Just after I began the MythBuster Countdown series, a colleague of mine Kimberly Sena Moore published this post in Psychology Today: The Mozart Effect Doesn’t Work… Talk about perfect timing! Now I don’t have to work so hard to prove my point. Check out her post for some really great info!

We’ve known for years that the Mozart Effect is based upon a study that was replicated and refuted several times. In fact, one of the original researchers Rauscher insisted in a subsequent article that the researchers made no claim that music increases IQ. But the media blew it out of proportion, and then came the ever-popular Mozart Effect.

Fortunately, the Mozart Effect brought the topic of music and intelligence into the public eye. Unfortunately, the solution was based upon passively slapping down a mesmerizing CD of Mozart’s music for your kid. What’s missing? Cause/effect relationships and human interaction.

Can you use classical music to support your child’s development? Yes. Here are some tips:

1. Play Haydn’s Surprise Symphony (No. 94), and do a big PEEK-A-BOO at each surprise. For toddlers, march around in a line and stop suddenly at each surprise note.
2. Do baby bounces at each four-beat response phrase in Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz. Do bigger bounces as the volume increases (crescendo). For toddlers, jump on the four-beat responses.
3. Make up your own exciting interpretive dance to Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8. This piece lends itself to creative movement.
4. Listen to Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, and identify each instrument as it coincides with the animals. If you have either professional or toy instruments, then play them along with the music. Otherwise, pretend to play the flutes, violins, pianos, etc. as the music goes on. Do the same for Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67 and Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.
5. Listen to any opera and play a game. Assign different actions to different parts of the opera. For instance, every time a lady sings a solo, you can run around with your hands in the air. When the gentleman sings, you can eat grapes. Then when the chorus sings, you can spin around. Try this with Puccini’s La Boheme or Madame Butterfly.
6. Play Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite #1 every morning to wake up. Your little one will associate this piece with waking up, and you can use the piece in a cause/effect relationship.
7. Use Debussy’s Prelude l’apres-midi d’un faune for the “good night song.” Another cause/effect relationship. The more consistent you are, the more effective the relationship.

Have fun and keep me posted on how you interact with your little one!

Check out the other music therapy Mythbusters:

#9 Music Therapy is Therapy for Musicians, Right?
#8 Making Music is Just for Kids and Professionals
#7 Drumming is for Hippies Only