Music, this word means different things to different people. Some people listen to music, while others create it for us to listen too. Regardless of which category you fall into, music, in some way, has touched your life.
There are sad songs, love songs, songs of hurting hearts, aggressive rock songs, the list goes on and on. For those who do not like singing, there are numerous instrumentals, such as classical music. Even plants like music. A recent study was conducted where plants were placed in an environment where music was played and while a group was placed in a natural silent environment. The plants that were in the music environment had deeper roots and grew at a faster rate and appeared to be healthier than its counterpart in the control environment.
Although this may not come as a full surprise, it does demonstrate some phenomenal characteristics about music and tone. Music has the ability to make us smile, cry, or even make us a little nervous, depending on the type of tone and rhythm of the music. Symphony pieces, such as Mozart, have also been studied in relation to increasing intelligence in the hearers. Concertos have been said to increase oxygen uptake in the brain, thus helping the brain cells communicate more effectively with each other.
A few years back a study was conducted trying to demonstrate the effect of certain types of classical music such as Mozart or Beethoven on intelligence. Students were instructed to listen to a 30 minutes session on already chosen classical pieces while the other group had no musical preparation for the spatial reason test. The students that listened to the classic piece before taking the tests scored better on spatial reason and the logic portion the standardized test. So if this is true, some music CAN make you smarter. More studies do need to be "conducted", no pun intended, before a final word can be said about classical music and the brain. Recent studies have also shown that there may be electrophysiological and molecular changes to the brain while listening to certain types of music, mainly classical.
From the authors experience, classical music does seem to have a calming effect and seems to clear the brain for heavy studying. In contrast, listening to rock music seems to negatively affect memory, focus and retention of material studied.
