Court cases decide whether 18 year old Raymond Belknap,who committed suicide while listening to "Fade to Black," by Metallica, was a direct result of the influence of the music. Did the music say to do it? His mother quoted, "I doubt the death of my son was suicide." (The Salt Lake City Tribune reported on October 30, 1992)

    The mall in Mesa, Arizona successfully turned bad behavior to good when they started playing classical music over the intercom speakers throughout the building. (Mesa Tribune, Monday, October 7, 1991.)
 
    A teacher finds that classical and baroque music in the classroom as background music, reduces problem behavior in the classroom and the students' grades significantly improved.

    A mom finds that classical music in the home reduces the fights between her children. They are more cooperative and not as stressed out. The stress level is much lower in the home as a result.

    During a rock concert in SLC, Utah, 3 youth die and a 1 boy suffers a severe head injury (beyond total recovery). A certain song began to play and the crowd surrounding the boy started to 'mosh,' trampling the boy under their feet. No one offered a hand to help him up, he was found by security when everyone cleared the room after the concert about 45 minutes after the injury. The other 3 who died also suffered head injury and weren't found until after the concert. (The Herald Journal, Sunday, January 20, 1991, page 4)
 

    Studies on Rats

   Marck Rosenzweig, Marian Diamond and their colleagues at US Berkley found that rats exposed to enriched environments exhibited heavier and thicker cortical layers, composed of larger neurons, more glial cells, longer dendrites, and more dendritic connections. Later studies have shown that even a few minutes of environmental stimulation enrichment are sufficient to permanent brain growth; that is, a brief experience of stimulation can result in protein synthesis.

    A study by William Greenough of the University of Illinois has shown that rats trained to run a maze show dendritic growth immediately after the training. That is, the brain growth is a specific response to learning.

    Another study on rats by Gervasia M. Schreckenberg, a neurobiologist at Georgian Court College in Lakewood, New Jersey, and Harvey H. Bird, a physicist at Gairleight Dickinson University in Rutherford showed that mice not only respond to classical music, but to rock music as well. The mice who were exposed to rock music "took much longer to run the maze, grope around, seemed disoriented in trying to find where the food was." There were changes in the hippo campus, a region located near the brain stem, which is associated with memory, learning and alertness. They found evidence of abnormal "branching and sprouting of the neurons as well as disruption in the normal amounts of messenger RNA, a chemical crucial to the storage of memories. "We believe that the mice were trying to compensate for this constant bombardment of disharmonic noise," concluded the neurobiologist.  (Insight April 4, 1988, by Richard Lipkin)
 

    Studies on People

    A 70 year old stroke victim at Beth Abraham Hospital in New York City never spoke. One day, therapist Connie Tomaino played an old Jewish folk song on her accordion and the man hummed. She played it regularly and soon he began to sing. Before you knew it, he was talking again. "The song was something special to his past and re-awakened something in his brain," the therapist quoted.

    UCLA School of Nursing and Georgia Baptist Medical Center in Atlanta found that premature babies gained weight faster and were able to use oxygen more efficiently when they listened to soothing music. They also found that premature or low birth-wieght babies exposed to an hour and a half of soothing vocal music each day averaged only 11 days in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit, compared to 16 days for a control group.

    A 5 year study by Maria Simonson, director of schools health and stress clinic created 3 groups of people. One group would listen to classical music while eating, the second would listen to rock, and the third would eat in silence. The results were: Silence - 3.9 bites per minute, finishing in 40 minutes. Classical - 3.2 bites per minute, finishing in 59 minutes and the appetites were satisfied. Rock - they "slurped it down and ate more per forkful and asked for seconds. In conclusion, "I cant say all people respond the same, but a more realized atmosphere leads to less digestive trouble."
 

    Studies on Plants

    Dr. Singh, head of Botany at Annamalai University in India studied plants reactions to Classical and Rock music. While listening to Classical and Baroque music, the plants grew 72% more leaves and they grew 20% faster. The plants which were exposed to Rock music grew abnormally tall and died in 2 weeks. The plants which were exposed to Classical and Baroque music ended up leaning towards the speakers instead of the light and the closest plants began to wrap themselves around the speakers.
 

    Healing Through Music

    At California State University in Fresno, psychologist Jaet Lapp studied 30 migraine headache sufferers for 5 weeks. Some of the 30 listened to classical or baroque music and others used biofeedback and relaxation techniques, a control group did neither. Music proved the most successful supplementary therapy. A year later, the patients who had continued to listen to the music reported one sixth as many headaches as before; these were also less severe and ended more quickly.

    Music was found to lessen the pain of child birthing. (Article in American Baby Magazine, Feb. 1990)

    A mom who was in labor for 2 days for the birth of her first child tried music therapy during the delivery of her second child. She relaxed to Jazz music. Bach and Beethoven paced her during her contractions, finally, the closing movement of Brahms symphony no. 1 energized her for her last phase of delivery. The music produces a much easier experience. (RD August 1992)