Day 74

7/26/22

Music is not just for humans! My goldens will listen until my back can't take another minute and I have run out of Lorie Line songs to play! Lilly has even decided to be an audience from under the piano at my feet. They love music so! They also love being close to one of their people.

When I was at Anoka High School, we had to do a research paper our senior year. I decided to do a study regarding the affect music has on plants. I bought four "identical" plants, named them and proceeded to give them different musical experiences.

Here are their names and variables to the best of my memory...

Ivan: live music
Beethoven: easy listening music on the record player
Mozart: LOUD rock music from the same turn table
Hayden: shoved in the closet when any music was present

Otherwise, they received the same amount of light and water.

None other than Minnesota Bound's own Ron Schara even wrote a tongue-in-cheek column in the Minneapolis Tribune, where he was a writer at the time. Even though Ron didn't take it seriously at the time, I believe there was a conclusion of sorts.

The results were not surprising at all.

Ivan thrived!
Beethoven was a close second.
Mozart actually grew away from the music.
Hayden showed the smallest growth by far!

Even though the research project had a few questionable variables (For example, Ivan certainly got more carbon dioxide than the other three), there were lessons to glean from the results.

1. When you are humanly present and nurturing: living things will thrive.
2. Offer activities without being present: living things will grow, but not as well as being engaged with a mentor.
3. Offensive, loud noises disturb the growth of living things.
4. If you are not present at all, growth will be stunted in the living things surrounding you.

I love music in most any form. It finds a place in my soul that craves such beauty. Looking back, I see another possible hypothesis: If you are present in the life of living things (children, friends, family, pets, etc.) and play your own form of "nurturing music", might you be that variable that makes a difference in the lives around you.

I think I will go play the piano for my audience of three...