Mozart Music For Brain Development

[Mahmod Ohner]

Doesclassical music make babies smarter? There's no proof that it does, but classical music can soothe babies and may stimulate brain development. And there are proven benefits for children who listen to and play music, including improvements in math, reading, and motor skills.

There isn't any evidence that it does. Studies have shown that classical music brings down a newborn's heart and breathing rates and soothes their stress, and that listening to a waltz or concerto might help promote brain development, especially in premature babies. But could playing classical music for babies make them smarter? That's pretty questionable.

The idea that listening to classical music makes for smarter babies is called the "Mozart effect." It comes from a 1993 study by psychologist Francis Rauscher, who found that college students temporarily scored higher on tests of spatial reasoning after listening to a Mozart sonata.

The media ran with the story, but they misinterpreted the study to mean that classical music makes children more intelligent overall, when that's not what it found. The students only improved in spatial performance, and the effects lasted a short period of time.

Being an active participant in making music is even better. With your baby and toddler, sing nursery rhymes and songs with movements, like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, The Wheels on the Bus, and Itsy-Bitsy Spider. Pairing songs with movements helps support language development.

Encourage your little one to beat a toy drum or plink the keys of a piano along with whatever tune you're enjoying. Once your child is old enough, enroll them in music classes. There's some evidence that studying and playing music is more enriching than just listening to it.

The Mozart effect is the idea that people experience a temporary increase in intelligence after listening to a piano sonata written by the famed composer. It's based on results of studies on college students, not babies.

It was first reported in 1993 by scientists at the University of California at Irvine, and replicated by the same group in 1995. Researchers found that college students who listened to a Mozart sonata for a few minutes before taking a test that measured spatial relationship skills did better than students who took the test after listening to another musician or no music at all.

The effect in the students was temporary (it lasted only 15 minutes) and has always been controversial. Nonetheless, the media and politicians hopped on the Mozart effect bandwagon, claiming that listening to the music offered numerous benefits and could alleviate physical and mental health problems.

Despite popular sentiment, the evidence that listening to classical music made anybody smarter was tenuous at best. The lead researcher in the original U.C. Irvine study himself said in a Forbes article that the idea that classical music can cure health problems and make babies smarter has "nothing to do with reality," even though he believes that listening to a Mozart sonata can prime the brain to tackle mathematical tasks.

Researchers at Appalachian State University were unable to duplicate the original "Mozart effect" results. They found that the presence or absence of classical music didn't significantly affect student performance on tests.

BabyCenter's editorial team is committed to providing the most helpful and trustworthy pregnancy and parenting information in the world. When creating and updating content, we rely on credible sources: respected health organizations, professional groups of doctors and other experts, and published studies in peer-reviewed journals. We believe you should always know the source of the information you're seeing. Learn more about our editorial and medical review policies.

Alay B, et al. 2019. The clinical effect of classical music and lullaby on term babies in neonatal intensive care unit: A randomized controlled trial. The Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association. a new window [Accessed February 2022]

Amini E, et al. 2013. Effects of lullaby and classical music on physiologic stability of hospitalized preterm infants: a randomized trial. Journal of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine. a new window [Accessed February 2022]

In recent years, researchers have learned a lot about how the brain develops. Babies are born with billions of brain cells, called neurons. During the first years of life, those neurons form connections with other neurons. Over time, the connections our brains use regularly become stronger.

Children who grow up listening to music develop strong music-related connections in the brain. Some of these music pathways actually affect the way we think. Listening to classical music seems to improve our spatial reasoning, at least for a short time. And learning to play an instrument may have an even longer effect on certain thinking skills.

Not exactly. Music seems to prime our brains for certain kinds of thinking. After listening to classical music, adults can do certain spatial tasks more quickly, such as putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

Why does this happen? The classical music pathways in our brain are similar to the pathways we use for spatial reasoning. When we listen to classical music, the spatial pathways are "turned on" and ready to be used. This priming makes it easier to work a puzzle quickly. But the effect lasts only a short time. Our improved spatial skills fade within about an hour after we stop listening to the music.

Learning to play an instrument can have longer-lasting effects on spatial reasoning, however. In several studies, children who took piano lessons for six months improved their ability to work puzzles and solve their other spatial tasks by as much as 30 percent. Why does playing an instrument make such a difference? Researchers believe that musical training creates new pathways in the brain.

Researchers think the complexity of classical music is what primes the brain to solve spatial problems more quickly. So listening to classical music may have different effects on the brain than listening to other types of music.

This doesn't mean that other types of music aren't good. Listening to any kind of music helps build music-related pathways in the brain. And music can have positive effects on our moods that may make learning easier.

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Some ideas don't hold up. The ones that do make it here, including this little adventure to a one-room schoolhouse in the Colombian Andes and this strange tale of two men, separated by an ocean and united by a stolen laptop.

For this week's long listen, I sat down with my Ed Team co-conspirator, Anya Kamenetz, to talk about one of my favorite subjects: brains. Specifically, how children learn to read and what can be done to help struggling readers.

First, Kraus found that kids who took music lessons for two years didn't just get better at playing the trombone or violin; playing music also helped their brains process language. Consonants and vowels became clearer, allowing the brain to make sense of them more quickly. This heat map speaks volumes:

The study's set-up was as remarkable as its findings. While Kraus and her Northwestern lab are based in Evanston, Ill., she studied the brains of kids affiliated with the Los Angeles-based Harmony Project, a nonprofit after-school program that teaches music to children in low-income communities. So she and her team traveled to L.A. regularly, luggage full of scalp electrodes, and sat down with her subjects right there in the group's Hollywood offices.

To be clear, simply playing Mozart for your kids will not have the same effect. It's still a fine idea. A little Mozart never hurt anyone, but Kraus found that the benefit comes from playing the harpsichord, not listening to it.

The Harmony Project study pairs nicely with this story that popped up last summer. This time, Kraus and her team developed an auditory test that can be given to children before they're old enough to read but that can predict, with remarkable accuracy, future literacy trouble. The test is a feast for the ears which my crack producer, Sami Yenigun, recreated for the radio when the story first aired on Morning Edition.

As you'll hear, the basic idea of the test is to measure how faithfully children can hear and catalog speech sounds. Kraus says that a child who has trouble processing language at 3 years old will likely struggle to read later on and that a simple, early-warning test could be a powerful tool to help children before they fall behind in school.

The impact of music on human development has been a subject of research and fascination for decades. Among the various genres of music, classical music holds a unique place, particularly in its potential to foster early brain development in infants. This article explores how classical music can benefit babies' cognitive growth and why parents might consider incorporating it into their young ones' daily routines.

Classical music, characterized by its structured harmony and complex melodies, plays a pivotal role in cognitive stimulation. According to a study by the University of California, Irvine, listening to Mozart's music may increase spatial reasoning skills and short-term memory in children (Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky, 1993). This phenomenon, often referred to as the "Mozart Effect," suggests that classical music can temporarily enhance performance on certain types of mental tasks.

In terms of motor skills, the rhythmic nature of music can motivate babies to move and explore their physical abilities. Coordinated movements in response to music, like clapping or tapping, can enhance motor coordination and rhythm.

Listening to music can also be a powerful tool for language development. The varied tones and rhythms of classical music can mimic the cadences of spoken language, thus preparing the brain to recognize and produce language sounds. A study by McMaster University found that babies who participated in interactive music classes displayed better early communication skills, such as pointing at objects that are out of reach or waving goodbye (Trainor, Marie, Gerry, Whiskin, & Unrau, 2012).

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