Make Your Kid A Genius!
How to Awaken Your Child's Innate Intelligence
| July 2002 |
Issue
#7
|
Irene Helen Zundel, Editor, artwhiz@greenepa.net
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IN THIS ISSUE
The Mozart Effect
Book Review: Music and Miracles
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The Mozart Effect
by Irene Helen Zundel
Imagine having a tool at your disposal that can increase children's intelligence, enhance their memory, and unleash their creativity, while providing an atmosphere of culture and beauty. Immersing your son or daughter in the musical world of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and other classical geniuses can do all that and more!
Popularized and publicized widely by Don Campbell in his best-selling book The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind and Unlock the Creative Spirit, this phenomenon has been hotly debated and tried and tested by millions --- this author and mother included!
What exactly is the Mozart Effect?
It is the use of the transformative powers of music to foster health, education, and well-being. According to Mr. Campbell's well documented book and eye-opening and informative website at www.mozarteffect.com, music can therapeutically be used to improve memory and awareness, integrate learning styles, improve attention deficit disorder, increase listening skills, activate creativity, reduce stress, alleviate depression, and assist in the treatment of mental and physical injuries.
It is beyond the scope of this book to explain the intricacies of all these diverse uses for musical therapy. Regarding it's use in facilitating learning, here are some fast facts from numerous research sources and a thumbnail sketch of how and why the Mozart Effect really works!
According to a 1996 study conducted by the College Entrance Exam Service, students that sang or played a musical instrument scored an average of 51 points higher on the verbal portion and 39 points higher on the math portion of the SAT.
Dr. Georgi Lozanov, a renowned Bulgarian psychologist, developed a method of language instruction that drastically reduced the amount of time needed to master a foreign language and markedly improved long term retention. He found that playing Baroque music for his students enabled them to learn a new language with at least 85% proficiency in just 30 days! Using traditional methods, it generally takes two years of study to achieve the same results.
Researchers at the University of California at Irvine found that listening to Mozart's music improved the spatial reasoning performance of high school and college students who were taking standardized IQ tests. (Spatial skills help you form mental images of physical objects and recognize variations in form. It is also what you use to complete puzzles and complex problems.) IQ scores were raised as much as nine points.
In June 1998, BBC Music Magazine published the results of a very interesting test conducted with laboratory rats. Before being exposed to any kind of music, the rats were able to run a complicated maze in about ten minutes. Then half the rats were played classical music, while the other half heard heavy metal, for a period of ten hours a day. The maze tests were repeated. Classical rats navigated the maze in a mere 90 seconds. Heavy metal rats took 30 minutes! As an interesting side note, researchers said the study had to be curtailed after the heavy metal rats killed each other! (Parents, draw your own conclusions!)
Why is classical music so effective in increasing intelligence, facilitating learning and improving memory?
In a nutshell, here are two main ways the Mozart Effect works.
Music composed by Mozart has a complex, precise structure. It tends to stimulate neuronal patterns in the brain associated with higher brain activities such as math and chess. And as noted in the study conducted at the University of California at Irvine, it also increases spatial intelligence.
Baroque music, composed by Antonio Vivaldi and others, has a tempo of about 60 beats per minute. Studies have shown that this relaxing, measured pace lowers blood pressure and pulse rates, and reduces stress. It leaves the body in a physically relaxed state while the mind remains mentally alert. It integrates the left and right sides of the brain, which produces optimum conditions for learning and retaining new information.
There is a wealth of great information available about the Mozart Effect, and there are many music CDs as well, geared specifically for infants and children. Don Campbell has authored nine interesting books on all the various aspects of this subject, and has 15 music CDs on the market as well. I would encourage you to visit his website at www.mozarteffect.com and purchase some of his products for yourself.
Other excellent websites about music/brain research are:
www.mindinst.org/MIND2/research
Recommended reading:
Music and Miracles
Compiled by Don Campbell
The Theospohical Publishing House, 1992
The Power of Sound: How to Manage Your Personal Soundscape for a Vital, Productive, and Healthy Life
Book and Audio CD
Joshua Leeds
Inner Traditions International Ltd., 2001
REVIEW:
Music and Miracles
What a fascinating book! Don Campbell has collected essays from 25 internationally known and well-respected doctors, researchers, healers, musicians, and theologians about the power of music to miraculously transform us mentally, physically and spiritually.
You will learn of real life stories of spontaneous healing of chronic health conditions, balancing of psychological disorders, reawakening from comatose states, achieving mystical union with the Divine, and children emerging whole from physical, emotional and learning disabilities because they were touched by the power of sound, voice and music!
The book is divided into five main sections: The Miracle of Sound, The Body of Sound, Instruments and Healing, Music Therapy and Transformation, and Therapeutic Healing with Sound.
Here is just a sample of some of the intriguing and mind expanding chapters:
A Sonic Birth
Composing Self-Health
Miracles of Voice and Ear
The Journey of the Drum
Peruvian Whistling Vessels: Pre-Columbian Instruments that Alter Consciousness through Sound
Visits from the Other Side: Healing Persons with AIDS through Guided Imagery and Music
Psyche and Sound: The Use of Music in Jungian Analysis
Music for the Birth of Planet Earth
Contributors include Don Campbell, New Age musician Kitaro, Dr. Larry Dossey, world renowned psychic Jean Houston, and futurist and social architect Barbara Marx Hubbard.
There is something here for everyone, from the scientist, therapist, musician, spiritual seeker, and parent. Why not pick up a copy and read it!
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Wonder Years: ages 0-5, a bi-montly publication helping parents and caregivers make the most of a child's early years. Everything you do during the first years of a child's life affects brain development that will shape a lifetime of learning. Make the most of these critical learning years, and have fun at the same time. To subscribe, call 800-832-2464 or visit www.PartnershipForLearning.org.
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Irene Helen Zundel
Freelance Writer
©2002 Irene Helen Zündel