Mozart won't make you smart

You heard me, despite what the media told you, Mozart does not and will not make you smart. Not by listening to it anyway. A recent study in Germany, lead by Ralph Schumacher, dispelled the myth.

All of these years I've seen people taking advantage from the controversial study of UC-Irvine's psychologist Frances Rauscher. In 1993, he claimed that after listening to Mozart's Sonata for two pianos in D major (K448) for 10 minutes, his subjects performed better on spatial tasks — such as recognizing patterns, or folding paper. This Mozart Effect, a term coined by A.A. Tomatis, is becoming a marketing tools for a whole new industry (music, therapies, books, websites) worth billions of dollars.

However, other researchers have trouble reproducing the same result. In fact, one of the studies claimed that Mozart makes some people dumber. Definitely not a something you are after.

On the other hand, according to the study of Glenn Schellenberg, playing music for some period of time can actually increases your IQ slightly. Remember: slight increase, so it won't make your kid a genius by playing music.