.
Intelligence
The first Mozart-effect study showed that spatial reasoning and intelligence increased temporarily after listening to the K448 piano sonata, compared to relaxation tapes or silence. The results of the California University study show that 10 minutes of Mozart's music improved performance on paper-cutting and folding tests. Spatial IQ went up by eight to nine points. The same team found that rats negotiated a maze faster after hearing K448. Other researchers found that children taught a keyboard instrument for six months performed better on spatial tests. The kind of effect found by the California researchers has been shown by some teams, but others have found no effect.
Eye tests
Eye tests are performed more accurately when carried out with Mozart playing in the background. Results were significantly better, with fewer false positive or negative results and greater concentration and accuracy. In the research, 60 men and women either listened to music for 10 minutes, or sat in silence before carrying out the tests. The music was Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D major. One theory is that the music helps to speed up the processing and interpretation of information coming from the eye to the brain. "Listening to Mozart seems to improve performance," say the researchers from the School of Medical Sciences in Sao Paulo.
Heart rate
Mozart soothes the beating heart. A study at Oberwalliser Hospital in Switzerland on the effects of music on heart-rate variability in 23 adolescents showed that listening to music may be helpful in heart disease. The study showed that listening to Mozart or Bach resulted in reductions of heart rate and variability.
Stress
Anecdotal evidence has suggested that listening to Mozart may ease stress in newborn babies. Newborns at the Kosice-Saca hospital in Slovakia are played his music to help them get over the trauma of birth. Now, doctors at Weill Medical College of Cornell University are running a clinical trial to see whether Mozart's music can reduce stress, heart rate and motor activity in premature babies. Mozart is played through a small speaker in the baby's incubator; a monitoring device will record movement, while a video camera will capture the infants' reactions to the music.
Fish
The latest Mozart research is not on humans, but on carp. Researchers at the Agricultural University of Athens played Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik to carp to test its relaxing and antidepressant effects. The music was played underwater to carp for 30 minutes at time. The results show that the fish exposed to music grew more and, in some cases, had less stress.

New Mozart portrait found!

A British music scholar says he has identified a previously unknown portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that could be worth millions.The 19-by-14-inch oil painting shows the profile of a man in a bright red jacket. Cliff Eisen said Friday that it is only the fourth known authentic portrait of Mozart from his time when the composer was at his professional height in Vienna, Austria.
"This is arguably the most important Mozart portrait to be discovered since the composer's death in 1791," Eisen said in a statement that appeared on the Web site of King's College London, where he teaches music.King's College said the portrait was probably painted by Joseph Hickel, who was a painter at Austria's imperial court. Hickel gave the portrait to Mozart in return for the composition of a serenade for a member of Hickel's family, the college said.Eisen said he was able to authenticate the portrait by comparing it against auction records, archival documents and a letter written by composer to his father in 1782.The description in Mozart's letter matched the portrait down to the buttons, Eisen said.The portrait could be worth several million dollars, the university said.The painting passed to the family of Johann Lorenz Hagenauer, a close friend of the Mozarts. It was purchased by an American collector in 2005.King's College said the collector was unaware of the painting's significance until its connection to the Hagenauer family was established by Daniel Leeson of Los Altos, Calif. (AP)

Le Mozart des Pickpockets

Tonight I'm watching the Oscars. I was fascinated to hear that a movie called "Le Mozart des ickpockets" had been nominated. I take it to mean that here Mozart's name is being used to signify genius and a child prodigy. Here's what the web says about it: I saw this movie at a special showing by a local film society of all the Oscar nominated Live Action Shorts about a week or so before the Oscars were announced. It's also currently available to watch online at Atom Films. However, I think it has a very small chance to win this year's Oscar because two other films, AT NIGHT and TANGHI ARGENTINI are better films. Now this ISN'T to say THE MOZART OF PICKPOCKETS is bad or didn't deserve the nomination--it is an exceptional and charming little comedy.The film starts with a group of pickpockets working the streets of Paris. Eventually, 3 of the 5 are caught--leaving the two dumbest crooks alone. At the same time, a mute little boy just appears from no where and follows the crooks home. Not knowing what to do, they decide to keep him.The film has so many cute twists and the ending is wonderful. However, I don't want to say more because it might spoil the suspense. Watch this one--it's a nice little film.

Court Recruits Mozart to deter trouble

Well, I'm sure that you know that Mozarts 252nd birthday was last Sunday and I hope you celebrated appropriately! Mozart's music is possibly the most popular classical music in the world, but did you know it is also being used to deter crime?? A reported for the Sacramento Bee, Christina Jewett, wrote recently that several locations in Sacramenta are blasting a Mozart violin concerto through loudspeakers when they see cars in their parking lots with people just sitting there, loitering and possibly "looking for trouble." Store managers say that when they crank up the classical music, the hoodlums quickly leave! What do YOU think of that kind of strategy?

Happy New Year, Friends of Mozart!!

Happy New Year to all the readers of this blog about Mozart and why his music is uniquely healing. First I'd like to mention that Mozart's 302 birthday is coming up on January 27th. Don't you think that it's rather amazing that music written nearly 300 years ago is as fresh, sparkling and entertaining today as it was then? That's why we call it "classic"...it never grows old. I have a feeling that 1000 years from now, if planet earth is still around, people will be enjoying the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. If you haven't heard any Mozart
today, please go to www.HealingMusicEnterprises.com/products/healing_with_music/mozart_healing_music.html
Have a happy, healthy, peace-filled holiday!