Music for the Unborn – an interview
The last years have seen a growing trend for exposing children to classical music – purposefully to heighten their intelligence and logical skills. There are countless studies which apparently prove that listening to Mozart will actually raise your IQ, so one might better start as early as possible to get a headstart in today’s tough and competitive world. Even though many people claim that these experiments are simply diversionary tactics to prevent the downfall of classical music, the grand experiment with our children has entered a new phase recently….with the introduction of concerts for pregnant women!
The Bad Blog has conducted an exclusive interview with Mrs. Sheila Montgomery, former spokeswoman of the „Womb Institute“ and foundress of the „Shmoozic“ company, which conducts regular „Concerts for the Unborn“ at places like Carnegie Hall or the Metropolitan Opera.
Bad Blog: Mrs. Montgomery, why have you started your business?
Sheila Montgomery: Well, research into music reception of embryos in the womb has been conducted for at least 60 years, since the 50’s. We now have statistical data reaching back to 1951 which proves that listening to classical music while still in the womb will considerably enhance your abilities as an adult. You will have a higher IQ, your memory and learning skills will improve vastly and the potential to become a genius is raised by 400%. And I ask you: which parents wouldn’t just love to call a little genius their own! (laughs)
BB: Can you go into more detail on the research?
SM: An interesting fact that was discovered after analyzing the first generation of womb listeners was that the type of music influenced their later profession. We found that listeners of Bach often became clergy and listeners of Wagner tended to become highly qualified helicopter pilots, especially during the Vietnam war. Mozart turned out to be the most versatile composer, churning out university professors of different kinds en masse. Ravel was very succesful as well, but unfortunately many of his womb listeners also became gay, which was not wished for by many test parents. So we stopped using him. Brahms is very safe, whereas Schoenberg is considered a no-go.
BB: Why?
SM: Experiments with cows have shown that they will produce inferior milk when listening to atonal music. And we want our babies to give good milk…I mean, to be as productive as possible.
BB: Since when has „womb listening“ become a cultural phenomenon?
SM: Of course we see a massive rise in popularity right now. The media is reporting and we have more and more erudite studies on the subject. I would say the last 5 years have seen a huge boost, which makes us happy of course.
BB: Detractors claim that embryos in the womb actually hear very little because the outside sound is somewhat muffled….
SM: That’s absolute bullshit, if you excuse my French. Of course people forget that embryos have a 10 times better hearing than an adult, especially in the outer ranges of the audio frequencies. I know mothers who try to make as little noise as possible to avoid their babies hearing them fart or having sex. Psychological studies have proven that it might severely affect babies‘ personality if they hear inappropriate activities of their parents while in the womb. So of course embryos can hear classical music – it is the best for them!
BB: What are your current activities?
SM: We have several programs on offer, each catering for a different audience with different financial possibilities. Of course most of our customers are white or asian, middle or upper class and well educated. They simply want their kids to excel at everything! For beginners we have our „Early Bird“ concert series of mostly chamber music. This is usually music with strings and piano, transcriptions, original works. Of course nothing too offensive or exciting. We have special „Baby Seats“ in which mothers can lie back and relax, just listening to the music.
Our more advanced concerts use larger ensembles like orchestras for maximum womb penetration effect,
BB: You mean especially loud music?
SM: Yes – one of the problems we face is that the embryo might be sleeping, something that these little buggers do more often than you might think (laughs). So they have to be awake, with maximum receptive capabilities. After we play „Also Sprach Zarathustra“ to them they are usually wide awake, believe me. And then they have to listen, if they want it or not!
BB: Could it somehow hurt the little….
SM: No, no….of course it’s not about hurting them! It’s only about showing them some discipline as early as possible. This will help them later at school, for sure. Sometimes it is helpful if their mother gives them a little nudge like this shortly before the start of the concert…. (slams her fist into her stomach)
BB: That looks painful.
SM: Life usually is. But we help the babies coping with it! What else…oh yes, recently we premiered our first „womb opera“, an opera designed especially for embryos. We could get Philip Glass to create a modified version of „Einstein on the beach“ for us, which is called „Einstein in the womb“.
BB: What’s the music like?
SM: It’s mostly counting.
BB: Counting?
SM: Yes, counting. Mostly prime numbers, Euler numbers, pythagorean numbers. With a little dash of Fibonacci. They cannot learn counting early enough, our kids! The repetitive music helps for sure, it just pounds the numbers into their little brain like this: bam! bam! bam! 23! bam! bam! bam! 42! They love it! We also have foreign language programs of course, all accompanied by classical or nice sounding music: Japanese for Embryos. Portuguese for Embryos. And our favorite: German for Embryos! You just know it’s good for them listening to Hegel and Schopenhauer all day while still in the womb.
BB: This sounds like a really succesful business model!
SM: It is! And we are just getting started…perhaps you have heard about the „Bo Derek“ effect?
BB: Sorry, what?
SM: There was a famous film in the 70’s called „10“ with Dudley Moore and Bo Derek. It widely introduced couples to the idea of having sex while listening to Ravel’s „Bolero“. 20 years later there was a perceptible rise in the IQ of infants which could be correlated to the countries in which the film was shown. Of course unfortunately most of these kids turned out to be gay, but still….
BB: And what does this mean?
SM: That we should start even earlier! We have just begun research on the influence of classical music sound waves on male sperm. It seems that it makes them more intelligent and helps them find their way to the egg….
BB: I think you are kidding me….
SM: No, I’m not! This is serious! This is about the improvement of the human race in its totality. We need classical listening stations everywhere – in the cab, in the restaurant, in the bathrooms. Studies have already shown that playing classical music in subway stations reduces crime. Why not play classical music everywhere? We might be able to live more peacefully together, make the right decisions, vote for the right parties. The possibilities are endless! I think the Japanese have already a huge headstart on this, and we all know that all Japanese are extremely clever bastards, don’t we? We also should….
BB: Thank you for this interview, Mrs. Montgomery.
Moritz Eggert
Komponist
