Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Does liking classical music need high IQ?

It's been scientifically determined that plants grow better to classical than to country music:

http://youth.net/nsrc/sci/sci048.html#anchor992130

Unfortunately, the 8th grade researchers didn't think to test the IQ of the different groups of plants. But these results (if not suppressed) could have a profound impact on the music smart farmers listen to.

Howard

I always thought of "Radiohead" as "rock music for smart ppl" but that's probably just me trying to feel special cause I like Radiohead so much :-) I do think they use some very cool chord progressions that most bands don't try because they know it's not very mainstream.

I don't know if you can generalize too much about music. I think ppl too often ignore classical music or the oppurtunity to learn more about because they think they have to have a genius IQ to "get" it. The media always make classical music seem so intellectual (i.e. "Baby Mozart" CD series). Many ppl avoid the genre because they think it's for geeks and pretentious people. There are plenty of both types of ppl that listen to classical but then there are people like me that will queue up Miles Davis, R.E.M. and Chopin in the same playlist and not think 2x about it!!!


~pianocliff

Classical music has always been labeled as "intellectual" and "high society" and "difficult to understand" and "the best", while forms of popular music have often been denegraded as "lower class" and "popular" and "easy" and "unsophisticated."


The truth is, you don't need a higher IQ or education to enjoy classical music. You don't need to be upper class to listen to it, and listening to it does not make you upper class. It is not the best style of music, and it is not inherently better than other forms of music (even popular music).

But that's the stereotype, and people buy into it.

Classical music is just music. Yes, if you know a lot about music, it will be so much more beautiful and interesting. If you know a lot about music, other forms of music may be interesting as well. I once chatted with a guy at a party who was extremely passionate about progressive rock and other forms of modern rock. I told him I didn't understand it (this coming from a music school student who listens to classical music and is fairly intelligent), and he so passionately told me about progressive rock, the ideas and concepts behind it, how it has evolved from previous genres, how it works and how it is composed, what it's "purposes" are, what the future of it is, etc. I had no idea, and here was this guy who loved it so much, who obviously was very smart, and who obviously knew a great deal intellectually about this music (that I had thought was boring, uninteresting, and simple).


Again, music is music.

Amen, brother Jerome! Amen.

By the way, there are just as many studies done that have shown that listening to classical music has absolutely no affect on IQ or intelligence.

But, those results don't sell papers - so most of what has been published in the press are the positive results.


But the results are not at all consistent, and in fact I do recall a study (I researched this topic last year for a psychology course) that showed that listening to classical music actually worsened test results. Bet you didn't know about that one, eh?

(Unfortunately I probably couldn't pull that back up for you, without doing a bit of research again.)


What is possibly convincing, however, is the idea that music can help brain growth. Because, research has shown that performing (and listening, but especially performing) music uses many, many different parts of the brain, stimulating growth in many areas. The studies that have shown that listening to classical music before taking an exam improves test results, probably aren't really proving that classical music is good for you, but that listening to music (music in general) activates various parts of the brain, and "readies" your brain to recall and process information. The examples used (that I read about in my research) often used soft, calm Mozart sonatas. Now, what do you think the result would have been if they had used a loud, angry, crashing piece of classical music by Brahms or Shostakovich? Probably would have jarred the students, and distracted them, and caused them to tense up a little bit, especially if they don't like the music. Now, what do you think would have happened if they used a simple, sweet popular song, that has a very soft steady pulse, and very lyrical, soothing melodies? Probably would have had the same effect as the soft, relaxing Mozart sonatas.

It probably requires some extra ability, like doing anything else well does...
What's very frustrating is when your family doesn't share your interest in classical music. AT ALL.