We will never know whether any of the following musicians ever wished to have anything named after them but that’s how history has put it. Apart from musical instruments wearing names of their creators (bandoneon after Heinrich Band, saxophone after Adolphe Sax, heckelphone after Wilhelm Heckel), there are specific phenomena strongly associated with some composers, conductors, and performers.
The phenomena can be beautiful, funny, or surprising, while they all demonstrate that such "tributes" can greatly vary depending on what audience sees as the most extraordinary and curious fact about the person behind it.
Liszt effect
Spanish Rhapsody by F.Liszt
Follow the pianist’s hands and you will get the idea.😊
Lisztomania was a whole movement. Franz Liszt demonstrated such virtuosity and charm in his compositions that the audience would easily become speechless or even fainted at hearing and watching the composer. High speed, hand jumps and flexibility are part of his style which make his works sound light and almost playful while demanding advanced skills from a performer. Hence, Liszt effect was born from music and completely relates to it.
One of his most famous pieces is La Campanella, which is also one of the most challenging piano pieces. Well, what else should we expect when the piece was inspired by the violin genius Paganini?
Mozart effect
Do you know anything about late 1990s babies who were widely exposed to W.A. Mozart’s melodies? And what about Italian cows listening to Mozart for better milk? Both phenomena resulted from a scientific article published in 1993 which either was not fully read or was incorrectly interpreted or was used by a talented marketer as an effective tool to bring people’s attention.
The article claimed that among three groups of young adults, the best results in a cognitive task were demonstrated by those who had spent previous 10 minutes listening to Mozart (two other groups were exposed to 10 minutes of silence or 10 minutes of relaxation instructions). The effect lasted only for about 15 minutes, but it appeared enough to create a trend of "music by Mozart can potentially make babies more intelligent."
Turkish March by W.A. Mozart
We bet you'll recognise the melody.😉
About 15 years later, a broad analysis of smaller studies showed that the same effect could be caused by other types of music, including some pop songs, and even by listening to a book passage read aloud. No blame for Mozart – he certainly was a genius, and what’s more, admired by Albert Einstein – but let’s be careful when making assumptions.
Goldovsky error
It’s not out of nowhere we ask you to be careful with assumptions. Goldovsky error is the phenomenon that proves that the more experienced one becomes, the more likely they will assume that somethings works the way they assume it should work rather than the way it really does. Simply speaking, in some cases there are more chances that a non-professional will spot an error rather than a trained expert will do so.
Boris Goldovsky discovered the phenomenon when a child who was his student made a mistake while playing and became very confused when the musician asked to fix it – the kid played exactly what was written. The problem was that there was an error which made it unnoticed to all editions of that piece of music. And although the note was misprinted, musicians had always been playing it correctly! It could, of course, be that they were simply professional and polite enough to keep silence, so Goldovsky explicitly asked his colleagues to find the mistake. Nobody managed to, unless he revealed where to look for it.
Capriccio op. 76/2 by J. Brahms
This is the piece where the error is said to be once found☝️
So, next time you come to a new country or start something new, remember you do not need to take the locals’ opinion for granted – you might be that person who will spot something they have never paid attention to. Goldovsky errors are not just about music.
Streisand effect
While the phenomenon is named after a modern-day singer, it has more to do with psychology than with music. The story goes back to 2003, when about 12 000 images of California coastline were made to document condition of the coast and prevent potential damage from erosion to homeowners in the region. The whole project was publicly available, so became the photos.
It soon appeared that one of the photos pictured Barbra Streisand’s mansion – which would totally make sense given it’s located in Malibu, close to Los Angeles. And while for managers of the geological project privacy concerns were not the priority, the singer viewed the situation as violation of privacy and sued the photographer for US $50 million. The singer lost in the court, while the most curious outcome was yet coming. Before the lawsuit was started, the photo had been downloaded less than 10 times. After the issue had become public, the photo was viewed more than 400 000 times and published in dozens of media.
Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand
One of the most popular songs by Barbra Streisand🎤
For better or worse, Barbra Streisand’s case was neither the only nor the first example of how attempts to hide what has become public can make it even more visible and lead to top news.
More examples from different countries, personalities and businesses can be found here.