Do The Profane Make Profound Music?

"I am a vulgar man. But I assure you, my music is not," says Mozart's character in the movie "Amadeus."

No one doubts the second part of that statement, but the first remains controversial. Some have suggested that Mozart suffered from Tourette's Syndrome, characterized by verbal and/or motor "tic" outbursts.

The Mozart-had-Tourette's camp may be right, according to a study led by Melvin Lyon, research professor of biological sciences in USC College. Lyon's team sifted sonatas by Mozart and four other composers for the musical versions of "T-patterns": highly unlikely, repeating combinations of specific notes separated by a constant time interval.

In addition to Mozart, the composers were Alexander Scriabin, known for his manic-depressive tendencies; Robert Schumann, almost certainly schizophrenic; and Johann Sebastian Bach and Franz Josef Haydn, both thought to be psychologically "normal."

Previous studies have shown that schizophrenic patients exhibit more frequent and complex T-patterns in certain tests than control subjects.

Since schizophrenia and Tourette's are related in their brain chemistry, Lyon predicted that Mozart also would show some T-pattern abnormality.

As expected, Schumann scored off the charts in Lyon's study. Scriabin was next, followed by Mozart, who scored higher than Haydn and Bach.

"Although there was little difference between Haydn, Bach and Mozart in number of different T-patterns, in length and level [of] complexity, Mozart lies closer to Scriabin and Schumann," Lyon concluded.

While adding that more study was needed, Lyon called T-patterns a "very sensitive" tool that "does pluck out those differences that show these people had a mental disturbance of some kind."

Lyon speculated that schizophrenics struggle to make sense of everything they perceive, rather than granting priority to the task at hand or to the person in front of them.

"It's not disorder, it's really hyper-order," Lyon hypothesized.

At the same time, Lyon added, a mild degree of mental disturbance can be a benefit to artistic production.

Lyon's collaborators on the study were USC undergraduates Jingyi Li, Tyler Morgan and Evan Nunez. The group plans to write up the study for publication.

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USC groups present at Neuroscience 2006: Highlights from presentations by University of Southern California researchers at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting.

Contact: Carl Marziali
University of Southern California
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Do The Profane Make Profound Music?