Posts tagged Musical

We move now into the deeper questions of how sound affects us psychologically. Many scientific studies have shown that music from the Baroque and Classical periods generate positive effects during experimental plant growth, psycho-spatial orientation (rat mazes), and human intelligence [IQ Tests/Abstract Reasoning]. See attached links for details. These tests typically do not account for musical preference in the subjects observed. Plants and lab animals are shown to consistently have negative responses to aggressive music but then, these life forms do not respond to cultural triggers in the same way that humans do. A person who despises baroque music may react negatively and perform poorly on tests due to their unique preference for loud, aggressive music. Then again, studies tend to show that despite musical preference, “Classical” music is always the ideal for studying. As any music lover will tell you, not all bands within a genre are created equal. Many of the music studies that we have observed employ only a few musical control groups, categorized by genre rather than individual composer. Hence, the Baroque control group will likely feature the famed JS Bach, the Classical control group might feature the all-powerful Mozart, and the Hard Rock control group could be any number of modern outfits, from Slipknot to the Rolling Stones. The older genres of music which have been studied in great depth often feature “Master Composers”, identified as such after longterm …