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Student Opinion

Do We Need Better Music Education?

A guest essay argues that we are teaching music the wrong way. Do you agree?

By Jeremy Engle

Do you play any musical instrument — or have you ever? Do you think music should be an essential part of every child’s education?

In “ We’re Teaching Music to Kids All Wrong ,” Sammy Miller, a Grammy-nominated drummer and the founder of a music education company, writes:

Each fall, as school starts up again, music educators witness a familiar ritual: Eager first-time students squeak on a clarinet, suppress giggles at the noises coming from the tubas and zealously hit a bass drum a little too hard. It’s a moment characterized by excitement, enthusiasm and the anticipation of new beginnings — which is why it’s so disheartening to know that many of those kids will eventually quit their instruments. The fact that many children don’t stick with music is bad news not only for the state of self-expression and joy but also for education. Studies show that students who play an instrument do better in science, English and math and are more likely to want to attend college . They also may have less anxiety and be more conscientious — they are the kids you want your kids to be friends with. I have never met an adult who is expressly thankful to have quit music as a child, but I’ve met many who have regrets. So why haven’t we, as parents and educators, been better able to encourage our own kids to continue? In my 15 years as a musical educator, talking to countless teachers, I’ve learned one thing: There is no magical fix. Making music education more successful doesn’t need to involve expensive digital accessories or fancy educational platforms (and I say that as someone who developed an online educational platform). There’s no technological or financial program that will convert children into lifelong music lovers. Instead, we need to start by rethinking how we teach music from the ground up, both at home and in the classroom. The onus is on parents and educators to raise the next generation of lifelong musicians — not just for music’s sake, but to build richer, more vibrant inner personal lives for our children and a more beautiful and expressive world.

Mr. Miller urges parents and educators to take a new approach to musical education:

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Articles on Music education

Displaying 1 - 20 of 47 articles.

When is a good time for a child to start music lessons?

Timothy McKenry , Australian Catholic University

‘How a healthy community should be’: how music in youth detention can create new futures

Alexis Anja Kallio , Griffith University

Learning music the informal way some popular musicians do could inspire more school students

Anna Mariguddi , Edge Hill University

Hallelujah, it’s school concert season. A music researcher explains why these performances are so important

Kathleen McGuire , Australian Catholic University

Microphone check − 5 ways that music education is changing

Clint Randles , University of South Florida

How video games like ‘Starfield’ are creating a new generation of classical music fans

J. Aaron Hardwick , Wake Forest University

NZ music schools under threat: we need a better measure of their worth than money

Dugal McKinnon , Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

US music education has a history of anti-Blackness that is finally being confronted

Philip Ewell , Hunter College

If you want your child to be more resilient, get them to join a choir, orchestra or band

William James Baker , University of Tasmania ; Anne-Marie Forbes , University of Tasmania , and Kim McLeod , University of Tasmania

We studied the ‘bibles’ of jazz standards – and found sexism lurking in the strangest place

Wendy Hargreaves , University of Southern Queensland and Melissa Forbes , University of Southern Queensland

An 11-year -old Prince spoke out in support of his striking Minneapolis teachers – a historian of the city’s music scene explains why

Rashad Shabazz , Arizona State University

‘Just as important as English or maths’: how mentoring is bringing music alive for primary school students

Margaret S. Barrett , Monash University and Katie Zhukov , Monash University

You’re not tone deaf and you know more about music than you think

Alexander Albury , Concordia University and Virgina Penhune , Concordia University

Music can help lift our kids out of the literacy rut, but schools in some states are still missing out

Rachael Dwyer , University of the Sunshine Coast and Anita Collins , University of Canberra

Teaching music online in the pandemic has yielded creative surprises, like mixing ‘Blob Opera’ and beatboxing

Robbie MacKay , Queen's University, Ontario

Why improvisation is the future in an AI-dominated  world

Rich Pellegrin , University of Florida

‘We need each other’: Black classical musicians are building supportive communities

Gloria Blizzard , Dalhousie University and Gillian Turnbull , Toronto Metropolitan University

Music education has a race problem, and universities must address it

Jacqueline Warwick , Dalhousie University

Young musicians can perform on virtual stages when schools are closed

Christopher Cayari , Purdue University

How using music to parent can liven up everyday tasks, build family bonds

Lisa Huisman Koops , Case Western Reserve University

Related Topics

• Arts education
• Classical music
• Musical instruments
• music curriculum
• Music lessons

Top contributors

Professor of Music, Australian Catholic University

Lecturer in Musicology, Dan School of Drama & Music, Queen's University, Ontario

Principal Fellow and Professor of Music, The University of Melbourne

Adjunct assistant professor, University of Canberra

Associate Professor at the School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University

Professor and Head of Music Therapy, The University of Melbourne

Associate Professor of Music Education, Public Voices Fellow, DePaul University

Senior Research Associate, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Professor of Culture and Communication, University of Leicester

Professor, Thompson Rivers University

Professor of Music Education, Northwestern University

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Professor of Music, Culture and Society, City, University of London

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Music education at school: too little and too late evidence from a longitudinal study on music training in preadolescents.

• 1 Psychology Department, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
• 2 Department of Humanistic Studies, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy
• 3 Negri-Calasanzio Middle School, San Siro, Milan, Italy
• 4 SONG onlus – Sistema in Lombardia, Milan, Italy
• 5 Center of Developmental Neuropsychology, ASUR Marche, Pesaro, Italy
• 6 NeuroMi, Milan Center for Neuroscience, Milan, Italy
• 7 I.R.C.C.S. Galeazzi, Orthopedic Institute Milano, Milan, Italy

It is widely believed that intensive music training can boost cognitive and visuo-motor skills. However, this evidence is primarily based on retrospective studies; this makes it difficult to determine whether a cognitive advantage is caused by the intensive music training, or it is instead a factor influencing the choice of starting a music curriculum. To address these issues in a highly ecological setting, we tested longitudinally 128 students of a Middle School in Milan, at the beginning of the first class and, 1 year later, at the beginning of the second class. 72 students belonged to a Music curriculum (30 with previous music experience and 42 without) and 56 belonged to a Standard curriculum (44 with prior music experience and 12 without). Using a Principal Component Analysis, all the cognitive measures were grouped in four high-order factors, reflecting (a) General Cognitive Abilities, (b) Speed of Linguistic Elaboration, (c) Accuracy in Reading and Memory tests, and (d) Visuospatial and numerical skills. The longitudinal comparison of the four groups of students revealed that students from the Music curriculum had better performance in tests tackling General Cognitive Abilities, Visuospatial skills, and Accuracy in Reading and Memory tests. However, there were no significant curriculum-by-time interactions. Finally, the decision to have a musical experience before entering middle school was more likely to occur when the cultural background of the families was a high one. We conclude that a combination of family-related variables, early music experience, and pre-existent cognitive make-up is a likely explanation for the decision to enter a music curriculum at middle school.

Introduction

Music training involves many neurocognitive systems, like audition, vision, motor control and their integration. Over the last 20 years, there has been a considerable increase of interest in the relationship between such training and the maturation of cognitive skills. Two main streams of studies have either focused on the comparison of adult musicians with non-musicians or on the effect of music learning on cognitive development in children.

Studies in Adult Musicians

Many studies have shown that professional instrumental players and even amateur players outperform non-musicians in cognitive domains related to music and auditory skills ( Schön et al., 2004 ; Kraus and Chandrasekaran, 2010 ; Strait et al., 2010 ; Pantev and Herholz, 2011 ) and language processing, both at the level of phonetics ( Alexander et al., 2005 ; Marques et al., 2007 ; Jäncke, 2012 ; Kühnis et al., 2013 ; Elmer et al., 2017 ) and prosody ( Thompson et al., 2004 ; Lima and Castro, 2011 ; Park et al., 2015 ). This occurs also for other cognitive skills that one would not readily associate with music training: for example, verbal memory ( Chan et al., 1998 ; Franklin et al., 2008 ; George and Coch, 2011 ; Talamini et al., 2016 ), visuo-spatial skills ( Brochard et al., 2004 ), visual mental imagery ( Aleman et al., 2000 ), and visual memory ( Jakobson et al., 2008 ).

Besides the clear evidence related to auditory processes ( Schön et al., 2004 ; Schellenberg and Moreno, 2010 ; Habibi et al., 2016 ), one of the most recurrent results for non-musical cognitive skills is the one of verbal abilities and, particularly, verbal working memory ( Franklin et al., 2008 ; Jakobson et al., 2008 ; Tierney et al., 2008 ; George and Coch, 2011 ): indeed, musicians achieve a superior performance in tasks where the subvocal rehearsal component of working memory is important ( Franklin et al., 2008 ; Talamini et al., 2016 ). This has also been shown by Franklin et al. (2008) who found that the musicians’ advantage in a working memory task was lost specifically during articulatory suppression; this supports the idea that a more efficient subvocal rehearsal is the underlying factor for the outstanding memory performance observed in musicians.

There is some evidence that these behavioral patterns may be accompanied by specific anatomical brain findings ( Schlaug et al., 1995 ; Münte et al., 2002 ; Schlaug, 2015 ): for example, professional musicians were found to have a larger anterior corpus callosum, whose size seems to vary in relation with the age at which the music training started, a left-lateralized asymmetry of the planum temporale 1 and greater volume of Helsch’s gyrus, Broca’s area, the Superior Parietal lobule and the Cerebellum (see Schlaug et al., 1995 ; Schlaug, 2015 ).

Diffusion Tensor Imaging studies have also shown a higher level of diffusivity – hence of structural connectivity – in professional instrumental players in the internal capsule ( Schmithorst and Wilke, 2002 ), in the corpus callosum and in the superior longitudinal fasciculus ( Bengtsson et al., 2005 ), in the cortico-spinal tract ( Imfeld et al., 2009 ) and in the anterior portion of the arcuate fasciculus ( Halwani et al., 2011 ).

