The “Mozart Effect” is the hypothesis that listening to music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may temporarily improve performance on certain spatial-reasoning tasks.
While scientists are still researching how far-reaching the implications are to this effect, many people can attest to the value of music to influence mood and enhance alertness, particularly in the early formative years of children.
At our music school in Midland, Texas we value the development of young children and how music can affect their lives in a positive way.
As a parent, myself, I can give witness to the benefits of two activities we diligently provided for our children, even while in the womb: 1) Reading to them, and 2) Playing Classical Music for them.
When my children were infants, each night, as they were in bed going to sleep, my wife would play various pieces by Bach, Debussy, Grieg, and others on the piano in the living room.
Still, to this day our children remember and appreciate those moments of beauty in our home. Both children finished their high school testing with very high scores on their SAT tests and entered university at 16 years old. They both excelled to the top of their classes quickly and received the highest honors upon completing their undergraduate studies before turning twenty. They are both avid readers and creators of music and video. One recently taught himself to read ancient Greek fluidly, because he wanted to know how to interpret the Bible for himself, and the other taught herself how to produce and master her own original music, now being heard by millions of Youtube followers.
We teach students in our music school in Midland, Texas how to compose original material and produce it for publishing, through recording and music-production techniques.
As a minister of music over the years, I witnessed first-hand the power of music to control a room. Some might call it ‘manipulation,’ others could call it ‘leadership.’ Either way, based upon the motivation of the one wielding music’s powerful influence, it was evident that music ‘set the tone’ for the day.
It was my job, as music director and worship leader, to establish a sense of excitement among the hundreds who were gathered, as well as bring the entire room to a place of focus and receptivity to the teaching of the pastor. At times this was challenging, especially with weather changes. In West Texas, the ‘skies are not cloudy all day’ as the song goes. So, when an occasional drop in barometric pressure would happen as a couple of rainy days came around, people could feel it in their bodies.
I could always tell it was going to be an uphill climb, based upon the pre-service rehearsal I had with the music team, if they seemed overly tired or distracted. I used the phrase with them, “Be a thermostat, not a thermometer!” A thermostat sets the temperature, while a thermometer is influenced by the temperature. It was our job to set the temperature in the room, and many times (in fact, most times) it was an act of intentionality.
At our music school in Midland, Texas we encourage students and parents to take a proactive stance in the process of education.
Anything in life worth doing, is worth doing well. Being intentional as a parent or any kind of leader is the starting point for anything good that comes in life. A field left to itself produces weeds and bramble. It takes effort to clear off land, keep the weeds out, plant the seeds, water, fertilize, and ultimately harvest.
Beautiful music doesn’t just happen, either. In fact, beauty in this world is fleeting. Music and the arts, particularly, highly-crafted and intentional in design takes time, effort, energy, focus, patience, and almost every other kind of high-character-trait adjective to bring it into fruition.
Composers like Mozart and Bach were immersed in the craft of music-making at the highest levels of artistry, having been trained as children and devoting their entire lives to this purpose. Of course, what they brought forth was highly patterned and emotionally finessed. It came out of great sacrifice.
As we teach students in our music school in Midland, Texas works by great composers, we know that their lives will be touched.
I love the illustration of Newton’s Cradle, that shows how kinetic energy flows from one side of the device to the other. The same is true of every aspect of our lives. Someone always sets in motion something good before it gets to us. If we’ve been the recipient of something of beauty, of meaning, of grace, it’s because someone before us sacrificed somehow to get it to us.
And when it gets to us, we can tell! It is evident that we’re receiving the transmission of it’s beauty. All of us are affected a little differently, but the Effect is there.
Is it the patterns and design? Is it the emotional depth, or sacrificial effort that it took to bring this highly crafted music into reality? Maybe it’s all of the above. Does it really matter what makes it so powerful? We just know that we’re being touched through the ages by this transmission of beauty.
It is evident in the lives of students in our music school in Midland, Texas when they experience music’s beauty that touches them deeply and profoundly.
Apparently, in outer space, because there is no resistance, light can travel from a star long extinct, as we’re still seeing the flickering light in the night sky.
It is truly amazing to me that these musical compositions, created hundreds of years ago in a culture quite different from ours today, is still shining brightly, bringing beauty and inspiration, challenging our awareness of patterns and design and moving us emotionally.
It still speaks, and it has a lot to say.
While science is still grappling with how the mind works and what actually are the emotions of hope, love, wonder and beauty, we are nevertheless living these everyday of our lives. When a sunset shines its array of pastels, when we see a beautiful forest or majestic mountain, when we witness the birth of a child, we are showered, immersed, in life that came from somewhere. Someone sacrificed to get it to us, we may not understand or appreciate it, or even know where it came from, but it wasn’t by accident or random. Anything in this life of beauty started from intentionality.
When students at our music school in Midland, Texas apply themselves to studying great works, they have no other option than to be significantly changed for the better.
As parents, as teachers, as life-long learners, we understand the power of receiving knowledge, wisdom, beauty and grace, as well as giving the same.
Are you catching the gift? Are you giving it?