Who doesn’t love cranking their favourite CD while cleaning the house or finishing that pesky Chemistry assignment? Well it’s proven that music affects the brain in all kinds of healthy positive ways. Listening to Mozart while studying can give you a better grade and playing an instrument can also improve the way you learn, especially when it comes to language. It’s been long believed that music helps learning whether it is being played or listened to.
A study done by Stanford University has shown that having the ability to perform an instrument will make you better at understanding language and sounds. This study showed that musicians were not only faster at distinguishing tones and syllables but they also did so more accurately than non-musicians. It’s interesting because one would think that learning music is very different than a language, but being able to hear and analyse pitches that differ by a small amount is one of the benefits of being a musician. The experimenters from this study hope to also prove that learning an instrument can be used as a learning aid to children who suffer from reading disabilities such as dyslexia.
Hearing music while learning a new skill such as a new language or memorizing facts and vocabulary can also have a very noticeable effect. Experts call it the Mozart Effect, where music can improve intelligence by reducing learning time, increasing ability to study for longer lengths of time, and improving clarity and communication. This is a result caused by the combination of listening to music and doing mental exercises (studying) stimulating both the left and right hemispheres of the brain at the same time causing more efficient learning.
For example, Dr. Georgi Lozanov discovered that Baroque music can be used to teach foreign languages in an impressive amount of time and with an amazing accuracy for recollection. The well known psychologist from Bulgaria showed that having a Baroque piece with 60 beats per minute to be played while students studied the new language, helped them to learn the language in about a month instead of the usual time of two years. Additionally, the music being played also gave them a 92% retention rate, even after a long period such as four years of not studying the language. In conclusion, a bit of classical musical on your iPod will assist you in getting a even better grade for that Spanish course!
Blog post submitted by Vanessa Fladmark
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