Effect of Music Learning on Cognitive Development in Children

There is also a wealth of studies suggesting that music training may have a sizeable effect on cognitive maturation during childhood; it remains to be established at what stage of the development this might be so, whether music affects cognition in a broad sense or whether the effect is specific for cognitive skills that one may readily associate with music (e.g., auditory processing).

Schellenberg (2004) investigated whether music training has an impact on the IQ in a wide sample of children randomly assigned to a music training group, to an art training group or to the control group: music training had a boosting effect on the IQ, while training in arts was more effective on social behavior. Two further studies by Schellenberg (2006 , 2011) confirmed an association between IQ and the duration of music training.

The IQ is a lumped measure of several functions and the observation of superior IQs in musically trained subjects does not demonstrate per se a generalized cognitive boosting effect. Other studies have tried to pinpoint the cognitive domains on which music training might have an effect on cognitive development. Not surprisingly, positive effects were found on cognitive abilities that have a close relationship with music, for example auditory processing ( Trainor et al., 2003 ), phonological awareness ( Moreno et al., 2011b ; Francois et al., 2013 ) prosody ( Thompson et al., 2004 ). It has to be noted that phonological and prosodic skills represent higher order auditory skills.

However, as for adults, other studies have found effects of music training on domains that are not specifically “musical” in any obvious sense, like learning skills and memory: children trained with music lessons have better performance in verbal memory tasks ( Ho et al., 2003 ; Roden et al., 2012 ), verbal intelligence ( Moreno et al., 2011a ), language processing (see Patel, 2003 , 2011 ) visuo-spatial skills ( Rauscher et al., 1997 ), arithmetic (see Vaughn, 2000 ) and reading skills ( Corrigall and Trainor, 2011 ; Tierney and Kraus, 2013 ; Slater et al., 2014 ). Accordingly, these developmental results seem to support, like the data from adults, a generalized “boosting effect hypothesis” of music on cognition.

Yet, a few issues remain open with this literature. For example, it is still possible that some of the effects that music seems to have on non-music-related skills may still be mediated by cognitive functions that it is not too hard to associate with music. One obvious example is the one of music and reading. According to a recent meta-analysis ( Gordon et al., 2015 ), music training would positively affect reading skills via its effects on phonological skills 2 . A similar caveat is supported also by the results of musically-based treatments on children with learning difficulty and disabilities ( Overy, 2003 ; Register et al., 2007 ; Cogo-Moreira et al., 2012 ; Flaugnacco et al., 2015 ) in which children with reading deficits showed a post-treatment improvement not only in reading tasks, but also in phonological tasks. The data on the visuospatial skills, and particularly on visual memory, are not clear either. As pointed out by Roden et al. (2012) , the research performed in school contexts has provided non-conclusive or conflicting results: the visuospatial advantage reported by Gardiner et al. (1996) , could be due to the fact that in that study children were trained both in music and visual arts making it impossible to distinguish whether any advantage was due to music training, to visual art training or to their combination. In the same vein, another study focused on music training at school ( Rickard et al., 2010 ) reported an effect on verbal memory, even though this may not be a long-lasting one: on the other hand, the same study could not find a sizeable effects of music training on visual memory skills ( Roden et al., 2012 ).

Longitudinal studies designed to document brain morphometry changes associated with music training (e.g., Hyde et al., 2009 ; Habibi et al., 2018 ) revealed signs of brain plasticity together with group specific changes in behavioral performance, yet only for domains strictly related to music training (e.g., audition, motor skills). A further evidence along these lines comes from brain morphometry studies that found a significantly larger corpus callosum, a marker of more efficient inter-hemispheric traffic, in people who started a music training before 7 years of age (see Schlaug, 2015 for a review).

To summarize, data from adult musicians and developmental studies, even though with some caveats, seem to point to a generalized boosting effect of music training on cognition, a result that may not be that surprising if one considers that music training involves so many neurocognitive functions that it would be quite unrealistic to expect an impact only on one or few cognitive domains.

However, as discussed below, all the considerations about the effects of music training, with the exception perhaps of those based on the few available longitudinal studies 3 , suffer of a major lingering limitation: the inability to distinguish causes and effects, to determine in a conclusive manner whether the cognitive advantage seen in musically-trained children or in adults is a genuine effect of the training, whether it is a specific one or whether it is a spurious effect due to the fact that a future musician may decide to join an educational program with intensive music training because of his predispositions. If the latter hypothesis were correct, it would be tempting to concur with Schellenberg and his statement that “music training is better suited for studying pre-existing differences in terms of brain and cognitive development rather than training specific plasticity” ( Schellenberg, 2011 , p. 297).

Aim of the Study

As mentioned, one main limitation of previous literature is that the empirical observations made and the implications inferred were based primarily on retrospective or cross-sectional studies. Yet, the same issues could be better addressed and discussed using carefully designed longitudinal prospective studies ( Schellenberg, 2004 , 2006 , 2011 ; Corrigall and Trainor, 2011 ; Moreno et al., 2011a ; Tierney and Kraus, 2014 ) where one takes into account both the family’s cultural/socioeconomic status, the cognitive skills of the kids under examination and the school teaching content. One such approach may better discriminate the contribution of natural and nurture related factors ( Sameroff, 2010 ) in this area of cognitive developmental psychology.

This is what we tried to achieve with the present study. In the light of these considerations, and with the aim of making a further step toward a better understanding on whether music may have a specific boosting effect on cognitive functions, we designed a longitudinal quasi-experimental 4 study based on the assessment of cognitive development in pre-adolescents with and without previous music experience who attended either a music or a standard curriculum.

The decision to concentrate our efforts on pre-adolescents over their attendance to the middle school was motivated by pragmatic reasons: the time of the middle school is the only occasion when the Italian education system offers any programed instrumental music training, i.e., 2 h per week in canonical curricula or 5 h per week, including 2 h of music in ensemble, for the music curricula in the middle school where our study was based 5 .

Participants in the experimental group were about to start a music curriculum in middle school and were compared to their classmates who attended a standard curriculum. This comparison allowed us to keep the possible confounders under control and to isolate, as much as possible, the effect of more intensive music training. Sampling the children by their choice to attend either the music or the standard curriculum and by their previous music training allowed us to assess their starting features and the effect of music training on a vast pool of cognitive dimensions in the same group of participants.

In what follows we report a longitudinal study based on cognitive tests on preadolescent students of the Negri-Calasanzio Middle School, located in the San Siro district of Milan (Italy). We assessed non-verbal reasoning, language, reading, memory, numerical, and visuo-spatial skills.

As some students had previous music experiences, i.e., private lessons or music laboratory in which they played an instrument during primary school for at least one continuative year, we also took into account this additional variable, grouping the sample by the school curriculum and by the presence or absence of previous music experience. Finally, in our results we also considered the possible influence of parents’ education.

In sum, in this longitudinal study we explored whether the kids who decided to attend the music curriculum show any cognitive advantage with respect to the standard group, on the one hand, and whether the intensive music training can moderate the developmental trajectories of these groups. We expected that the previous musical experience and perhaps the familial socio-cultural status could predict an overall better cognitive performance: yet, it remained a matter of empirical evaluation whether music training could have a further boosting effect in promoting cognitive maturation showing a group-by-time interaction effect and whether this was a generalized one or a specific one.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

All the participants were recruited during the school years 2014/2015, 2015/2016, and 2016/2017 at the Negri-Calasanzio Middle School of San Siro, Milan.

Students were enrolled in the study after obtaining written informed consent from the parents.

During the 3 years of study, a total of 351 students belonging to all classes of the institute were tested. To avoid potential confounds, in the following analyses we included only participants who never failed their finals, who did not received a prior diagnosis of a learning disability, who underwent the first evaluation at 6 th grade, corresponding to the first year of middle school in Italy, and who participated in the study in both the 6 th and the 7 th grade ( Table 1 ). None of the participants had a medical history of neurological, developmental or psychiatric disorders. After this selection, we obtained a sample of 128 students (56 males and 72 females, see Table 1 for more details).

Table 1. Distribution of the participants along the 3 years of the study.

During a preliminary interview, we asked each student about his eventual previous music experience (further details can be found in Supplementary Table 2 ), investigating whether they had ever had instrumental music training in the years of primary school. We considered as relevant previous music experience a continuative (at least 1 year) instrumental learning experience during private lessons or specific music laboratories offered by the primary school. Due to the variety of experiences reported (age of starting and ending, eventual participation to both private and group lessons and so on…) it was impossible to use more detailed information on previous music experience. This is why we preferred to classify this information using a categorical variable and, as a consequence, to group the sample on the basis of previous music experience and of the choice of the school curriculum. This approach led us to obtain four groups: the Music Group (MG) without previous music experience, the Music Group with previous music experience (MG EXP ), the Standard Group without previous music experience (SG) and the Standard Group with previous music experience (SG EXP ). In each group the age of the participants ranged between 10 and 14 years, as summarized in Table 2 .

Table 2. Demographic information and performances (mean, SD) at the cognitive tests in the four groups of students.

The study was approved by the Ethical Committee of the University of Milano-Bicocca (prot. num. 188) and by the headmaster and the teaching staff of Negri-Calasanzio Middle School.

Music Training in the Two Curricula

The Negri-Calasanzio School where we performed our research offers two different curricula, a Standard Curriculum and a Music Curriculum. In the Standard curriculum, students attend to the regular school program and to the canonical 2 h of music class per week, where, at the most, they are thought to play a recorder (the Italian “flauto dolce”).

