We all know that music affects the brain and that listening to it happens in many forms and provides a multitude of uses. Soothing music can calm us and relieve stress while energetic music can build us up. Music stirs emotions, recalls memories, and really good music—like any good form of artistic expression—challenges us to live life to the fullest.
I break listening down into two types.
Active listening occurs when we make listening to music our primary activity. This is when we listen for the sake of listening and are either consciously or unconsciously studying the sounds we hear. Passive listening is when music happens in the background while we do other things or perform additional functions. When we think of music as a soundtrack to something, we're listening passively.
In the study "Music and Spatial Task Performance," Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw and Katherine Ky measured the effects of listening to music while studying. The results found that when students studied for an exam while listening to music playing in the background, they tended to do better on exams, and would more efficiently retain and/or recall the information studied.
This shouldn't be a surprise because of what we know about the relationship to music and memory, but what is interesting is how the effectiveness varied based on the genre of music that was listened to. Listening to classical music while studying was the most effective for improved test performance. And to go deeper, among the broad range of classical styles, the most effective music was the chamber music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Chamber music is a general term for music for relatively small ensembles such as a string quartet, wind trio, or sonata for piano and clarinet. The obvious question is why? Why does the music of Mozart work better than Brahms or Beethoven, or for that matter, Miles Davis or the Rolling Stones? Let's see if we can figure out the answer.
Beethoven struggled with ideas, direction, and outcome. For him, composing was an arduous task. He left behind numerous sketches of his works in progress and from these sketches we can see how Beethoven labored over his compositions and, in many cases, struggled with a variety of possibilities until finally landing on the one and only possibility. As one historian put it, "Beethoven doesn't suggest to us what the next note could be, he tells us what the next note must be." Beethoven came to this conclusion only after an exhaustive series of trial and error.
Brahms' process is believed to be similar to Beethoven's. The only difference is that Brahms was acutely aware of the scrutiny that Beethoven's music endured. To this day, Beethoven's music, sketches, and motives are debated, theorized, and exhaustively vetted. Brahms wanted no part in that kind of analysis which is why he burned all of his notes and sketches. He wanted to leave no trail or insight, only the finished product. Brahms was also notorious for destroying entire compositions that he felt were imperfect or rudimentary. Clara Schumann, a long-time friend and confidant lamented the vast amount of music that Brahms destroyed. It's believed that he wrote upwards of twenty string quartets of which only three avoided the fire.
Like Brahms, Mozart left few sketches or outlines of his works. But Mozart was different. Unlike Brahms he did not commit his early ideas to the fire. The reason he left behind few sketches is because he didn't make any. Mozart's compositions came to him fully realized. In a way, the bulk of his composing occurred in the subconscious. Putting pen to paper or in his context, quill to parchment was akin to turning on a faucet and letting the water flow.
Imagine a novelist who begins a new work. He or she sits down in front of the laptop and over the course of the next several hours, or even days, puts out a complete novel in a single sitting with little or no need for correction or alteration. That's how Mozart composed. It also accounts for his ability to compose as rapidly as he did, leading to a tremendous body of work for what was a relatively short life.
Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart are all considered geniuses. But when it comes to the effectiveness of listening and brain stimulation, could it be that what sets the music of Mozart apart from the others is the way the music was composed? Is the fact that Mozart composed his music in the brain subconsciously responsible for a corresponding effect in the stimulation of our own neurological activity? Could the listening of music that was composed using parts of the brain that normally lie dormant in others have the ability to stimulate electrodes in the brain of the listener? I'm no scientist but I like to think that it's plausible.
