The Joys of Mental Sex: Lesson IX

Thanks for the well-wishes and concern. I feel as if I’ve slept a week away! This flu is nothing to play around with and I can understand why so many are dying with it. I thank Heaven, I wasn’t one of them. I’m not sure what I did that put those stupid avatars by people’s posts. If anyone has any idea, please let me know and I’ll fix it (my e-mail is mmccall0911@comcast.net). They’re driving me crazy too!  

Now, on to somemore fun stuff!

The Mozart Effect (Surrounding yourself for creative flow)

If there is one book on creativity I could recommend above all others, this is it. In his groundbreaking work, The Mozart Effect, Don Campbell demonstrates how the vibrations of music affect everything from learning to health to creativity. It’s a must for writers seeking to unleash their creative forces. It’s a must for mothers who want their children to turn into geniuses. It’s a must for anyone seeking inner harmony in a chaotic world.

Mr. Campbell shows that if introduced to certain music in utero and continued on after birth, children show marked creativity and learning capacity as compared to children without such exposure. Women exposed to certain music during labor, require less if any anesthesia. Certain types of music have been shown to heal everything from cancer to allergies.

Within each type of musical genre, there are multiple styles that produce different effects. Some are more active than others and can get the blood flowing while others are more relaxing. The following list is based on general tendencies within the various types of music:

• Gregorian Chant: The rhythms of natural breathing create a sense of relaxed speciousness. It has been famed throughout the ages for raising the mind and spirit above the physical plane and into the metaphysical realm of God.
• Slower Baroque Music (Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Corelli): These impart a sense of stability, order, predictability, and safety. They also create a mentally stimulating environment for study or work.
• Classical Music (Hadyen, Mozart): These produce clarity, elegance, and transparency. They improve memory, concentration, and spatial perception.
• Romantic Music (Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Liszt): These emphasize expression and feeling, and tend to invoke feelings of individualism, nationalism, or mysticism. They are best used to promote or enhance sympathy, compassion, and love.
• Impressionist Music (Debussy, Faure, and Ravel): Based on free-flowing musical moods and impressions, these evoke dreamlike images. A quarter hour of musical daydreaming, followed by a few minutes of stretching can unlock your creative impulses and put you in touch with your subconscious.
• Jazz, the blues, Dixieland, soul, calypso, reggae: These are musical and dance forms that developed out of the African heritage. They can uplift and inspire, release deep joy and sadness, convey wit or irony, and often confirm our common humanity.
• Salsa, Rumba, maranga, and other forms of South American music: With their lively rhythm and beat, they can set the heart racing, increase respiratory rate, and get the whole body moving. Samba has the rare ability to both soothe and awaken at the same time.
• Big band, pop and top-40, and country-western: These inspire light to moderate movement, engage the emotions, and create a sense of well-being.
• Rock music (by artist such as Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones, or Michael Jackson): These stir the passions, stimulate active movement, release tension, mask pain, and reduce the effect of other loud, unpleasant sounds in the environment. It can also create tension, dissonance, stress, and pain in the body when we are not in the mood to be energetically entertained.
• Ambient, attitudinal, or New Age: With no dominant rhythm, this music elongates our sense of space and time and can reduce our sense of space and time and can induce a state of relaxed alertness.
• Heavy metal, punk, rap, hip hop, and grunge: This music excites the nervous system, leading to dramatic behavior and expression. It can also signal to others the depth and intensity of the younger generation’s inner turmoil and need for release.
• Religious and Sacred Music (including shamanic, drumming, church hymns, gospel, and spirituals): This music can ground us in the movement and lead to feelings of deep inner peace and spiritual awareness. It can be useful in helping us transcend and release pain.

In addition to his book, Don Campbell also produced several sets of recordings for those who wish to take advantage of the Mozart effect. They are:

1. Music for the Mozart Effect: Strengthening the Mind, Healing the Body, and Unlocking the Creative Spirit
2. The Mozart Effect: Music for Children
3. The Mozart Effect: Music for Newborns
4. The Mozart Effect: Music for Babies

I can highly recommend the first one as a source of creative surrounding. And some friends have raised their children on the other three and swear by them. In fact, I know of two “Mozart babies” who went on to attain “perfect” scores on SATs in the last few years.

Until next time, Merry Christmas and Happy Writing!