In the Music curriculum, students, besides the music training given to all other students, receive two additional hours of music training in ensembles and an individualized hour of training on the instrument of their choice (e.g., guitar, cello, violin, piano, saxophone, or drums). The students of the Standard Curriculum attend instead to artistic and scientific laboratory activities while their peers receive their extra-hours of music training. Accordingly, while the overall timetable of educational activities was balanced across groups, the Standard Curriculum group was not totally naïf to music training, rather they were submitted to standard low intensity training typical of Italian non-music-oriented- middle schools.

Materials and Procedure

Students were evaluated by means of a selected pool of standardized cognitive tests and by means of cognitive tasks in the domain of non-verbal reasoning, speed of processing, verbal long-term memory, short-term and working memory, lexical access, phonological awareness, reading skills, calculation skills, and morpho-syntactic awareness. The tests selected to be included in the cognitive assessment were part of the Italian version of WISC-IV ( Wechsler, 2003 ) or were extracted from different batteries for the assessment of specific cognitive abilities like reading, phonological skills, morpho-syntactic skills and math skills. Unfortunately, not all the selected measures (see the spoonerisms or the calculation test) were standardized for this age, in which is rather difficult to find specific test addressed to phonological and language skills, or find alternatives to subtests of the WISC-IV.

All participants were assessed during individual sessions; each student underwent two testing sessions per year of about 1 h, whit about a 1-week interval between the first and the second assessment, to complete the entire psychological battery.

During the same testing sessions, we also evaluated implicit and explicit measures of personality, self-esteem, empathy, racial prejudice and tolerance: the results of these tests will be further investigated in a separate work.

Non-verbal Reasoning

It was tested using the Matrix Reasoning subtest from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV (WISC-IV; Wechsler, 2003 ).

Speed Processing

It was assessed using the Coding subtest from the WISC-IV ( Wechsler, 2003 ).

Verbal Long-Term Memory

It was evaluated with the immediate and delayed Recall of a Short Story Test ( Scarpa et al., 2006 ). Performance was measured as follows: 1 point was assigned for each conceptual cluster if all words were reported exactly as they were heard, and 0.5 points were assigned if the concept retrieved was correct, yet this was done using different words 6 .

Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

Short-term memory and working memory were evaluated using the Digit Span (forward and backward) subtest of the Working Memory Index of the WISC-IV ( Wechsler, 2003 ). Visuo-spatial short-term memory was assessed using the Corsi Block Test ( Bisiacchi et al., 2005 ).

Lexical Access

It was tested using a Verbal Fluency test ( Bisiacchi et al., 2005 ) both with phonemic and semantic cues.

Phonological awareness was assessed using the Spoonerisms subtest of the “Battery for the evaluation of meta-phonological abilities” ( Marotta, 2008 ).

Reading Skills

Single words and pseudo-words reading were assessed by means of the DDE-2 Battery (Battery for the assessment of Developmental Dyslexia and Dysorthographia-2; Sartori et al., 2007 ) where accuracy and reading speed are measured.

Text reading was assessed by means of a short-story titled “The Ecologic Disaster” consisting in 610 words selected from the MT advanced reading battery ( Cornoldi et al., 1998 ).

Arithmetic Skills

Arithmetic skills were tested using the Calculation subtest from the “Battery for the assessment of arithmetic skills” ( Cornoldi and Cazzola, 2004 ).

Morpho-Syntactic Awareness

Two subtests from the “battery for morphological and morpho-syntactic skills” were used (Co.Si.Mo, Milani et al., 2005 ). The subtest 2 a-b-c , requires the participant to insert the correct flexed form of suggested neologisms in a sentence, with the function of a noun (seven trials), verb (seven trials), or adjective (eight trials). The raw score was calculated as the sum of scores assigned to each answer. The maximum possible score was of 22. Subtest 7 required an active-to-passive transformation of a target sentence and comprises seven sentences. Accuracy was recorded as the raw score.

The average scores of each test divided by group are reported in Table 2 .

Data Analysis

Statistical analyses were performed in the statistical programing environment R ( R Core Team, 2018 ).

As the first step (1) we reduced the data dimensionality using a principal component approach and evaluated whether the factorial structure was stable across time. The PCA-derived newly identified variables were the dependent variables of further analyses used to assess (2) the impact of parental education (3) the longitudinal effect of specific music training.

Principal Component Analysis

We ran a principal component analysis (PCA) to reduce the number of variables considered and to group them into higher order cognitive dimensions. As the observed variables are by definition highly correlated, we chose an oblique rotation, in particular, we applied an Oblimin Rotation with Kaiser link (see Costello and Osborne, 2005 for a review). The PCA was run both on T0 and T1 data to verify whether variables were organized in the same latent structure notwithstanding the biological development. The congruence between the two factorial structures was tested through Tucker’s Phi ( Tucker, 1951 ) using the factor.congruence routine available in the “psych” R package ( Revelle, 2004 ). Once obtained information about the equivalence of the factorial structures extracted at T0 and T1, the factorial weights extracted from T0 were applied to obtain also the factorial scores at T1 by means of a regressive model. These scores were used as variables for the following analyses.

Impact of Parental Education on Cognitive Profile at T0 and Curriculum Choice

As first step, a chi-squared test was run to investigate whether the four groups were matched for each parental level of instruction. Then, the influence of parents’ education (Father vs. Mother), rated in 3 levels (1 = primary/middle school, 2 = high school, 3 = university), on each cognitive factor was investigated with 3 ∗ 2 generalized linear models (GLMs). These were fitted according to the results of a preliminary evaluation of data distribution. The evaluation of data distribution was made by means of graphic analyses and by an ad hoc R-routine designed to test the fit between the observed data and the main probability distributions (see Supplementary Material for more details). For example, if the data distribution was positively skewed and the probability distribution with the best fit to the empirical data was the Gamma distribution, we applied a linear transformation of the data to transpose all the values to the positive axis. This allowed us to apply a General Linear Model with a Gamma probability distribution and an “inverse” link function, if needed.

Impact of Previous Music Experience (at T0) and Longitudinal Effect of Specific Music Training

To evaluate the cognitive development trajectories of the Music and Standard Groups with and without previous music experience (MG EXP , SG EXP , MG, SG respectively), we run a series of general linear mixed effect models (GLMMs) on each cognitive factor, using the “lme4” R package (version 1.1-5, Bates et al., 2014 ). The fixed effects were modeled to test the main effect of Group, the main effect of Time (T0, T1) and their second level interactions, while the Subject ID was considered as clustering factor to model random intercept. Moreover, we also considered the potential influence of the variable “parents’ nationality” (classified as 1 = both parents were Italian, 2 = one of the parents was Italian, 3 = none of the parents was Italian) as nested variable; to do so, we estimated the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) for this variable on each cognitive factor (details are reported in Supplementary Table 3 ). On the basis of this preliminary evaluation, the parents’ nationality was included as further clustering factor only for the first component extracted by the PCA (ICC = 0.37 [0.11–0.96]).

Data Reduction and Stability of Factorial Structure

Using a PCA and the scree-plot method (see Supplementary Figure 1 ), we identified four linear components at T0 with a minimum eigenvalue (i.e., the eigenvalue of the 4 th component = 1.103). The same procedure was applied to the data collected at T1 (obtaining a minimum eigenvalue = 1.110). Each factor extracted at T0 was highly correlated with the corresponding factor extracted at T1 [Tuker’s Phi test: Factor 1 (Phi = 0.87); Factor 2 (Phi = 0.96); Factor 3 (Phi = 0.85); Factor 4 (Phi = −0.85)]. The weights extracted at T0 were then used to obtain factorial scores both at T0 and at T1. Only the variables with loadings ≥ |0.3| were considered to identify the cognitive dimension associated with each factor (see Table 3 ).

Table 3. Saturation matrix obtained by the principal component analysis (PCA).

The four factors were labeled as follows:

– Factor 1: General Cognitive Abilities ; this factor had substantial loadings from tests requiring reasoning, syntactic linguistic skills, general processing speed, memory.

– Factor 2: Speed of Linguistic Elaboration ; here the contribution was from the speed measures of tests like reading, phonological and morpho-syntactic skills.

– Factor 3: Accuracy in Reading and Memory tests ; this factor had substantial loadings from reading and memory tests as far as the accuracy was concerned.

– Factor 4: Visuo-spatial and numerical skills ; here the contribution was from tests like the digit symbol of the WISC-IV, the Corsi Block-tapping test (short-term) and calculation skills.

The chi-squared test on the parental education data showed that the groups were not matched either for education of the father (X 2 (6) = 28.3, p < 0.001), or for education of the mother (X 2 (6) = 18.76, p = 0.004; see Table 4 for full-detailed contingency tables).

Table 4. Frequency table of parents’ educational levels, differentiated for father and mother, in each group.

In both cases the participants included in the Music Group with previous music experience (MG EXP ) had parents with a higher level of education.

However, the level of parental education was not significantly related to any of the cognitive factors measured at T0 (see Table 5 ).

Table 5. Statistical tests and significance of the Main effects and interactions emerged by the GLMs run on each cognitive factor identified by PCA.

Longitudinal Effect of Intensive Music Training

From the graphic exploration of data distribution we identified 7 and 4 (repeated-measures) outliers in the Factor 2 and in the Factor 3 respectively. These data were removed in order to normalize the data distribution. The data of the four cognitive factors, identified by means of the PCA, were then analyzed using a series of GLMMs to test the effect of Group, of Time and their second level interactions.

The GLMMs revealed a significant main effect of group for the General Cognitive Abilities (X 2 (3 , 255) = 16.38, p < 0.001; see Figure 1A ), for the Accuracy in Reading and Memory Tests 7 (X 2 (3 , 248) = 21.12, p ≤ 0.001; see Figure 1C ), and for the Visuo-spatial and Numerical Skills (X 2 (3 , 255) = 9.58, p = 0.02; see Figure 1D ). No main effects of Time (6 th -grade and 7 th -grade) were found, nor a Group-by-Time interaction (see Table 6 for more details). We further explored the effect of the group by means of post hoc comparisons (FDR-corrected; Table 7 ). In general, the students included in the MG EXP group outperformed their peers in the level of General Cognitive Abilities, of Accuracy in Reading and Memory Tests. There was also a tendency in the Visuo-spatial and Numerical Skills components.

