Does listening to music increase your IQ?
After being a critical listener for 40+ years, a question abuptly presented itself to me after a listening session at home. Does listening to music make us smarter? Here I sat, in my favorite listening chair, listening to my favorite music, on my favorite system, comprised of my favorite components. But, the session was bland, unfulfilling, and relatively unemotional. But, why? Then I recalled that this was not a new phenomenon. All of my listening sessions for quite some time have adopted these characteristics. Being hearing inpaired in one ear, and compromised in the other ear can do that to you. It's just the way it is. The listening experience is not what it used to be.
My brain still enjoys processing complex information. The problem is that there's just not as much information there for the brain to process. Which got me thinking about the good 'ol days. The days before drag racing, competition car audio, and one-too-many live concerts took their toll.
I really got into my music. My love for music, and the equipment required to reproduce it, lead me to a career in audio. I owned an audio store and sold "decent" hifi gear for many decades. I "taught" myself to be a critical listener, not just for my passion for the music itself, but being a good steward of my customer's money was high on my list of life's priorities. It will come as no suprise to this group that there's a lot going on in those musical performances. When you're fully engaged your brain is doing some fairly energetic gymnastics. Taking in the scope of the general presentation of the performance is quite a bit in itself. Then there's grasping the nuances, extracting the subtleties, and hearing what is there now that wasn't there 2 seconds ago. And, what's missing. Why is the voicing of this instrument different than a similar instrument I heard on a previous recording? Is it the recording technique, the electronic pickup, or is my system messing with it? And, is the aggregate of all I'm observing translating to an enjoyable experience? Or, why not? Listening, processing, and reflecting at this level gives us the opportunity to use 100% of our brains -- at least for a short period of time. These mental calisthenics have better conditioned us to simultaneouosly mock up multiple problems or scenarios we are presented with in life -- and, solve problems better, in my view.
You see, the current "dumbed down" version of what I experience today is, quite literally, a dimishished intellectual exercise from it's "peak" a few years ago. There's simply less data to process. And, processing less data never gets my brain out of 3rd gear (in a vehicle equipped a 6-speed tranny with overdrive). Which brings me to the conclusion that the action of being fully engaged with musical performances, whether simple or complex, makes you smarter.
