To Hear Music Like You’ve Never Heard It, Meditate First

If you think the mind-altering substances of your college years made music sound better, researchers at the University of Oregon have some advice: try listening to music after a few minutes of meditation. A U of Oregon news release reports that 15 minutes of “mindfulness preparation” has been shown to enhance the experience of listening to music for most people. How do they know? The researchers asked 132 study participants to listen to a 10-minute excerpt of Giacomo Puccini’s opera “La Boheme.” Before listening to Puccini, some of the participants listened to a 15-minute recording of a segment produced by the Duke University Center for Mindfulness Research, and some did not. The researchers found that 97 percent of the participants had either one or several moments of flow or aesthetic response, but of the 69 subjects who engaged in mindfulness, 64 percent thought the technique had enhanced their listening experience. Read more from the University of Oregon.