Figure 1. Mean factor scores collected in the MG and SG with and without previous music experience at T0 and T1. Error-bars represents mean standard errors. The average factor scores reported for factors 1, 2, and 3 were multiplied by –1 to facilitate results interpretation. Accordingly, for all factors in this figure, a higher score corresponds to a better mean performance. In the panel A mean factor scores of factor 1 (General Cognitive Abilities) are shown; in the panel B mean factor scores of factor 2 (Speed of Linguistic Elaboration) are shown; in the panel C mean factor scores of factor 3 (Accuracy in Reading and Memory Tests) are shown; in the panel D mean factor scores of factor 4 (Visuo-spatial and numerical skills) are shown.

Table 6. Statistical tests and significance of the fixed effects emerged by the GLMMs run on each cognitive factor.

Table 7. Post hoc comparisons (FDR-corrected) conducted on the Group variable, taking the Time as a fixed parameter.

The lack of significant Group-by-Time interaction suggests that most of the main effects observed are related to natural predisposition and, possibly, earlier environmental effects that remain relatively stable, at least for what concerns this specific age and our specific time-window (i.e., 1 year); this issue will be discussed in details later on.

There is a long tradition of studies assessing whether music training has an effect on the development of cognitive skills: the issue has been evaluated primarily by searching for differences between musicians and non-musicians ( Brochard et al., 2004 ; Franklin et al., 2008 ; Jakobson et al., 2008 ; Tierney et al., 2008 ; Groussard et al., 2010 ; George and Coch, 2011 ). There is also a growing body of studies that addressed this issue using a longitudinal approach in children ( Schellenberg, 2004 , 2006 ; Tierney et al., 2008 ; Corrigall and Trainor, 2011 ; Moreno et al., 2011a ; Roden et al., 2012 ).

Taken together, these studies indicate a cognitive boosting effect of music training.

However, this conclusion was heavily influenced by empirical findings based on retrospective cross-sectional studies: these, by their nature, cannot establish firm causal links between music training and cognitive development. This point has been stressed by Schellenberg (2004 , 2006 , 2011) who also raised the doubt that certain cognitive advantages in musicians should be considered as indices of a natural predisposition for music and its learning rather than as the consequence of intensive music training. Accordingly, musicians would have a natural gift that could be boosted by the continuing music training; the same natural predisposition and/or environmental advantage would influence the choice to start the music training itself and the high cognitive challenge that it implies.

Our study was designed to assess these issues in pre-adolescents in what we realistically consider a quasi-experimental setting, given that some of the independent variables were outside our control (e.g., previous music experience; parental education; socio-economical status, assignation to a given curriculum).

While we are not able to disentangle these issues once and for all, it is noteworthy that the superiority that we found in children of the music training groups was not enhanced by 1 year of further intensive music training received in the special music curriculum at school.

Factorial Structure of the Cognitive Tests on the Entire Sample of Adolescents

The cognitive skills of our participants were assessed by means of an extensive cognitive battery. The tests selected were mainly extracted from the most common clinical protocols for the assessment of learning disorders used in Italy, which comprises: reading and math tests, visuo-spatial and verbal short-term memory evaluation and a general IQ assessment. Non-verbal reasoning has been here assessed by means of some specific subtests of the WISC-IV ( Wechsler, 2003 ) 8 .

As the range of variables collected was a large one, the pool of cognitive data was reduced with a PCA into four components: (1) General Cognitive Abilities (2) Speed of Linguistic Elaboration (3) Accuracy in Reading and Memory tests (4) Visuo-spatial Skills and numerical skills.

A brief comment on the composition of these factors is in order. Factor 1 had weights primarily from tests requiring reasoning and processing speed combined. Interestingly, the reading and phonological skills tests were segregated for their speed and accuracy in separate factors (2 and 3), as one would expect from the well-known independence of reading and reading-related skills from general intelligence.

Also, the fourth factor had interesting features, as it received weights from both visuo-spatial skills and numerical skills tests. This association is not that surprising: a long tradition of studies on the mental number line and the so-called SNARC (spatial-numerical association of response codes) effect connects spatial and numerical cognition ( Dehaene et al., 1993 ). Furthermore, numerical and spatial cognition share similar neurofunctional underpinnings in dorsal parietal cortex and the intra-parietal sulcus, both in humans ( Piazza et al., 2004 ; Swisher et al., 2007 ), and in monkeys (see Grefkes and Fink, 2005 for a review).

To the best of our knowledge, there is not a prior any similar exploration of the cognitive profile of adolescents using a PCA of a broad test battery. Hence, we are unable to compare the present factorial structure with a similar analysis in the literature. Analyses of the factorial structure of other test batteries (WISC or even the WAIS) are not readily comparable either, given the differences with our battery. Yet, it is worth mentioning that a relatively recent re-assessment of the factorial structure of the WAIS ( Gignac, 2005 ) using a confirmatory factor analysis, suggests that the best fitting model should incorporate a set of nested factors: at the top of the hierarchy a “g -general intelligence- factor,” with three underlying factors representing, respectively, “vocabulary comprehension,” “freedom from distractibility,” and “perceptual organization.”

In any event, what counts here is that our factorial solutions were interpretable and stable over time, not suggesting a qualitative change in the cognitive architecture of our participants over the year when they were under our observation. This consideration further justified the exploration of the data discussed below.

Effects of Parental Education on the Decision of Joining a Music Curriculum and Cognitive Makeup at T0

According to our data, there was a sizeable effect of parental education on our findings. Indeed, we found that the parents of the “MG EXP group” had overall a better education (see Table 4 ); however, this factor did not predict in a systematic manner the level of cognitive performance at T0 of our subjects. Still, there was a trend for a significant impact of the level of maternal education over the speed of linguistic elaboration.

The post hoc analyses on our main GLMs allowed us to explore any group difference already present at T0. In a nutshell, we found that the students of the Music Group (particularly those with previous music experience) systematically outperformed the students of the Standard Group. The lack of a significant difference between participants of the Music Group with and without previous music experience suggests the existence of a sizeable cognitive advantage behind the decision of joining an additional intensive music training in middle school. However, we believe that this was only one side of the coin as the data on parental education suggest that higher education of the parents is associated with the likelihood of joining the more intensive music program of our music curriculum. Accordingly, overall our observations at T0 suggest that a combination of cognitive features and familiar environment have an impact on the choice of joining a music curriculum.

Indeed, we found that children in the MG EXP group, i.e., the group of children who had a previous music experience during primary school and also decided to attend the Music curriculum in the middle school, come from families with a higher socio-economical status. This suggests that parental pressure may have contributed to the choice of attending the more intense music training both at the primary and at the middle school; this possibility should be further explored and taken into account when planning new school-policies and programs.

Music Education at School: Too Little and Too Late?

One of our research questions was whether there was an effect of the musical training on the cognitive maturation trajectory of our pre-adolescents or whether it was too late to detect any meaningful effect at this age. Another important question was whether any previous music training, and the relative cognitive profile, were systematically associated with our empirical findings over time. In other words, the question was whether the “damage or the blessing” was already present by the time of our observation. Furthermore, another important question was whether any effect of music training has an impact on skills directly relevant for music performance or rather it generalizes to distant cognitive domains.

The longitudinal design of our study tried to answer these questions, at least for children attending to middle school. In a nutshell, we found that the MG EXP and MG groups were superior for their General Cognitive Abilities and Accuracy in Reading and Memory tests from outset (at T0) and that these differences were maintained over time (at T1) with no further interactions. This means that no effect of the more intense music practice was observed in this time window and, thus, the cognitive maturation of our students was not specifically affected by the more intense music training or the music curriculum.

A similar interpretation has been drawn from previous correlational studies, like the one of Forgeard et al. (2008) who found better verbal ability and non-verbal reasoning performances in children trained for at least 15 months with music: yet, the possibility of pre-existing cognitive differences between trained participants and controls could not be excluded.

As said, it was impossible to randomize the assignation of our children to the two curricula for obvious ethical reasons as this would have had implications for 3 years of middle school. Yet, even when assignation to experimental and control groups was randomized for a 6-week music treatment in pre-schoolers, as in Mehr et al. (2013) , no specific boosting effect could be observed of music training in spatial-navigation, reasoning, visual form analysis, numerical discrimination or receptive vocabulary.

Our results are at variance with those reported by Hyde et al. (2009) and Habibi et al. (2018) who found no difference in the cognitive profile of their participants before half of them received by their choice music training (e.g., key-board lessons or violin lessons): differences in the recruitment criteria and in the age of the participants (our mean age: 11; the cited studies 6–7 years) may explain these discrepancies. One may speculate that younger children have little say compared to their parents in the decision to start music, while pre-adolescents may follow more overtly their predispositions in joining or not joining a music curriculum depending on how easy music is felt by them. These factors may have contributed to the observation of no differences before training in younger children while, as we show, by the time children become pre-adolescents and join a music curriculum, they tend to have superior cognitive performance compared with their classmates.

To summarize, the pattern of results that we describe suggests that the differences observed at the 6 th grade (T0) were probably due to the combination of familial status, previous music experience and, maybe, also to a pre-existing cognitive advantage for these students who chose the music curriculum. We can just confirm that in the time span assessed (i.e., after 1 year of intensive music training) this advantage was maintained, on average.

Our results represent the empirical demonstration of the possible bias associated with retrospective studies, at least in this specific field of research: as shown by our data, before attributing to music training the “power” of enhancing the developmental trajectory of a specific cognitive ability, one needs to assess the cognitive profile of the children involved at the onset.

