is classical music really better for your brain than pop/modern music? I often see articles explaining its benefits, but I don’t understand how it’s that different from other genres.
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It’s just boomers boomering. It has no real affect on the mind. Music is music and people just like to think theirs is better
Complexity of the arrangements and structure that encourage active listening like you’d learn in one of those “music appreciation” type courses.
I think it depends on the listener and how music moves their soul.
My husband is an old punk rock sk8 boarder kid. from the 70’s. The cadence and thump of the bass are expressed in the sk8er’s jumps, flips and carves. Quite the experience.
Otoh, my son likes screamo. He is a raw, fierce powerful sk8er. His style is expressed in his movements too.
As for me, I prefer bird watching, gardening and soft music.
Melodic, calming.
That loud stuff scares the poor birds and makes my plants wilt.
This really depends on the definition of “better for your brain.”
In a medical sense? Probably not.
In terms of contributing to concentration or a more serene emotional/cognitive state? Maybe. Speaking in very broad terms, modern popular music tends to be more percussive, simple, repetitive, and compressed (narrower dynamic range) and arguably “louder” than recordings of classical music. I could see that having a different effect on your mood if nothing else.
For one thing, a lot of modern pop music is created or heavily influenced by algorithms and formulas. But that possibly applies to newer classical compositions too…
Also, at some point “classical” music was what was available and there are certainly classical pieces that are pretty pedestrian and definitely not making anyone smarter.
There’s a pretty big gap between something like Chopin and something like Stravinsky, even though they are both brilliant and beautiful. I think classical music achieves the correlation with intelligence and sophistication because the bar is so much higher. For anyone that enjoys music it isn’t a stretch to appreciate and enjoy something like Chopin. However to actually comprehend something like Stravinsky on the level where you can honestly say you are enjoying it? That’s not everyone haha.
Also often the parts of a classical composition that we are most familiar with or may enjoy the most or find the most emotionally fulfilling are sections of a much larger work. I do think that the practice of consuming a relatively long piece of music in it’s entirety in order to access the very moving climaxes is an exercise in restraint and a worthwhile one.
Pop music is very very repetitive, and the Melodies are catchy, but very very simple. Classical music is very complex, many times it seems to never repeat, and the Melodies are also very complex.
Pop music is to nursery rhyme as classical music is to a short novel.
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