The riddle of the Mozart Effect

The Chinese are producing musical albums with some curious titles. Obesity and Constipation are two. Insomnia is another. There's Liver, Heart, and Lungs, and also an orchestral piece that I've nicknamed The Kidney Bladder Suite." Most of the albums use traditional Chinese instruments and are flawlessly performed. The Chinese "take" these musical compositions like they'd take an herbal medicine, to help them get over the problems described in the album titles, or strengthen the organs named in those titles. [sections] On a recent visit to Japan, I came across more compilations of classical and romantic music with prescriptive suggestions. For headaches and migraines, the Japanese suggested Mendelssohn's "Spring Song," Dvorak's "Humoresque," or even a dose of George Gershwin's "An American in Paris." And at hospitals throughout India, traditional Indian music is used medicinally. In Madras, the Raga Research Center has assembled an interdisciplinary team of doctors who experiment with different ragas for use in music therapy. They have found two particular ragas beneficial in treating hypertension and mental illness. [sections] This is nothing new, really The roots of shamanic and indigenous music reach back to the dawn of civilization, when the sound of the drum, rattle, and other primitive instruments would bring communities together, launch crop plantings and harvests, and march tribes into battle. People believed that music and sound magically allowed the powers above and below to come together.

Humans, we have to assume, have known since they first sang or played their first musical instrument (a bone flute between 43,000 and 82,000 years ago) that music evokes powerful forces. Evidence even suggests that dance and song preceded speech, which means that music is humanity's original language. Researchers, in fact, have found that two-thirds of the inner ear's cilia -- the thousands of tiny hairs that lie on a flat plane like piano keys -- resonate only at the higher "musical" frequencies (3,000 to 20,000 hertz). This would seem to tell us that at one time human beings communicated primarily through song or tone.

Modern scientists agree that many different kinds of music can be therapeutic. Some people respond well to reggae or jazz. Others are uplifted -- indeed healed-after listening to Gregorian chant, or heavy metal. But researchers lately have learned that the work of one composer in particular -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart -- mysteriously rises above all other forms of music in its power to heal the human body. This special ability of Mozart's music to heal is called the Mozart Effect. Scientists are not only beginning to understand that some forms of music are more healing than others, with Mozart's at the top, but they're also starting to understand why.

Stammering Depardieu

Alfred Tomatis, M.D., a celebrated French physician, has spent five decades studying the healing and creative powers of sound and music, the Mozart Effect in particular. Many of his patients call him Dr. Mozart. Tomatis has tested more than 100,000 clients in his listening Centers throughout the world for listening disabilities and vocal and auditory handicaps, as well as learning disorders.

One of his better-known patients was Gerard Depardieu, the French actor. Many movie-goers have heard Depardieu speak with a mellifluous voice, but in the mid- 1960s, he was a tongue-tied young man still struggling to become an actor. Coming from a background of family difficulties, educational failures, and personal sorrows, Depardieu could not express himself. He could hardly speak. And the more he tried, the worse his stammering became.

A drama teacher directed him to the Tomatis Center in Paris, where he met with Tomatis himself. Tomatis diagnosed the cause of Depardieu's voice and memory problems as deeper emotional problems underlying his physiological difficulties and told him that he could help him. Depardieu asked what the treatment would involve -- surgery, medication, or speech therapy. Tomatis responded, "For the next several weeks, I want you to come here every day for two hours and listen to Mozart."

"Mozart?" Depardieu asked, puzzled.

"Mozart," Tomatis repeated.

The next day Depardieu returned to the Tomatis Center to don headphones and listen to Mozart. After only a few sessions, he began to experience positive changes in his daily routine. His appetite improved, he slept better, and he found himself with more energy. And soon he was speaking more clearly. After several months, Depardieu returned to acting school with new poise and confidence, and went on to become one of the consummate actors of his generation.

"Before Tomatis," Depardieu says, looking back, "I could not complete any of my sentences. He helped give continuity to my thoughts, and he gave me the power to synthesize and understand what I was thinking."