In the same vein, the effect of previous music training should also be taken into account. According to our data, the students in the MGs had better performances regardless of whether they had or not a previous music experience. These observations suggest that students who chose to start the study of an instrument had, in general, a cognitive advantage, at least at this point in their development.

Further studies are needed with larger samples followed up for longer periods ( Zuk and Gaab, 2018 ). Ideally, the first evaluation should occur during either the preschool age, or the primary school and repeated observations should be collected until the end of secondary school. It is also worth recalling that some of the advantages of students in the music curriculum could be accounted for by the family socioeconomic status 9 , a factor that is difficult to control for in a quasi-experimental setting. This factor was associated with the likelihood of children joining the music curriculum rather than with their level of cognitive performance; this should not be that surprising as parental factors do not have a deterministic impact on the level of cognitive performance of the off-springs.

To conclude, for the time being, 1-year of intensive music training does not have a meaningful effect on the cognitive maturation of pre-adolescents or at least it cannot surpass the effect of previous experiences and natural predisposition that may eventually lead to embracing music studies also in early childhood. This conclusion leaves open the possibility that a much earlier introduction of systematic music training might have very different effects on cognitive maturation and represent important support for cognitive development.

Further, a word of caution is needed here as the adolescents of the standard curriculum were not deprived of any music training, rather they received the low-dose music training typical of the standard Italian middle school program.

Another important point to be made relates to the potential effects of music training on the maturation of social and emotional skills and mutual tolerance in children of the same age as those considered here. The present findings do not exclude a specific impact on these affective dimensions even at this relatively late time of mental maturation, something that remains to be tested.

Taken together, our findings also imply that, if anything, educational policies and the needed resources should developed and be put in place to promote music training starting from primary school when there is a better likelihood of having sizeable results on cognitive maturation.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Milano-Bicocca. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.

Author Contributions

EP, LD, MTG, NS, PS, MP, MG, and MM conceived and designed the study. LD and DC collected behavioral data. DC, MB, MP, and MG performed the statistical analysis. AM and MM coordinated the relations with the school. DC wrote the first draft of the manuscript. MB and EP revised the manuscript. All authors contributed to the study and to the final revision of the manuscript.

This work was supported by the Fondazione Cariplo Grant 2014-0865 to the project “Più Musica” led by SONG onlus/Sistema Lombardia.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Chiara Antonietti, Arianna Bellomo, Maria Chiara Carriero, Anna Clienti, Luca Conti, Francantonio Devoto, Federica Falzone, Samuele Ferrarese, Roberto Gioia, Elisabetta Leni, Daniela Mottola, Matilde Nicolotti, Davide Parlato, Marta Riva, Sara Tolotta, Samanta Travini, and Alessandro Zani for helping us with data collection.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02704/full#supplementary-material

• ^ A left lateralized planum temporale has been related to pitch discrimination skills and it is considered as a possible anatomic correlate of the absolute pitch (see Schlaug et al., 1995 ; Schlaug, 2015 for a review).
• ^ It is well-known that phonological competence is a predictor of the development of fluent reading ( Vellutino and Scanlon, 1999 ).
• ^ There are few exceptions represented by longitudinal studies (e.g., Schellenberg, 2004 ; Corrigall and Trainor, 2011 ; Moreno et al., 2011a ; Tierney and Kraus, 2014 ).
• ^ By definition, the expression quasi-experimental study refers to non-randomized intervention studies. These designs are the “obvious choice” when it is not logistically feasible or ethical to randomly assign participants to experimental conditions like, for example, in the case of our study in which is not possible to decide whether a kid should attend either the music or standard curriculum at school.
• ^ Ideally one may want to study children as early as possible during their primary school. However, this is practically impossible in Italy as no systematic formal music training is available for children in that age-range.
• ^ Different scoring systems give 1 point for each word exactly recalled or for the recall of semantic concepts with greater tolerance on word recall precision.
• ^ Here it is worth noting that possible outliers were identified by means of boxplots and, consequently, removed (the number of outliers removed are reported in Table 6 , while details about their identification can be read in a dedicated section of the Supplementary Material ).
• ^ The choice of WISC-IV’s subtests for a longitudinal design is open to discussion: the WISC-IV’s subtests have a relatively low test-retest reliability compared with composite indices (see Watkins and Smith, 2013 ). However, our choice of these specific subtests was dictated by pragmatic considerations on the time of administration and, most of all, because of the absence of alternative updated and standardized measures for the specific stage of development examined, at least in the Italian context.
• ^ It is also worth recalling that the socio-economic status was inferred from the parental education. A detailed evaluation of the socio-economic status was beyond what was permitted by our Ethics Committee.

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Keywords : intensive training, cognitive development, educational psychology, phonological skills, language, visuo-spatial skills

Citation: Carioti D, Danelli L, Guasti MT, Gallucci M, Perugini M, Steca P, Stucchi NA, Maffezzoli A, Majno M, Berlingeri M and Paulesu E (2019) Music Education at School: Too Little and Too Late? Evidence From a Longitudinal Study on Music Training in Preadolescents. Front. Psychol. 10:2704. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02704

Received: 22 June 2019; Accepted: 15 November 2019; Published: 18 December 2019.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2019 Carioti, Danelli, Guasti, Gallucci, Perugini, Steca, Stucchi, Maffezzoli, Majno, Berlingeri and Paulesu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Manuela Berlingeri, [email protected] ; Eraldo Paulesu, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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How Music Education Sharpens the Brain, Tunes Us Up for Life

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When Amy Richter was a little girl, her father often traveled for work. He often came home bearing gifts of music and record albums. They bonded while poring over all that vinyl, she recalls, exploring the world of music from classical and rock to bluegrass.

Richter’s love of music only grew as she got older and studied voice and piano. Diagnosed with dyslexia, she also found that music helped her cope with her learning disability. It helped her gain focus and confidence. That’s why she studied music therapy in college. She knows the power of music to supercharge our brains.

“Music really became the guiding force in my education and helped me to connect with other people, helping build confidence through performance, also helping with my mental health,” said Richter, who founded  Music Workshop , a free music curriculum designed to cultivate a love of music from a young age, that can help schools beef up their arts offerings on the cheap. Schools across the country, including hundreds in California, from Yuba City to San Diego, now use her program. “It really became a tool in my life to better myself.”

To be sure, aficionados of the arts have long argued that art transforms us, but in recent years, neuroscience has shown just how music can shape the architecture of the brain. This cognitive research illuminates the connection between music and learning and gives heft to longstanding arguments for the power of music education that are newly relevant in the wake of California’s Proposition 28, which sets aside money for arts education in schools.

“The K-12 grades are the years in which brain function is most rapidly evolving and information from all different types of learning and subjects is being processed and absorbed, including connections across what we might think of as different school subjects, but they are all connected in our developing brains,” said Giuliana Conti, director of education and equity for  Music Workshop , which is particularly popular at schools that often tap substitute teachers in an era of high teacher absences.

“Music education provides physical and auditory experiences that work like bridges for brain structures. As the brain processes musical sounds and body movements, neural pathways across different regions of the brain grow and strengthen. The more those pathways are activated, the more usable they become across time and other skill sets or learning experiences.”

Amid the ongoing crises in literacy and numeracy plaguing our schools and the enduring sting of pandemic learning loss, many arts advocates are pointing to music education as a way to boost executive functioning in the brain. This enhanced cognitive function, often coupled with a surge in well-being, may be the secret sauce that makes music education such an academic powerhouse, research suggests.  Music may prime the brain to learn.

“Music is this wonderful, holistic way of engaging almost everything that is important for education,” said Nina Kraus, a noted neuroscientist at Northwestern University who studies the biology of auditory learning, in a  webinar. “First of all, we know that the ingredients that are important in making music and the ones that are important for reading and literacy are the same ingredients. So when you’re strengthening your brain by making music, you’re strengthening your brain for language.”

Kraus, who grew up listening to her mother play the piano, is passionate about the impact of sound, ranging from the distracting to the sublime, from noise pollution to Puccini, on the brain. The gist of much of her research is how thoroughly sound shapes cognition. Music training, for example, sets up children’s brains to become better learners by enhancing the sound processing that underpins language, she said.

While we live in a visually oriented world, our brains are fundamentally wired for sound, she argues. Reading, for example, is a relatively new phenomenon in human history, while listening keenly for a sound, say a predator, is a primal impulse deeply embedded in the brain. Put simply, what we hear shapes who we are.

“Music really is the jackpot,” as Kraus, author of “ Of Sound Mind ,” puts it. She has conducted extensive research showing that music education helps boost test scores for low-income children.

Music also helps us manage  stress.   Perhaps that’s one reason that offering more music and arts classes is also associated with lower chronic absenteeism rates and higher attendance, research  suggests . Think of music education as lifting weights with your brain. It makes the whole apparatus stronger and healthier.

“Music is therapeutic because it helps us to regulate our emotions,” said Richter, who adds that a culturally relevant music curriculum can help engage a diverse student body. “It helps us to lower our cortisol levels. It helps promote relaxation. It helps us with focus and concentration. It also helps us with connection. Now more than ever, we know how important connection is, especially among our youth.”

In the post-pandemic era, these insights may well fuel the uptake of music classes in a state struggling with low test scores, but the implications for brain health actually go far beyond academic prowess and social-emotional well-being in childhood.

Indeed, early musical experiences may impart a lifelong neuroplasticity, Kraus has documented. Studies suggest that a 65-year-old musician has the neural activity of a 25-year-old non-musician. A 65-year-old who played music as a child but hasn’t touched an instrument in ages still has neural responses faster than a peer who never played music, although slower than those of a die-hard musician.

