Keeping Mozart in Mind

“Can music make my kid smarter?” This question has been discussed in the scientific community and the popular media since Dr. Shaw and his research team published their findings in 1993 (later dubbed the “Mozart effect”), showing a direct link between listening to music and a subsequent improvement in spatial-temporal ability. Shaw’s studies have been published in Nature, Neurological Research, and many other top scientific journals. He has been interviewed in such popular media as the Chicago Tribune, Parade Magazine, and on television news magazines for his expertise in this area. Keeping Mozart in Mind represents the first time the full story of how music enhances learning has been told, and it is written in a format that is useful for scientists, educators, and interested laypersons alike.

Keeping Mozart in Mind by Gordon L. Shaw, Ph.D.
M.I.N.D. Institute/University of California, Irvine
from Academic Press, San Diego 2000

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Music can entertain, motivate, inspire and calm. Now, years of innovative scientific research have proven that music can enhance how we can think and reason. Music can show us how the brain works and how thought and reason can be enhanced by music. From the discovery of the Mozart effect by the author Dr. Gordon Shaw, we now stand at the threshold of using music to revolutionize math education.

The goal of the author is to allow all children to learn difficult math in order to prepare them better for the modern, technologically driven world. The latest study using Dr. Shaw’s new program showed that inner-city 2nd graders dramatically increased their standardized math scores and were performing at the same level on advanced math concepts as 4th graders from a higher socio-economic school!

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Spatial-temporal reasoning involves transforming and comparing mental images in space and time, crucial in playing chess, doing math and, more recently, in computer operation. Children can grasp the math concepts more readily with spatial-temporal reasoning than by language-based math that currently dominates school programs. Dr. Matthew Peterson has developed the ingenious S.T.A.R. software, which exploits spatial-temporal operations that are innate to our structured brain.

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Seminal work 12 years ago by Drs. Xiaodan Leng and Shaw showed how the brain processes information using spatial-temporal patterns similar to those found in music. Stimulating the mind with particular types of music would be expected to encourage and augment the brain’s ability to process and solve spatial-temporal problems. This hypothesis led to breakthrough collaborative experiments: Mozart listening experiments include:

1) College students after listening the Mozart Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major showed subsequent enhancement of spatial-temporal reasoning. These results by Dr. Frances Rauscher and Shaw received an enormous amount of attention in 1993 and were called the Mozart effect by the media.

2) Alzheimer patients had enhanced short-term spatial-temporal reasoning after listening to the Mozart Sonata.

3) Epilepsy patients had reduced seizure activity when the Mozart Sonata was played to them.

4) Brain imaging studies showed very strikingly increased brain activity when exposed to the Mozart Sonata. This is the first evidence for the neurophysiological basis of the Mozart effect

Piano keyboard training experiments:

1) Three-year-olds who received piano keyboard lessons for six months improved dramatically from the 50th percentile to the 85th percentile on an age standardized spatial-temporal reasoning task.

2) Inner-city 2nd graders given piano keyboard training and S.T.A.R. training scored significantly higher on proportional math and fractions than children given control training.

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This research led to the author’s development of a Music Spatial-Temporal Math Program with:

1) Piano keyboard training which enhances the child’s innate cortical ability to solve spatial-temporal tasks;

2) S.T.A.R. software which allows the child to learn difficult math concepts using spatial-temporal reasoning;

3) Math Integration which bridges the spatial-temporal approach to the standard language based math.

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After 8 months of the Program presented in the book, inner-city 2nd graders strikingly increased their average on the national Stanford 9 math scores and were performing at the same level on advanced math concepts as 4th graders from a higher socio-economic school. This dramatic finding found after publication of the book provides a major benchmark for future work.

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The years of research are now available in this acclaimed book. Gordon Shaw presents the results leading to the Mozart effect, but even more importantly, the reasons for bringing about a revolution in math education fueled by music training.

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Included in the book is the actual piece of music that has generated the Mozart effect as well as an enhanced version of the S.T.A.R. software used in the Programs studies suitable for children of all ages from 4 to 94 years old.