Psychologists found rats ran faster and more accurately in mazes after being played a piece of Mozart than after hearing white noise or music by a minimalist composer.
I’m not sure I even want to comment. I’m just getting this image in my mind of rats running to various composers now.
RTWT
I am trying to make home made musical wind instruments with some kids, and have heard you can make a straw oboe – but when I try it I can’t get it to make noise.
Teaching oneself “Jesse’s Girl” on the oboe is a difficult task indeed.
So what are you doing Friday night? I’ll be rehearsing for our Saturday & Sunday concerts, but if you have nothing to do here are a couple of suggestions:
San Francisco Opera at AT&T Park. It’s Tosca. It’s free. It’s at 8:00. And it sounds like fun to me. Wish I could go.
If you are in San Jose you can always hear Opera San Jose singer Michael Dailey and friends at Caffé Trieste at 8:30 p.m. Located at 315 South First Street, they are quite near my rehearsal. I might, in fact, pop by during the work I don’t play if the time works out correctly, and I think it just might! This even is also free of charge. But get some coffee … they make a fine cup!
Of course if you are wanting something to do on Saturday night or Sunday afternoon I recommend attending Symphony Silicon Valley. Go figure.
Finally! Good news about playing oboe!
The naturalistic respiratory muscle training with high resistance wind instruments may potentially reduce musicians’ risk for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), according to a research abstract that will be presented on Tuesday, June 9, at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
Results suggest that instrumentalists who played high resistance, double reed woodwinds, such as the oboe, had a lower risk of OSA than other instrumentalists. No significant difference in risk for OSA was found in instrumentalists (29.1 percent) versus non-instrumentalists (33.3 percent).
Maybe doctors will start prescribing oboe lessons and lessons will be a medical expense, eh?
Sure, the article suggests more study needs to be done on this, but I don’t have sleep apnea and I play oboe, so you know it must be true.