“What I would say to everyone who thinks about picking up an instrument: It’s never too late,” Richter said. “Even just practicing scales can help with cell regeneration. So I encourage adults to continue to learn music along the way, whether that’s picking up an instrument or listening to music, it’s always really important for brain development.”

Music pricks up our hearts and minds, as well as our ears. Children must persevere to master a piece of music and collaborate to perform it in the spotlight. They must learn focus, patience and grace under pressure. That kind of electrifying shared experience, working as a community, is something new to many of them, experts say.

“When music is more regularly incorporated as part of children’s everyday lives,” Conti said, “it can move the needle in their learning and development more effectively across many different parts of their lives: socially, emotionally, musically and academically.”

It’s the intangible effects of music education, the elements that can’t be reduced to data points and parameters, that strike Kraus as the most profound. Music builds a feeling of joy and a sense of belonging between musicians and their listeners, which is something that little else in our age of digital background noise can do.

“Music connects us, and it connects us in a way that hardly anything I know does, so it’s very, very important,” Kraus said. “We live in a very disconnected world. Depression, anxiety, alienation, the inability to focus, all of that is on the rise. Intolerance is on the rise. Music is a way to bring us together.”

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How Music Primes the Brain for Learning

To reap the benefits of music on learning, kids need consistent and abundant musical practice, according to the latest cognitive research.

Ten years ago, musician Angélica Durrell began teaching a small group of Connecticut high school students how to play different percussion instruments, including the charango and toyos —musical instruments native to Central and South America, where many of the students had recently immigrated from. They learned to play Pachelbel’s Canon and then moved on to master “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” the sixties doo-wop hit by The Shirelles, singing the lyrics in both English and Spanish.

Within a few years, the after-school music program—aimed at Latino students, many of whom were struggling academically—became renowned in the school district, recast from a “nice-to-have” extracurricular into a strategic tool for addressing some of the district’s persistent challenges. Durrell’s students, teachers and school leaders noticed, were attending school more consistently, their English was improving, and they seemed increasingly comfortable making friends.

Today, Durrell’s non-profit program Intempo serves more than 3,000 students each year in Stamford and Norwalk schools, underscoring music’s profound impact on learning from both a cognitive and a social and emotional learning (SEL) vantage point. “We went from approaching it from a music perspective,” Durrell says, “to approaching it from an immigrant inclusion, language acquisition, and grade-level reading-acquisition perspective.”

Consistent exposure to music, like learning to play a musical instrument, or taking voice lessons, strengthens a particular set of academic and social-emotional skills that are essential to learning. In ways that are unmatched by other pursuits, like athletics for instance, learning music powerfully reinforces language skills, builds and improves reading ability, and strengthens memory and attention, according to the latest research on the cognitive neuroscience of music.

Experts are hoping this body of evidence might alter the current state of music education in schools—which is extremely uneven and, in some places, downright nonexistent. In a 2014 survey from Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit advocacy organization, teachers reported that 1.3 million elementary students didn’t have music classes in their schools, and nearly 4 million didn’t have a visual arts class. More recently, data from the 2016 National Assessment of Educational Progress showed improvements in some areas, though arts participation and access varied greatly by region . For example, while 68 percent of eighth-graders had music class in 2016, students in the Northeast were twice as likely to attend music class compared with students in the South and the West, where only one-third of students had access to music classes.

Now, following months of pandemic-related learning disruptions, organizations that track arts education like the federally-funded Arts Education Partnership say it’s difficult to even get a handle on who’s learning music at school.

The Cognitive Benefits of Music

The key to understanding music’s advantages, researchers say, lies in how the brain processes sound, the raw material of music, language, and—perhaps counterintuitively—learning to read. The sounds that come in through our ears travel along an anatomically complex “auditory pathway” that’s deeply connected to parts of the brain that determine how humans move, how we think and speak, what we know, and what we pay attention to. “The hearing brain is vast,” explains neuroscientist Nina Kraus, author of the new book  Of Sound Mind , in an interview with Edutopia . “People think of the hearing brain as being a silo within the brain. In fact, our hearing engages our cognitive, sensory, motor, and reward systems. That’s huge. From an evolutionary perspective, being able to make sense of sound is ancient and has engaged all these different perspectives.”

What makes music learning so powerful is how it engages all those different systems in a single activity. To play the violin, for example, a student needs to coordinate their motor, cognitive, and sensory systems to be able to put their fingers on the correct strings and move the bow at the right time; to read musical notes on a sheet of music and know what sounds they represent; and to hear if the pitches and rhythms are correct and coordinating with other players at the right time. Then there’s how the sound of music makes the student feel, which lights up the brain’s reward system. Engaging all these different systems makes learning how to play music one of the richest and deepest brain activities that humans perform. “Teachers resoundingly tell me that children who play music also do better in school,” Kraus writes. Young musicians also tend to have stronger language and reading skills than non-musicians because their brains have spent more time actively “engaging with sound.”

The type of instrument doesn’t matter: flute, violin, accordion, piano, voice—even abundant exposure to music can make an impact. “What is important is that engaging with sound changes and strengthens how the brain responds to sound,” Kraus says.

Music as Academic Strength Training

At Durban Avenue School in Sussex County, New Jersey, music teacher Shawna Longo calls out a particular rhythm, and then her kindergarteners play it on their Boomwhackers , tuned percussion tubes that come in different sizes and colors to symbolize different pitches. “Now only the red ones! Do ‘I like pepperoni pizza,’” she calls out, and the children play ta-ta-tee-tee-tee-tee-ta-ta. “They can only play when I hold up their color,” she says. “They have to learn when to wait, and when to play.”

The ability to keep a steady beat and anticipate the next beat, research has shown , are reliable indicators that a child is ready to learn to read. But keeping rhythm isn’t the only musical skill that paves the way for language development and reading, notes education researcher Anita Collins in her new book, The Music Advantage .

Learning to read music—decoding musical notation and connecting it to sounds—activates the same “phonological loop” in the brain as when kids learn to read words, deepening sound-word connections. Collins describes the process in her book:

• The eye sees a symbol on the page, whether it’s an eighth note D or a letter t at the start of a word

• The brain hears the sound, pulling it from the memory of music and speech sounds all brains possess

• The brain instructs the body to make that sound, whether it’s hands playing an instrument or the mouth shaped to make the t sound

• The brain listens to be sure the correct sound was made, and then makes adjustments

(From page 54 of The Music Advantage )

Processing sound strengthens the same areas of the brain that are responsible for learning language and learning to read—and while neuroscientists are still teasing out the how and the why, Collins writes that the latest research indicates that “music and reading may well be complementary learning activities,” with music functioning as a robust tool to improve language learning.

The Sound of Social Cohesion

When Covid-19 lockdowns first spread across the globe in March 2020, multiple videos showed people in Italy singing together from their balconies. At a time of extreme stress and isolation, Italians turned to music to connect with their neighbors.

Music and song are among the most basic ways humans have connected with one another for thousands of years. “Music lives in the oldest part of our brain,” Collins tells  Edutopia . “Music and song are at least as old as language and the spoken word.”

In a landmark 2018 study , researchers from the University of Toronto found that an adult singing and moving to a musical beat with a one-year-old child in tow increased social cohesion: the child was more likely to help when the adult later “accidentally” dropped an item. The study has been replicated many times, Collins writes, and shows how music taps into a primal bond that may encourage prosocial behavior like empathy and helping—the very behaviors that adults want children to develop as they grow, and behaviors schools strive to teach using the tenets of social and emotional learning.

When students belt out the school song at basketball games, or sing the clean-up song in kindergarten, it’s a potent practice for strengthening basic human social bonds. “Singing is a very powerful tool to make children feel in community,” says Kelly Green, vice president of education at Kindermusik, which creates research-based music curriculum for early childhood learners. “It’s deep SEL.”

Like Italy’s balcony singers during lockdown, social singing and music-making might be especially helpful to students now, when loneliness, anxiety, and depression are skyrocketing among young people. But Green says that kids in school sing a lot less than they used to. We tend to think “that learning music is only to develop as a musician,” Collins remarks. “People don’t feel confident to sing anymore. The fear that sits under ‘I can’t sing, I’m not musical’ is incredibly deep. When I start singing with students, they often realize singing is just a practiced skill. All these things start happening. They feel this sense of euphoria.”

Kids Benefit From Deep and Consistent Engagement

Facing limited budgets, increased academic expectations and testing , and a music teacher shortage , some schools and districts are increasingly looking to nonprofit organizations and community partners for help. Groups like Save the Music Foundation provide grants for schools to purchase student instruments and provide teacher training. The Harmony Project brings intensive music training and support to underserved students in the Los Angeles area. The Soulsville Charter School, a music-influenced middle and high school in Memphis, Tennessee, taps into the birthplace of American soul music and legendary Stax Records with the support of the Soulsville Foundation .

“You have to be willing to say, ‘We can’t do this alone,’” says Tamu Lucero, superintendent of Stamford Public Schools, where Durrell’s Intempo program is now a critical component of the district’s new-arrivals program. Even though Stamford schools already offered regular music programming, Lucero says, “we were willing to be open to the idea of how we could use an outside partner to enrich the learning environment for students.”

Researchers will continue to untangle some of the reasons behind why music learning is so beneficial to students—but know enough to conclude that listening to music or writing a song for a class project only begins to scratch the surface. To get maximal brain benefits, students should actively engage with music by learning to play an instrument or studying voice, preferably in a group setting. The evidence is strong enough to recommend music education as a discrete class for all kids—and across the grade levels—as a critically important investment.

Or as Nina Kraus states, “Music should be a part of every child’s education. Period.”

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Home › Blog › Research › Benefits of Music To The Brain

April 4, 2018

Benefits of Music To The Brain

By Lia Peralta

updated 10/22/2021

Save The Music believes in the benefits of music in schools . Music has the potential to help students succeed in school, build self-confidence, and create leaders and well-rounded young people. Learning through music can improve a student’s academic performance, increase attendance, and improve test scores overall.

