I don’t know about you, but music is my most-oft used tool when I’m trying to write something. In my freshman year of college, our Music teacher had us conduct an experiment based on a theory called “The Mozart Effect.” Basically, the theory follows that if one listens to Mozart, especially his sonatas, he or she will do better in school. The studies showed better grades/comprehension in math and science, especially, when participants listened to Mozart while taking tests or doing homework. Us students had to try this out and listen to Mozart while writing a paper and see how it affected the quality of our thinking. I gotta tell you, folks, it actually worked! I wrote half of the paper listening to music I usually listen to, and the other half listening to Mozart. I wrote that half of the paper in half the time, and the words just flowed better. Cool, huh? Music really does affect us, and I propose it does this in more ways than we actually realize.

Last year in Creative Writing one of the “Experiments” we could try was to write a poem while listening to at least three different songs, and writing a stanza while listening to each song. My poem turned out…interesting. I’ll post that sometime.

I have recently discovered the Music Genome Project, otherwise known as Pandora Radio (http://www.pandora.com/#/). It lets you type in a favorite artist, and then it creates a radio station based off of that artist’s style and genre. Pretty cool, huh?! If you haven’t been to this site yet, I highly suggest you do it. You might discover some muses which have been hiding in your closet, just waiting to spark your creative flames.

Tags: Mozart Effect, music, pandora

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 1:22 pm and is filed under Creating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.