Some scientists claim there isn’t; tests show no effect. Well, that doesn’t prove something doesn’t exist. It might only prove you designed a crappy experiment.

Plenty of robust studies show there is indeed an effect and it’s a very good one.

The “Mozart Effect”, if you don’t know, is the supposition that playing nice music, with the right frequencies buried in it, is very stimulating to a child’s brain and can enhance growth and learning. Seems almost common sense, doesn’t it. Not to some people!

I’m looking at a copy of the book by Don Campbell. Per the usual American hubris (conceit), he states that all this was given impetus and cred by researches of Frances H Rauscher PhD, at Center for Neurobiology of Learning in Irvine, California.

These Americans are often decades behind the rest of us and believe they invented everything. Or if they didn’t, then it’s not worth knowing anyway.

The truth is all this was discovered starting in the 1950s in France, with the work of Alfred Tomatis MD. He’s been called the Einstein of Sound and the Sherlock Holmes of sonic detection. Tomatis was the developer of the “electronic ear” concept.

His biggest discovery was not the Mozart Effect but a physiological curiosity, which is that the voice does not contain frequencies which the ear cannot hear. If the ear does not pick up the sound, that sound will be missing from the quality of the voice. Continue reading →