In Save The Music’s recent case study in Newark, New Jersey, schools with quality music education programs had a decrease in students being chronically absent from school. The value of a music program can mean that more students come to school more often, participate more in school activities, and look forward to something during the school day – music class.

We see that students who participate in a school music program have more social-emotional skills like grit, perseverance, and teamwork. Music can prove to be an important part of the school day to help students express themselves and work through feelings of stress and anxiety. This attributes to the social benefits of music education . Music education and social-emotional learning (SEL) intersect when students practice self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making ( SEL core competencies ). Embedded into the four major music education processes – create, present, respond, connect – students have the potential to become impactful leaders, creators, independent thinkers, and empowered young people.

Music shows something about who we are as people. Our identities can be communicated through what we play, create, and the music we share with others. We can illuminate our cultures through music and continue a legacy passed down by our families. With music education in schools, teachers can encourage students to use their voices, expressing themselves through music.

In West Virginia, Save The Music found that 83% of music teachers believed that their students who participate in music have increased their overall engagement in school. Additionally, active music programs in schools gave a sense of pride to the whole community. Music education has become a key thread in the fabric of the people who live in school districts with quality music education in schools.

The value of music education seen here is that students who participate in music-making, creativity, and artistic expression attend school more often and perform higher in other academic subjects. The importance of music in school also extends to social and emotional benefits, that each child develops the skills to conquer challenges of life situations in the music classroom and beyond.

Why is music education important ? Let’s explore more areas to answer this question.

THE BENEFITS OF MUSIC EDUCATION TO THE BRAIN: COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

There are positive outcomes and cognitive benefits of learning music . It has been shown to increase cognitive competence and development in students who participate in music in school. Playing music throughout life can also lead to a lower risk of developing dementia and increased brain resilience. Playing music activates many senses in the brain that increase thinking skills, including social and emotional awareness, and improve interpersonal communication. Reading music can improve general reading comprehension skills overall. Music sparks the brain and many parts of the brain are activated.

Practicing music is like a cross-fit workout for the brain! When we play and listen to music, it’s processed in many different areas of our brain. The extent of the brain’s involvement was scarcely imagined until the early 1990s, when functional brain imaging became possible. The major computation centers include (Source: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel Levitin).

PREFRONTAL CORTEX

Creation of expectations, violation, and satisfaction of expectations.

MOTOR CORTEX

Movement, foot-tapping, dancing, and playing an instrument.

CORPUS CALLOSUM

Connects left and right hemispheres.

AUDITORY CORTEX

The first stages of listening to sounds and the perception and analysis of tones.

SENSORY CORTEX

Tactile feedback from playing an instrument and dancing.

VISUAL CORTEX

Reading music and looking at a performer’s or one’s own movements.

NUCLEUS ACCUMBENS

Emotional reactions to music.

HIPPOCAMPUS

Memory for music, musical experiences, and contexts.

Movement such as foot-tapping, dancing, and playing an instrument. Also involved in emotional reactions to music.

“Playing music is the brain’s equivalent of a full-body workout.”

– “While listening to music engages the brain in some pretty interesting activities, playing music is the brain’s equivalent of a full-body workout. The neuroscientists saw multiple areas of the brain light up simultaneously processing different information in intricate, interrelated, and astonishingly fast sequences. Playing a musical instrument engages practically every area of the brain at once, especially the visual, auditory, and motor cortices. As with any other workout, disciplined structured practice in playing music strengthens those brain functions allowing us to apply that strength to other activities.” (Anita Collins, How Playing An Instrument Benefits Your Brain , July 2014)

Playing music connects different parts of the brain, increasing efficient decision-making skills and more spontaneous creativity.

– “The heavy-tax of piano playing makes their minds efficient in every way. Studies show that when jazz pianists play, their brains have an extremely efficient connection between the different parts of the frontal lobe compared to non-musicians. That’s a big deal — the frontal lobe is responsible for integrating a ton of information into decision-making. It plays a major role in problem solving, language, spontaneity, decision-making and social behavior. Pianists, then, tend to integrate all of the brain’s information into more efficient decision-making processes. Because of this high-speed connection, they can breeze through slower, methodical thinking and tap into quicker and more spontaneous creativity.” (Jordan Taylor Sloan, Science Shows How Piano Players’ Brains are Actually Different From Everybody Elses’ , June 2014)

✓ Check out our guest blog post by Music Education Advisory Board member, Gabriella Musacchia, called “Music and Learning: Does music make you smarter?”

MUSIC EDUCATION FACTS

There has been an outstanding amount of research about young people who play and practice music and its positive outcomes. Music education in schools has profound effects on student performance and the development of well-rounded citizens. At Save The Music, we see students in music programs thrive and discover their creativity. We see them participate more in school activities and engage their families and communities in music education as well.

Explore the benefits of music education statistics below and find more information about the value of music education in Save The Music’s Advocacy Tools .

Studies show music learning yields several benefits to overall development and performance.

– Children who study music tend to have larger vocabularies and more advanced reading skills than their peers who do not participate in music lessons (Arete Music Academy. “Statistical benefits of music in education.” Arete Music Academy. Accessed July 17, 2014).

– Regardless of socioeconomic status or school district, students (3rd graders) who participate in high-quality music programs score higher on reading and spelling tests (Hille, Katrin, et al. “Associations between music education, intelligence, and spelling ability in elementary school.” Adv Cogn Psychol 7, 2011: 1–6. Web. Accessed February 24, 2015).

– Schools that have music programs have an attendance rate of 93.3% compared to 84.9% in schools without music programs (The National Association for Music Education. “Music Makes the Grade.” The National Association for Music Education. Accessed February 24, 2015).

– Research at McGill University in Montreal, Canada showed that grade-school kids who took music lessons scored higher on tests of general and spatial cognitive development , the abilities that form the basis for performance in math and engineering (http://nisom.com/index.php/instruction/health-benefits).

– A study of 8 to 11-year-olds found that, those who had extra-curricular music classes, developed higher verbal IQ, and visual abilities, in comparison to those with no musical training (Forgeard et al., “Practicing a Musical Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning,” PLOS One, 2008).

– Children with learning disabilities or dyslexia who tend to lose focus with more noise could benefit greatly from music lessons (Arete Music Academy. “Statistical benefits of music in education.” Arete Music Academy. Accessed July 17, 2014).

– Young children who take music lessons show different brain development and improved memory over the course of a year, compared to children who do not receive musical training (National Association for Music Education. “The Benefits of the Study of Music.” National Association for Music Education. Accessed July 17, 2014).

– Music and math are highly intertwined. By understanding beat, rhythm, and scales, children are learning how to divide, create fractions, and recognize patterns (Lynn Kleiner, founder of Music Rhapsody in Redondo Beach, CA).

– Playing a musical instrument strengthens eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills, and kids who study an instrument learn a lot about discipline, dedication, and the rewards of hard work. ( http://nisom.com/index.php/instruction/health-benefits ).

– Music training not only helps children develop fine motor skills, but aids emotional and behavioral maturation as well, according to a new study, one of the largest to investigate the effects of playing an instrument on brain development (Amy Ellis Nutt, “Music lessons spur emotional and behavioral growth in children, a new study says,” The Washington Post, January 7, 2015).

– Music training leads to greater gains in auditory and motor function when begun in young childhood; by adolescence, the plasticity that characterizes childhood has begun to decline. Nevertheless, our results establish that music training impacts the auditory system even when it is begun in adolescence, suggesting that a modest amount of training begun later in life can affect neural function (Adam T. Tierney, Jennifer Krizman, Nina Kraus, “Music training alters the course of adolescent auditory development,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015).

– Children who study a musical instrument are more likely to excel in all of their studies, work better in teams, have enhanced critical thinking skills, stay in school, and pursue further education (Arte Music Academy. “Statistical benefits of music in education.” Statistical-Benefits-Of-Music-In-Education. Accessed July 17, 2014).

– Taking music lessons offers a space where kids learn how to accept and give constructive criticism , according to research published in The Wall Street Journal in 2014 (Joanne Lipman, “A Musical Fix for American Schools,” The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2014).

– Making music together, children learn to work as a team while they each contribute to the song in their own way. At the same time, music helps children learn that together they can make something larger than the sum of its parts (© 2015 Program for Early Parent Support (PEPS), a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization).

– More benefits of music for children include learning cooperation, sharing, compromise, creativity, and concentration – skills that become invaluable as they enter school, face new challenges, and begin to form new friendships and develop social skills (© 2015 Program for Early Parent Support (PEPS), a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization).

– Kids who make music have been shown to get along better with classmates and have fewer discipline problems. More of them get into their preferred colleges, too (http://nisom.com/index.php/instruction/health-benefits).

> Source: NAMM Foundation’s “How Children Benefit From Music Education In Schools”

✓ For more research briefs and handy quotes to help make your case for supporting music education in schools, check out this list from the NAMM Foundation : MUSIC FACTS

Thank you to our partners and friends in music education for publicizing their vital research for us to share. Remember, however you use this fact bank, please remember to include the sources provided.

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17 Evidence-Based Benefits of Music Education

Music education can uncover hidden talents and lifelong passions, but did you know that music also boosts non-musical outcomes?

From better grades in English, math, and history to improved emotional management and social skills, music education is proving to be an important ingredient in whole-person development.

Music education benefits [INFOGRAPHIC]

Examining the evidence.

These 17 compelling studies reveal how music positively impacts children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development.

1. Enhances vocabulary

Improving and increasing vocabulary by learning new words and their meanings can be a lifelong process, particularly in childhood, where vocabulary is constantly informed by the school, parents, books, television shows, and, of course, musical choices.

