I am listening to classical music as a I write. I am always listening. A sense of calm fills me as sonatas and symphonies ring in my ears. The gentle precision of each plucked string and pressed key helps me focus on the task at hand whether that be practicing my golf swing or revising my work from the tedious day at school. There is no doubt that classical music has lost its popularity since the age of pop music, but that still doesn’t take away from the incredible benefits it has over its opposition. I stand by this genre of antiqued, beautiful music which was first introduced during the 1700s with composers such as Mozart and Beethoven, both child prodigies, performing many pieces still recognizable today.
Now, who doesn’t love being productive? Well, a study, carried out by the University of Maryland, conveyed the idea that listening to classical music can improve your concentration and sharpen your thinking whilst doing complex tasks. Furthermore, there are no vocals in classical music. Unlike pop music, which is packed full of people screaming down a microphone, classical provides the gentle sound of orchestral instruments all playing in harmony. This takes the load of your brain as it is not having to constantly listen to the music to understand the words that are being sung. Instead, your brain can just allow the musical instruments to play out in the background and concentrate more on the tasks set out in front of you. ‘The Mozart Effect’, a term first employed in 1993 by a psychologist, Francis Rauscher, used to describe the peculiar influence that Mozart’s music can have on people who are studying. Rauscher discovered that students who had listened to ten minutes of Mozart before studying for a test achieved significantly higher results in the test compared to those who had just listened to nothing. This further emphasizes the astonishing impact classical music can have on the human brain and how it can have huge benefits for our productivity levels and concentration.
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Mental health, a huge subject matter in the public eye, can also be positively impacted by classical music. Hearing the sweet sounds of the songs will reduce your anxiety levels, putting you more at peace and making your overall mood happier and healthier. A survey, conducted by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), stated that thirty-five percent of participants in a sample if two thousand-one hundred and ten adults said that listening to classical music during the coronavirus lockdown helped reduce their anxiety during that extremely worrying time. Moreover, fifty-one percent of the sample said they now enjoy classical music and listen to it on a regular basis as it puts them in a better mood. This further employs the idea of how beneficial classical music can be for you and your mental health.
Similar to improving your mood, listening to classical music can reduce your stress levels. Picture it, a busy day at the office, pieces of work flying at you and all you can think about is how on earth am I going to finish all of this. Pull out your headphones and start to play a classical radio station like ‘Classic FM’ or a classical focus playlist and just start the work. One by one each file you sort through or e-mail you write will be washed away and you will have calmed down significantly due to classical music. That is the sort of power this type of music can have on you. Not like any other. A study done by Complementary Therapies proved that listening to the genre of classical reduced your cortisol level, a hormone largely linked to stress, blood pressure, and heart rate which are all things that are linked to your stress level. Stress is a real danger and can lead to many mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Additionally, it can lead to high blood pressure which is a cause of multiple heart problems, some of which can have life-changing side effects. Classical music can have many positive effects on your wellbeing but reducing stress levels is probably the most important with it being the most health-threatening. So, if you find yourself with the odd 10 minutes to spare, put the classical music on to help find emotional clarity again and enjoy a much better quality of life.
One can assume that many of these arguments are mute. Genres like pop music can have the exact same effect on you as classical music if you just turned down the volume. While I must agree that pop music can have benefits like improving our mood, that is where the line is drawn for me. The lyrics used in pop music can distract our brain from concentrating on certain tasks like schoolwork and the upbeat, loud feeling us get from that genre of music can also increase our stress levels since there is no calming affect being brought on by the loud, auto-tuned sound. Not only can pop music be mildly bad for us, but it is also a trend. One song will come out and be really fashionable amongst the public, but will eventually move on and be forgotten. That isn’t the case with classical music. Many pieces that were performed during the mid-1700’s are still well known today with composers such as Chopin and Liszt’s works being streamed and performed every day.
Now pop music has its merits and is still widely listened too amongst society but in my view classical music trumps it. The benefits it has are far greater than the pop genre and the general sound of the music is much nicer with its purity. The fact that so much emotion is transferred without speaking a word baffles me, and that is what, for me, makes it a life-changing genre of music.
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