UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE
Espana, Manila

Final Paper

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements in

Art Appreciation

Submitted to
Asst. Prof. Maximo Sauz

by

PAMELA DC. GARCIA

4Biology-3

07 December 2017
 I. Relationship of music to the well-being of an individual

According to Silbermann (1963), “musical taste is a social phenomenon, it is socially

conditioned, it is born and dies within social life to which it belongs to”. It has been greatly debated
by several researchers that social class affects music preferences. This theory has been supported
by a study done at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Sociology. The study
included 1,600 respondents who were interviewed via telephone. Results showed that people from
the lower class tend to like country, disco, easy listening, golden oldies, heavy metal and rap. The
higher class, on the other hand, prefer classical, blues, jazz, opera, choral, pop, reggae, rock, world
and musical theatre. As for me, I can generalize someone just by knowing their music preference.
For me, people who like classical music are smart, intelligent yet boring human beings. They have
goals and are set to reach it with a straight vision of their journey. Also, people who like classical
music, for me, are those who are rich because I think their sophisticated selves appreciate it more
than those in the middle class. A study by Skipper (1973) can support this claim as he found out
that the higher social class, the higher the percentage of the respondents preferring classical music.
This might be the case because classical music has long been associated with the upper classes.

Another topic that has gathered the attention of researchers is the effect of listening to
classical music, specifically Mozart’s, to the academic performance of a student. This phenomenon
has been called the “Mozart Effect”. They claim that listening to Mozart increase the IQ level of
an individual. One of the first studies done to prove this claim was done by Gordon Shaw, together
with two other colleagues, wherein 36 students took a spatial IQ test and were divided into 3 class
– those who will listen to Mozart, the other group will listen to a relaxing music, and those who
will not listen to anything. Results showed that the group who listened to Mozart got the highest
average score among the classes. Another study done by Rideout and Taylor showed the increase
level of brain activity after listening to Mozart, which led to an increase performance of the
students. In my experience, listening to classical music greatly increases my attention span and I
get to relax more while reading my notes.

Another genre of music which caught a lot of attention is rock music. It is associated with
the devil. According to an article written by Donald Phau, “the Satanists control the major rock
groups through drugs, sex, threats of violence, and even murder”. Analyzing lyrics of rock songs
will let you realize how hypnotizing and how satanic the lyrics are. In the said article, the song
“demons” by Rigor Mortis was analyzed. It talks about rape and murder in the name of satan.
Today, the young are more engage with the lyrics of the song, in such a way that they look deep
into it and really understand it, and so it would be bad for their character development to be
exposed to this kind of songs.

II. Differentiating Humanities from other courses

Humanities, as defined in the dictionary, is the quality or condition of being a human. It can
also be described as the study of how people process and document the human experience.
Considering human experience adds to our knowledge about our world. As stated by the Stanford
University, philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history, and language are used to understand
and record our world. Through exploration of the humanities we learn how to think creatively and
critically, to reason, and to ask questions. These skills allow us to gain new insights into everything
from poetry and paintings to business models and politics.

III. How humanities affect lifestyle

Science, for me, is all about facts and certainty of values. I have been studying it for so long
and I enjoy it mainly because I learn new things. As for humanities, nothing is certain. I think for
me, Humanities is a very subjective field in which it requires students to think deeper and question
everything. Nothing is ever sure, and you always have to reason out why or why not things are like
this and that. I remember having this course, Philosophy of Science, wherein we were required to
reason out with our professor and think outside the box to understand the point of his lesson. I
think Humanities has set a great impact on my life, in terms of thinking outside the box. This helps
me in studying life, such that I always ask the whys, and this help me to remember more of it
because reasoning out helps me connect lessons more.
References
Cambridge, U. o. (n.d.). You are what you listen to. Retrieved from Cambridge:
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/you-are-what-you-listen-to
Columbia, U. o. (2015). What musical tastetells us about social class. Retrieved
from Science Daily:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150603124545.htm
Lerch, D. (2000). The Mozart Effect. Retrieved from
http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/lerch1/edpsy/mozart_effect.html
Phau, D. (n.d.). The Satanic Roots of Rock. Retrieved from
http://www.av1611.org/othpubls/roots.html
 MOZART EFFECT

The first Mozart effect publication showed participants' spatial intelligence scores improved
by 8-9 points, by far the largest increase reported in the literature. A meta-analysis of Mozart effect
research showed an increase of 1.4 general IQ points between participants listening to Mozart or
silence (Chabris, 1999). However, this IQ score included studies that did not strictly measure for
spatial intelligence. When analyzing studies that only used spatial intelligence, results showed an
increase of 2.1 general IQ points (Chabris, 1999). The IQ scores created by the meta-analysis may
not be particularly promising since they are less than the normal standard deviation (15 points)
found in the Fourth Edition of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test, which includes the prominent
spatial subtest used in Mozart effect research. Additionally, the meta-analysis IQ scores were not
specifically calculated for spatial ability, but instead present an overall intelligence increase, which
is beyond the scope intended by the original Mozart effect authors.

