BasicMusicTheory.pdf = oO EVEN LISTENING TO MUSIC IS PROVEN TO MAKE YOU SMARTER! NO JOKE. One important center of this research has been the University of California at Irvine, where Drs. Gordon Shaw and Fran Rauscher have found that active music making improves children’s math skills. Shaw is a physicist who found that the inner working of the human brain operates in patterns that resemble musical structures, and he suspects that music may be the key to understanding intelligence. Other research supports similar conclusions: at McGill University in Canada, researchers found that kids who take piano lessons showed improved general and spatial cognitive development, and studies at a Miami Veterans Administration hospital indicate that music making may improve the brain's natural production of regulatory hormones like melatonin. And most amazingly, an experiment by Rauscher showed that listening to the first ten minutes of the Mozart Concerto for Two Pianos in D Major (K. 448) improved the listeners’ spatial-temporal reasoning! In the days of the New England singing-schools, people believed in teaching and leaming music because it was good for the soul. We've learned a lot since then. If music really can make a person better at math, science and engineering, and if just listening to music can make you smarter, why wouldn't anyone want to benefit from music? As we begin a new century, there is proof about the power of music education. And it’s still good for your soul. For more information about music and the brain visit: www.QuestionsInk.com/brain