„Mozart Music Makes You Smarter“…

…titled the Los Angeles times a few years ago. Have you ever heard of the Mozart-effect? The idea is that if babies or children listen to music composed by Mozart become more intelligent. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Just buy your newborn baby a CD or, if you are more ambitious, stimulate the unborn child with classical music and it will become super intelligent.

Where does this idea come from?

Neurobiologist Gordon Shaw tried to illustrate brain activity on a computer and found out that nerve cells adopt specific rhythms and patterns. He decided to turn the output into sounds and found realized that these sounds sounded familiar with some of the characteristics of baroque music. In 1993 he joined two other scientists and created together with them the study “Music and Spatial Task Performance”. The three scientists from the University of California divided college students into three groups. The subjects were given a series of mental tasks to complete. All of the tests were designed to measure spatial intelligence. The participants had to, for example, mentally unfold a piece of paper that has been folded over several times and then cut. The test looked like this:

If you know the answer please leave a comment J

Before each task they listened either to ten minutes of silence, ten minutes of a tape of relaxation instructions or ten minutes of Mozart’s sonata for two pianos in D major. The students who listened to the sonata increased their IQ by eight to nine points. For a short time they were better at spatial tasks than their colleagues. These findings made front-page headlines (the heading of this post is an example).

This sounds great so far but before you a CD collection of classical music to improve your intelligence -  read on.

Gordon Shaw and his colleagues made clear that this effect lasts only for about fifteen minutes – the time it took to take the test. Although the effects were temporarily and the Mozart-effect is a myth, the findings caused public interest. In 1998 the Governor of Georgia set aside state budget so that every newborn baby could receive a CD of classical music.

In 2001 Carlo Cignozzi set up speakers throughout his vineyard in order to keep pests away from his vine. He began playing a selection of classical music to his plants 24 hours a day and noticed that the grapes ripened faster.

Farmers in America and Italy play Mozart’s music to their cows to help them produce more and better milk.

I really like the idea that listening to Mozart makes you smarter and although I know that it is a myth, I could imagine listening classical music with my unborn baby. What do you think of this topic?

Blind...and Happy

Can you imagine being blind – totally blind? I can’t and therefore I also can’t imagine how difficult it must be to live in this visual world. It is amazing for me how these special people live their life. In class we talked about “disability” and “difficulty” and I was not sure which term I should use to describe the following person. Then I found the “Courtesy Rules of Blindness” on the internet, where someone wrote: “I'm an ordinary person, just blind. You don't need to remember some ’politically correct’ term, ‘visually impaired’, ‘sight challenged’ etc. Keep it simple and honest, just say blind.”
Okay, I will try to stick to that.

Two days ago there was a concert in a church (in the “Münzgrabenkirche”) in Graz. As you may have guessed from my introduction it was not an “ordinary” one. The duo was called “Blind and Happy”, which refers to one of the two members - Sandra Seiwald. She was born with failing eyesight and became totally blind eleven years ago. Nevertheless, Sandra graduated from high school and studied jurisprudence. Together with Gudrun Topf she founded “Blind and Happy”. Topf studied music and educational theory and had the honor of performing together with Stevie Wonder.
Seiwald and Topf became well-known in Austria when they took part in the ORF talent show “Die große Chance”. Seiwald said in an interview that they applied just for fun and were really surprised that the audience liked them so much. “Blind and Happy” reached the semi-final where they performed one of Seiwalds favorite songs from the musical “Mozart”. The concert last Friday also ended with this beautiful song.

Now I realize that I haven’t written anything about the rest of the concert. Sandra Seiwald and Gudrun Topf sang not only songs from musicals but also spirituals as well as new and old pop songs. My favorite one on that evening was “Run” from Leona Lewis. Seiwald mentioned something that I haven’t realized before. “Run” is a song about a mother and her dead child. The atmosphere afterwards was really special.

Their two voices are amazing together and if there is another concert in Graz, I will definitely be there.

Click here to view their website

Ö3...Let's Rock

Today I am going to tell you about a very interesting job interview, which happened last week.

When I was looking for a summer job in the internet, I suddenly clicked on a blog where a boy wrote about his work experience at Ö3 (a radio station). I am very interested in music and radio and so I decided to try my luck and sent them my application documents. This might sound easy - but it was not. At first I had to fill out about five pages. There were very many different tasks to do. I had, for example, to name my favorite film and to explain why. Moreover I had to tell a foreign friend about the political system in Austria (in five sentences) or shorten news in order to use them on the radio. Some exercises were really tricky and I spent much time on them. The most difficult thing for me was the last task. I had to write about whatever I wanted to. The only two requirements were: it should be about one page long and it has to make them curious. I rewrote my text about 15 or 20 times until I was satisfied with it. I sent my application at the end of March and from then on I had to wait.

As time went past I got more and more excited. When I finally got an E-Mail I was so nervous I could hardly breathe – it was like getting a test back. I opened the E-Mail and was gobsmacked. The vice manager wrote me that she really liked my application and invited me to an assessment center – which was last week. It took place in Vienna and that day was pretty cool. When I arrived at the company buildings, I was overwhelmed. There are many people bustling around, the whole building is equipped with their own products (they even have beanbag chairs with their label on it) and you can hear Ö3 everywhere (even in the bathroom!).
There were about 25 other job applicants – all very interesting people. Some of them study music, journalism or communication science. They were all very friendly and we had a lot of fun together. The assessment center was separated in three parts. At first we had to fill out a general knowledge test. Then someone handed out some pictures and we had to write humorous texts. The third part was a “normal” job interview – this is what the vice manager told us at least. Luckily the interview was not in front of the other applicants but in a separate room. It was a relaxed situation – there were also some other important people – and we talked about why I applied here and so on. Suddenly one guy asked me if I could tell him a joke. I told him that there is one joke I can remember from my Spanish class at school. The English translation would be: “What time is it when an elephant destroys your watch? …..Time to buy a new one.” No one laughed, they only looked at me and I said something like: “Hahaha, that’s it.” Another guy answered: “At least you tried”.This was so embarrassing!
The vice manager told me that she would either write me an E-Mail or call me to inform me whether I got the job or not.

I will keep you posted!

EDIT: Unfortunately I was not selected but it was woth a try!