Instrumental Music Better than Lyrics for Knowledge Workers

It's funny - we've been looking for this data for a while!

From our own personal experiences and just chatting with other people, we've always reckoned that for knowledge workers, a little bit of background music is good for productivity.  And to build on that, we believed that instrumental music was better than songs with lyrics as the words often got in the way of what we were trying to achieve.

This study from Taiwan in 2012 actually shows some data to back that theory up!

Over 100 participants in their early twenties were given concentration and attention testing within different audio environments.  Background music with lyrics had a significant negative effect on performance.

So, there you go kids - if you're a knowledge worker then instrumental music's the way to go - and hey - you might want t try some of ours ;-)

Image Credit: no kidding by andrea joseph - Flickr

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100 Schools in New York Believe in Music Education for Kids

Lots of recent studies that have been killing the whole baby Mozart theory - and as is normal - the pendulum swings the other way and people start to question if music really does give long term benefits.  Fortunately there are plenty of people working in this field and evidence is beginning to build.  While we wait for larger studies it's hard to argue against the real world experiences of people like Lisha Lecari and the music program she now has running in 100 New York elementary schools.

For me the takeaway is that while music may not change your physical pre-disposition or "allocation" of IQ (if it is a finite thing!) - incorporating music learning into children's early development does seem to enhance cognitive processing that delivers benefits across a wide range of activities from math, through language, through general well being.  What's not to love?

you can read more about Lisha Lecari's Music and the Brain program here.

Image Credit: Focus by woodleywonderwonks - Flickr

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