Can classical music improve chess playing strength?

[Alexander Hardwick]

If the answer to the above is "yes", then I expect my first GM norms will be coming in some time this year.

More seriously, I am wondering if playing or listening to classical music can have a beneficial effect on your chess playing level. I have noticed plenty of studies which claim to have found a connection between classical music and increased intelligence, exam success etc., but does this extend to chess?

Moreover, I personally have scored some unexpectedly good results in tournament rounds after listening to classical music in the car/before leaving home. Is this evidence that classical music benefits chess skill, or simply an example of a pseudo-Placebo effect (if I think it will improve my play, then it will improve my play)?

Opinions welcomed.

[Gavin Strachan]

This featured on an episode of Qi. The outcome is that listening to most forms of music will improve your intelligence but the effect lasts for only about 15 mins after you listened to the music. You are about as much improved listening to Mozart as you are listening to Blur.

[Richard James]

This is known as the Mozart Effect. You can read more about it here.

By the way, one of the researchers mentioned in the article, Christopher Chabris, was also the editor of the excellent, but (therefore) short-lived American Chess Journal.

[IanDavis]

Should players be tested for Mozart during the competition?

[Alexander Hardwick]

This featured on an episode of Qi. The outcome is that listening to most forms of music will improve your intelligence but the effect lasts for only about 15 mins after you listened to the music. You are about as much improved listening to Mozart as you are listening to Blur.

Just to highlight the contradictory evidence:

A study of rats indicated a tangible demonstration of musical enjoyment versus a physical response to the Mozart Sonata. A number of rats were exposed in utero plus 60 days post-partum to one of the following: complex music (Mozart Piano Sonata in D major (K.448)), minimalist music (a Philip Glass composition), white noise or silence, and were then tested for five days, three trials per day, in a multiple T-maze. By Day 3, the rats exposed to the Mozart music completed the maze more rapidly and with fewer errors than the rats in the other groups. The difference increased in magnitude through Day 5. This suggests that repeated exposure to complex music induces improved spatial-temporal learning in rats.

Without going into the debate over whether or not Philip Glass minimalism can be considered "classical music", the above study suggests that Mozart's music has a markedly stronger effect than other forms of music on the spatial learning processes, which must surely form a part of chess ability? Can't say I've tried Blur though.

[Alex Holowczak]

How about listening to this? Does this count as classical? If so, does it improve your chess?

[LozCooper]

During a recent league match we were subjected to what sounded like a Christmas special of the "Don't forget the lyrics" I suppose it made a change from the assortment of soaps that normally interrupts our attempts to concentrate during matches

There was little evidence that any of these improved the quality of chess

[Gavin Strachan]

How about listening to this? Does this count as classical? If so, does it improve your chess?

Steve Reich is a minimalist composer. Mozart and Haydn are classical. Haven't listened to the link so can't answer that. Question is how do you say Reich? Steve Reich is Jewish and then once upon a time the 3rd Reich was about.

[Alex Holowczak]

Haven't listened to the link so can't answer that. Question is how do you say Reich?

Actually, if you're at work, you might well have been listening to an extended version of it all day.

[John Saunders]

By the way, one of the researchers mentioned in the article, Christopher Chabris, was also the editor of the excellent, but (therefore) short-lived American Chess Journal.

So excellent chess periodicals always die young, do they, Richard? I'm not sure what that says about the 75-year-old mag I'm currently editing or indeed the 130-year-old one that I used to edit...

[Richard James]

By the way, one of the researchers mentioned in the article, Christopher Chabris, was also the editor of the excellent, but (therefore) short-lived American Chess Journal.

So excellent chess periodicals always die young, do they, Richard? I'm not sure what that says about the 75-year-old mag I'm currently editing or indeed the 130-year-old one that I used to edit...

OK - I guess New in Chess has lasted pretty well...

And I suppose the mag you currently edit had one excellent column for about 14 years...

[Arshad Ali]

OK - I guess New in Chess has lasted pretty well...

You are right that American Chess Journal was excellent. I think there were only four issues. It was in a league of its own.

[John Saunders]

Hmm. The opening scene of The Third Man flicked into my mind. Do you know the one?

Of course a situation like that does tempt amateurs [Dead body seen floating in the Danube] but, well, you know, they can't stay the course like a professional.

[Arshad Ali]

Hmm. The opening scene of The Third Man flicked into my mind. Do you know the one?

Of course a situation like that does tempt amateurs [Dead body seen floating in the Danube] but, well, you know, they can't stay the course like a professional.

ACJ was doing things you can't do in BCM. For example a 20-page analysis by Robert Hubner of an Adolf Anderson game, correcting the errors of Reti and other annotators. Or a learned piece on the flaws of rating systems (I forget the author).

[John Saunders]

In which case I'm surprised it lasted as long as four issues. The market for that sort of content would be absolutely tiny. 20 pages of analysis of one game - any game, annotated by anyone (except, perhaps, a newly-discovered manuscript by Fischer) sounds like publishing suicide. Ditto, anything but the snappiest article on the minutiae of ratings systems (a subject which bores the pants off a large number of chessplayers, me included). You can perhaps get away with a modicum of such esoteric material so long as the rest of the content consists of something of more general interest but even so it would fill me with misgivings.