Music and The Mind
...petition can make a piece of music unpleasant and can send a person into a state of anger. Excessive repetition can cause people to release control of their thoughts. Slow music can slow down ones heartbeat and breathing rate while bringing down blood pressure, as fast music does the opposite. Music has an enormous affect on memory. Learning potential can be increased 5times at minimum using 60 beats per minute music like Mozart’s and baroque music. 60 beats per minute music can activate the left and right brain. This can maximize learning and conservation of information. To prove this theory, a Bulgarian psychologist, Dr. George Lozonov, designed a way to teach foreign languages in a period of standard learning time. His system included using certain classical music pieces with around a 60 beats per minute pattern. Using this, he found that all of the students learned the foreign language with 85-100% accuracy. His students had a recall efficiency rate of almost 100% after not reviewing the material for four years. He also found that students could learn up to one half of their vocabulary and phrases for the whole school term in one day. Researchers from the University of North Texas also performed tests to see if music could help in memorization. They divided students into three groups. Each group was given three vocabulary tests- a pretest, a posttest, and a test a week after the first two. All of the tests were the same. The first group listened to Handel’s Water Music in the background while the words were read to them and were told to imagine the words. Group two were in the same situation as Group one, only they weren’t told to imagine the words. Group three was given no background music and was not asked to imagine the words. The results from the pre and post tests showed that groups one and two had much better scores than those of group three. The results from the test taken a week later showed that group one performed much better than groups two and three. However, just using music while learning does not completely guarantee remembrance but can improve it. Background music alone is not a part of the learning process, but it does go into memory along with the information learned. Remembrance is better when the same piece of music that is used for learning, is also used for recall. Genre and tempo also effect memory retention. Students from Pennsylvania State University studied these effects. They had four groups learn vocabulary words using one of four instrumental pieces-slow classical, slow jazz, fast classical, and fast jazz. The four groups were separated into smaller groups for the recall test. These groups used either the same or different piece of music for t...