来自2010年10月26日ScientificAmerican: Hearing the Music, Honing the Mind

　　http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hearing-the-music-honing

　　Music produces profound andlasting changes in the brain. Schools should add classes, not cutthem. Nearly 20 years ago a small study advanced the notion that listening to Mozart’s Sonata for TwoPianos in D Major could boost mental functioning. It was notlong before trademarked “Mozart effect” productsappealed to neurotic parents aiming to put toddlers on thefast track to the Ivy League. Georgia’s governor even proposed giving every newborn there a classical CDor cassette。

　　The evidence for Mozart therapy turned out to be flimsy,perhaps nonexistent, although the original study never claimed anything more than atemporary and limited effect. In recent years, however, scientists have examined the benefits ofa concerted effort to study and practice music, as opposed to playing a Mozart CD or a computer-based“brain fitness” game once ina while.

　　Advanced monitoring techniques have enabled scientists to see whathappens inside your head when you listen to your motherand actually practice the violin for an hour every afternoon. Andthey have found that music lessons can produce profound and lastingchanges that enhance the general ability to learn. Theseresults should convince public officials that music classes are amere decoration, ripe for discarding in the budget crises thatconstantly trouble public schools。

　　Studies have shown that diligent instrument training from an early age canhelp the brain to process sounds better, making it easier to stayfocused when absorbing other subjects, from literature to tensorcalculus. The musically adept are better able to concentrate on abiology lesson despite the racket in the classroom or, a few yearslater, to finish a call with a client when a colleague in the nextcubicle starts screaming at an underling. They can attend toseveral things at once in the mental scratch pad called workingmemory, an essential skill in this era ofmultitasking。