top 25 and the bottom 25 to determine if there was a difference in musicality among them, but found none (94). Next, they excluded the 25 students with the greatest and least amount of musical training and found two interesting groups (94). Of the two groups left, the top group's average student had taken music theory, private piano lessons for two years, voice and cello for four years while he/she had played in orchestras for four years, sung in choir for six years, had three musicians in the family, could read music and supply missing parts, and attended concerts regularly (94). The lower group's average student had never had any private lessons, didn't play an instrument, had no musicians in his/her family, and never attended operas or concerts (95). Music won't turn anyone into a genius, but it can have some substantial effects on bringing people above average at least. One thing that music does that cannot be ignored is it stimulates the brain- sometimes positively and sometimes negatively, but it effects the brain nonetheless. Some positive effects on the brain can be seen from the study conducted by Rauscher, Shaw and Ky where they found a temporary increase in spatial reasoning after listening to a bit of Mozart. These findings are somewhat inconclusive, but cannot be ignored altogether. It shows how there is much more studying that needs to be done in the future on this subject. Music has been known to have a very direct effect on people's moods. By just listening to music, people's moods are easily altered. Several studies were conducted to test people's mood changes after listening to certain kinds of music (Schoen 89-99). One large study of 20,000 people showed music changes mood and the changes in mood were very uniform (89). A large number of people listened to classical music by various composers from various musical periods and were asked how the music made them feel. Another study showed that the effects of mood v...