Many of the current Mozart effect studies contain faulty research procedures. The use of an
independent control group has not been used in several studies (Hughes, 2001; Rauscher, Shaw
and Ky, 1993; Rideout & Taylor, 1997; Rideout, Dougherty, & Werner, 1998; Steele, Bass, &
Crook, 1999; and Steele, Brown, and Stoecker, 1999), and thereby does not allow a comparison
of scores between listening to Mozart and merely attempting the spatial problems. Besides Steele,
Ball, and Runk (1997), the Stanford-Binet spatial subtest (paper folding and cutting questions) has
been the only spatial measure used within Mozart effect research. Using only one test limits the
understanding of the Mozart effect to the criteria seen in the lone spatial measure. Additionally,
no study has provided demographic descriptors of their participants (e.g., race, gender,
socioeconomic status), which may influence intelligence test scores. These are a few of the
problems that severely hinder the legitimacy of any results garnered from Mozart effect research.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU LISTEN TO

Even in 2015, social class continues to inform our cultural attitudes and the way we listen to
music, according to the study, which was recently published in the Canadian Review of Sociology.
"Breadth of taste is not linked to class. But class filters into specific likes and dislikes," said Gerry
Veenstra, study author and professor at UBC's Department of Sociology. The study involved
nearly 1,600 telephone interviews with adults in Vancouver and Toronto, who were asked about
their likes and dislikes of 21 musical genres. Veenstra himself is partial to easy listening, musical
theatre and pop. Poorer, less-educated people tended to like country, disco, easy listening, golden
oldies, heavy metal and rap. Meanwhile, their wealthier and better-educated counterparts preferred
genres such as classical, blues, jazz, opera, choral, pop, reggae, rock, world and musical theatre.
The research touches on a hotly debated topic in cultural sociology: whether one's class is
accompanied by specific cultural tastes, or whether "elites" are defined by a broad palette of
preferences that sets them apart. The study determines that wealth and education do not influence
a person's breadth of musical taste. However, class and other factors -- such as age, gender,
immigrant status and ethnicity -- shape our musical tastes in interesting and complex ways. What
people don't want to listen to also plays a key role in creating class boundaries. "What upper class
people like is disliked by the lower class, and vice versa," said Veenstra. For example, the least-
educated people in the study were over eight times more likely to dislike classical music compared
to the best-educated respondents. Meanwhile, lowbrow genres such as country, easy listening and
golden oldies were disliked by higher-class listeners.

THE MOZART EFFECT STUDIES

Early experimentation on the effect of music on the brain was conducted in 1988, when
neurobiologist Gordon Shaw, along with graduate student Xiaodan Leng, first attempted to model
brain activity on a computer at the University of California at Irvine. They found in simulations
that the way nerve cells were connected to one another predisposed groups of cells to adopt certain
specific firing patterns and rhythms. Shaw surmises that these patterns form the basic exchange of
mental activity. Inquisitively, they decided to turn the output of their simulations into sounds
instead of a conventional printout. To their surprise, the rhythmic patterns sounded somewhat
familiar, with some of the characteristics of baroque, new age, or Eastern music.

THE SATANIC ROOTS OF ROCK

Modern electronic-rock music, inaugurated in the early 1960s, is, and always has been, a joint
enterprise of British military intelligence and Satanic cults. On the one side, the Satanists control
the major rock groups through drugs, sex, threats of violence, and even murder. On the other side,
publicity, tours, and recordings are financed by record companies connected to British military
intelligence circles. Both sides are intimately entwined with the biggest business in the world, the
international drug trade.
 The so-called "rock stars" are pathetic puppets caught in a much larger scheme. From the
moment they receive their first recording royalties, the groups are heavily immersed in drugs. For
example, much-admired "stars'' such as John Lennon of the Beatles and Keith Richard of the
Rolling Stones, were heroin addicts. Richard had to obtain blood transfusions, replacing his entire
heroin-laced blood supply, to get a visa to enter the United States. (Tony Sanchez, Up and Down
with the Rolling Stones, p.319). The "rock stars" are also totally artificial media creations. Their
public image, as well as their music, is fabricated from behind the scenes by controllers. For
example, when the Beatles first arrived in the United States in 1964, they were mobbed at the
airport by hundreds of screaming teenage girls. The national press immediately announced that
"Beatlemania" had besieged the U.S.A. But the girls had all been transported from a girl's school
in the Bronx, and paid for their screaming performance by the Beatles' promoters.