A high school orchestra plays “Canon in D”
BALTIMORE—A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that people who listen to bad music are three times as likely as people with good musical tastes to develop certain types of cancer. Though bad music is overwhelmingly found in K-pop, Canto-pop, Mando-pop, and anything in the USA Singles Top 40, several pieces of classical music are also proven to be highly carcinogenic, scientists warn.
The popular “Canon in D” by Johann Pachelbel, long recognized by established musicians as an objectively bad piece of music, is a case in point. “Even amateur musicians know that ‘Canon in D’ is an uninspired collection of melodic clichés,” said Dustin Huffman, a third grader at the American School in Taichung. “As soon as I hear my peers play that piece for the tenth, hundredth, thousandth, billionth goddamn time, I know that it’s time to GTFO,” said Dustin.
“‘Canon in D’ contains an uninspired harmonic progression full of triads,” said Dustin’s music teacher, Michael Wiles. “It does not even contain altered dominant chords, let alone seventh chords,” he said angrily, adding that “pretty much every student I’ve had in the past ten years doesn’t know what an altered dominant chord is, and that’s just sad, because they might get cancer and die before they can appreciate the beauty of Bach.”
At the American School in Taichung, biology teacher Lily Hsu cautioned students to know what they’re listening to. “The relationship between music and science is, for want of a better term, sacred,” she said. “Every intellectually responsible human being who does not want to die early from scientific ignorance should know the musical theoretical underpinnings of every song they listen to, and how all of that can cause malignant brain tumors.”
In addition to having deleterious neurological effects, bad music like “Canon in D” also causes short-term increases in blood pressure, cholesterol, and dihydrotesterone (DHT), an endogenous androgen sex steroid and hormone responsible for baldness. Over time, listeners are at an increased risk of testicular cancer and leukemia.
A group of scientists at Johns Hopkins have already begun to search for the link between bad music and cancer, and the results are promising. In a double-blind study consisting of 224 healthy participants, more than half of those who developed one form of cancer had a habit of listening to noise pollutants. “There is a reason ‘The Maiden’s Prayer’ is known as the ‘Garbage Truck Song’ in Taiwan,” says Centennial Professor of Neuroscience Gale Somerset. “Such music embarrassments are known to contain certain sound waves conducive to noise pollution, and thus pollution of the brain and the human body.”
Scientists and musicians urge listeners to listen to jazz, blues, and soul instead, and legislators in multiple states have already begun to push for bills that may outlaw Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and other so-called artists.
Categories: Music
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