Unit07-2

The Beatles[1]

When John Lennon was murdered in 1980 outside his New York apartment by a young man for whom he had earlier autographed a record cover, it signaled the end of an era. The faint hope that one day the Beatles might get together again had gone forever, but, more importantly, gone were the optimism that they represented and the social consciousness that they spread.[2]
George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr formed the Beatles in Liverpool in 1960. Harrison, Lennon, and McCartney had gained experience playing at a club in Hamburg, Germany, but it was at the Cavern, in Liverpool, their home city, that the Beatles' career really began to take off.
Their first single record, "Love Me Do",[3] was released in October 1962. Four　months later, their second, "Please, Please Me",<3> went straight into the top ten and soon reached the coveted number one spot, while their first LP[4] became the fastest-selling long-playing record of 1963. Although the group broke up, millionaires all,[5] in 1970, their records still sell over the world. What is it that made the Beatles special?
As a group they were competent, and their voices were pleasant, but this would not have been enough. They were probably lucky in their influences: the colorful Merseyside environment from which they sprang, combined with an admiration for Afro-American rhythm-and-blues[6]; also, they were fortunate in the rapport that they found with one another and with their audience　while the songwriting partnership of Lennon and McCartney produced a stream of brilliant hits.
At first, their themes were precisely those that occupied and concerned their young audience: love, sorrow, good luck, bad luck, and the quaint characters that are always to be found in any big city. Later, they reflected the climate of the 1960s and sang of social inequality and political injustice. In addition, they created melodies that were rich and original enough to be played and sung by musicians of the caliber of Count Basie[7] and Ella Fitzgerald[8].
The Beatles were special because they believed in their own talents. They copied no one, and they were strong enough not to allow themselves to be destroyed by the overnight achievement of success beyond the reach of the imagination. In this they probably owed much to their record producer, George Martin, and their manager, Brian Epstein. The Beatles were also special because they were a strong positive force in a time of great social and political disenchantment. They were a voice for the young people of the time.

Mozart Makes the Brain Hum

Can it be that the music of Mozart[1] is not only exalting but can also improve intelligence?
An experiment on students at the University of California at Irvine suggests that listening to 10 minutes of Mozart's piano music significantly improves performance in intelligence tests taken immediately afterwards. The finding is being reported today in the British scientific journal Nature [2] by researchers from the university
The researchers Found that after students listened to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (K. 448)[3], as performed by Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu[4], their test scores were on average eight or nine points higher than the scores the same students achieved after listening to a recorded message suggesting that"they imagine themselves relaxing in a peaceful garden or to silence". The effect was only temporary, however.
One researcher, Dr Frances H. Rauscher, said in an interview that all the students were asked about their tastes in music, and that although some liked Mozart and some did not, their test scores generally improved after the music session, with no measurable differences attributable to varied tastes.
The pulse rates of the subjects did not change under any of the test conditions, so physiological arousal was not a factor in the test scores, she said. "We are testing a neurobiological model of brain function with these experiments, which proposes certain neural filing patterns[5] in the brain," Dr Rauscher said. "We hypothesize that these patterns may be common in certain activities—chess, mathematics and certain kinds of music."
The researchers picked Mozart, she said, because of the complex, highly structured and non-repetitive character of his music. "Listening to such music may stimulate neural pathways[6] important to cognition;" Dr Rauscher said, adding, "incidentally, Mozart himself often scribbled numbers and mathematical expression_rs on his manuscript scores[7]."
Thirty-six students, half of them men and half of them women, took part in the experiment. After each listening period they were given standard nonverbal I.Q. tests of spatial reasoning, involving questions about the geometry of paper objects shown as they would look after being folded or cut.
Dr Rauscher said researchers in her group, including Dr Gordon L. Shaw and Katherine N. Ky, intended to test the effects of other kinds of music, like rock and the minimalist music[8]of the contemporary composer Phillip Glass[9], for example. They also plan to test preschool children and subjects with and without musical training.
Does the group expect controversy?
"You bet[10]," Dr Rauscher said. "But we are not insisting on any conclusions yet."