CULTURE WATCH : Mostly Mozart

Not the least interesting finding of a recent experiment that linked listening to Mozart with a temporary but impressive improvement in measured intelligence is its implicit corollary. If exposure to highly structured Mozartian felicities somehow stimulates neural activity in a way that lifts the IQ and promotes abstract reasoning, it would seem to follow that listening to the--shall we say--somewhat less elevating notes of punk rock, grunge, techno, industrial, speed metal and similar contemporary musical genres actually could work to deaden acuity, whatever its value as dance music.

Not to put too fine a point on it, we’re talking here about what gives you smarts, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to scope out that Wolfgang A. Mozart isn’t the band Nirvana.

Frances H. Rauscher, a research fellow at the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at UC Irvine, puts it this way: “We think that really repetitive music will have a very negative effect. It would sort of burn out those (neural) patterns instead of enhancing them or exercising them.” In other words, that thumping, bumping stuff may indeed be capable of turning brain cells into oatmeal.

Thus are the bleakest generational prophecies of our society’s doomsayers given credibility. But then again, we should remember too that you can’t dance to Mozart.

What’s to be done? Perhaps artful compromise is best. What say we ask the Red Hot Chili Peppers to riff through “Eine kleine nacthmusik.” With Wolfie M. on bass, and Papa Brahms pounding the drums.