The learning process can certainly have its amusing (and embarrassing) moments for parents of verbose kids, but boosting vocabulary, and mastering its usage, is a life skill they’ll use time and again.

One 2009 study of second-grade students demonstrates a link between musical instruction and effective use of vocabulary and verbal sequencing.

Children were split into two groups, an experimental group that received three years of piano instruction, and a control group which received no musical instruction, whether scholastic or private.

Key study/paper: Piro, J. M., & Ortiz, C. (2009). “The effect of piano lessons on the vocabulary and verbal sequencing skills of primary grade students” Psychology of Music, 37(3), 325–347.

2. Supports cognitive function

Clear, effective thinking, quick recollection, and good decision-making are all related to healthy cognitive function, something that can be improved and developed through mental “exercise”.

Both before and after this participation, children were assessed via the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale.

Key study/paper:   Bilhartz, T. D., Bruhn, R. A., & Olson, J. E. (1999). “ T he Effect of Early Music Training on Child Cognitive Development” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 20(4), 615–636.

3. Develops reading and writing ability

Reading and writing are foundational aspects of not only your child’s education but their life beyond it.

Good reading comprehension is a necessary requirement of many jobs, as is being able to write with clarity and technical correctness.

A meta-analysis on the impact of music education on academic achievement addresses data sourced from the National Center for Educational Statistics, which reports that, within a sample population of over 13,000 high school sophomores, those who participated in music education demonstrated higher grades in English classes. ( Source )

Key study/paper: Donald A. Hodges & Debra S. O’Connell (2005). “ The Impact of Music Education on Academic Achievement ” The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

4. Encourages self-esteem

Positive self-esteem is linked with happiness and success, and it begins in childhood. Children who don’t feel good about themselves can have trouble being assertive, making friends, and trying out new things they’re hesitant about.

When kids participate in empowering activities like music education, they often begin to feel better about themselves and their skills, backed by validating reassurance from peers, teachers, and parents.

These students were divided into two groups — an experimental group that would go on to receive weekly individual piano lessons for the next three years, and a control group that received no such instruction.

At the end of the three-year study, those who had participated in the experimental group scored consistently higher in the area of self-esteem than those who had not. ( Source )

Key study/paper: Costa-Giomi, E. (2004). “ Effects of Three Years of Piano Instruction on Children’s Academic Achievement, School Performance and Self-Esteem “. Psychology of Music, 32(2), 139–152.

5. Increases verbal memory

For kids whose brains are still developing, opportunities to improve memory should be encouraged. As it turns out, music education can play a vital role in boosting verbal recollection skills.

Each subject was read a list of 16 words, repeated three times. Subjects were then asked to recall as many words as possible.

Key study/paper: Chan, A. S., Ho, Y.-C., & Cheung, M.-C. (1998). “ Music training improves verbal memory ” Nature, 396(6707), 128–128.

6. Boosts IQ

IQ, or intelligence quotient, can be a rather controversial topic — as it isn’t, strictly speaking, a measure of exactly how intelligent a person is.

Rather, IQ is a measure of a person’s ability to use reasoning, logic, and provided data to correctly answer a question, make a prediction, or come to a conclusion.

In tests that measured these children against their non-musical peers, music lessons were shown to correlate with general and long-lasting improvement with both IQ and cognitive ability.

Interestingly, these tests showed that music lessons delivered the same results (re. IQ and cognitive ability) among all the young participants, despite their diverse, disparate backgrounds such as varied family income, parental education level, and other extracurricular activities. ( Source )

Key study/paper: Schellenberg, E. G. (2006). “Long-term positive associations between music lessons and IQ” Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(2), 457–468.

7. Develops empathy

The way children relate to their peers and interact socially is often informed by empathy, their ability to perceive, understand, and relate to emotional experiences had by others.

In a 1990 study assessing children with a mean age of 12 years, participants were divided into two groups. The first group was comprised of children who had received six or more years of piano or violin training prior to the study, while the second group was comprised of non-musical schoolchildren.

Each group was assessed using the Epstein Empathy Scale and Battle Self-Esteem Scale — the group which had received previous musical training scoring higher at both empathy and self-esteem than their non-musical peers. ( Source )

Key study/paper: Hietolahti-Ansten, M., & Kalliopuska, M. (1990). “Self-Esteem and Empathy among Children Actively Involved in Music” Perceptual and Motor Skills, 71, 1364–1366 .

8. Raises math and history scores

Subjects like math and history, which rely heavily on recollection and critical thinking, can be especially problematic for some kids. As it turns out, time spent learning to play music can play a significant role in improving their grades in these subjects.

Source:   http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.564.7004&rep=rep1&type=pdf

9. Reduces aggressive behavior

Aggressive behavior in children is often as troubling to those kids themselves as it is to adults, as they may be struggling with feelings such as fear, sadness, or loss of control.

In one 2007 study, the effect of music education on childhood aggression was measured by dividing 48 participants into two groups.

One group of children participated in two weekly music education sessions of 50 minutes per session, while a second control group remained untreated.

Key study/paper: Choi, A.-N., Lee, M. S., & Lee, J.-S. (2010). “Group Music Intervention Reduces Aggression and Improves Self-Esteem in Children with Highly Aggressive Behavior: A Pilot Controlled Trial” Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 7(2), 213–217 .

Source: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2010/465730/

10. Teaches planning ability

Certain activities requiring cognitive skills, including music education, can help improve planning ability.

A longitudinal analysis of the executive functions of primary school children as they relate to experience in music education divided children into four groups.

A range of neuropsychological tests administered after the exercise showed higher scores in inhibition, planning, and verbal intelligence in children in the music education group. ( Source )

Key study/paper: Jaschke, A. C., Honing, H., & Scherder, E. J. A. (2018). “Longitudinal Analysis of Music Education on Executive Functions in Primary School Children” Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12 .

Source:   https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2018.00103/full?_ga=2.63007279.122942088.1566086779-1196487477.1566086779

11. Encourages perseverance

A 1992 study measuring the attention and perseverance behaviors of preschool children taking part in Suzuki violin lessons grouped 80 children between the ages of 3 and 5 into five subgroups. The first took individual violin lessons, and the second took individual and group lessons.

Key study/paper: Scott, L. (1992). “Attention and Perseverance Behaviors of Preschool Children Enrolled in Suzuki Violin Lessons and Other Activities” Journal of Research in Music Education, 40(3), 225–235 .

Source:   https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2307/3345684

12. Improves articulation

A well-rounded vocabulary helps children to become articulate speakers, but this is only one aspect of speaking well.

In a longitudinal study of 32 children, it was demonstrated that a link between musical training and the brain plasticity that allows for pitch discrimination is likely to exist.

The children in the study, who had no previous musical training, were split into two groups; one group received painting training, while the other received musical training.

Key study/paper: Sylvain Moreno, Carlos Marques, Andreia Santos, Manuela Santos, São Luís Castro, Mireille Besson (2009). “Musical Training Influences Linguistic Abilities in 8-Year-Old Children: More Evidence for Brain Plasticity”. Cerebral Cortex, 19(3):712-713 .

Source:   https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/19/3/712/436400

13. Protects against dementia

In addition to healthy physical activity, a good diet, and general awareness of existing health conditions, keeping the mind sharp through regular mental exercise is also a preventative measure.

As one fascinating study reveals, playing an instrument in childhood may well offer the mind that much-needed workout.

Of those pairs, 27 were also discordant for playing an instrument in childhood, meaning that one twin was non-musical. Past training in a musical instrument correlated significantly with a lowered risk of dementia or cognitive impairment later in life. ( Source )

Key study/paper : Balbag, M. A., Pedersen, N. L., & Gatz, M. (2014). “Playing a Musical Instrument as a Protective Factor against Dementia and Cognitive Impairment: A Population-Based Twin Study” International Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 2014, 1–6.

Source:   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25544932

14. Facilitates anxiety management

A 2014 study on the correlation between playing musical instruments and cortical thickness maturation assessed 232 subjects between the ages of 6 and 18.

Key study/paper: Hudziak, J. J., Albaugh, M. D., Ducharme, S., Karama, S., Spottswood, M., Crehan, E., … Botteron, K. N. (2014). “Cortical Thickness Maturation and Duration of Music Training: Health-Promoting Activities Shape Brain Development” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 53(11) .

15. Boosts standardized test scores

Every year, the faithful #2 pencil gets trotted out for another go at standardized tests.

While a week spent with test booklets and tiny bubbles to fill in isn’t much fun for kids, in comparison with their regular education, these tests play an important role in helping to demonstrate whether teachers, schools, and districts are working effectively in measuring each child’s level of general competence.

In a study that compared the Ohio Proficiency Test results of instrumental music students to those of their non-musical peers, a correlation between improved standardized test results and instrumental training was demonstrated.

Tests from fourth, sixth, and ninth graders were assessed, and instrumentally trained students scored significantly better than non-instrumental students in every subject, which included citizenship, science, reading, and math. These results held true across all grade levels. ( Source )

Key study/paper: Fitzpatrick, K. R. (2006). “The Effect of Instrumental Music Participation and Socioeconomic Status on Ohio Fourth-, Sixth-, and Ninth-Grade Proficiency Test Performance” Journal of Research in Music Education, 54(1), 73–84 .

16 Refines perceptual motor skills

Sensory play and motor skill development are tremendously important parts of early childhood education, and not without reason.

One 1981 study divided a group of children between the ages of 4 and 6 into two groups; an experimental group, which received education in an integrated musical and physical education program, and a control group, which received education solely in movement exploration.

After 24 of these sessions, assessment of the groups revealed that those in the experimental group improved significantly in motor, auditory, and language areas of perceptual motor skill. ( Source )

Key study/paper: Brown, Judy, et al. “Effects of an Integrated Physical Education/Music Program in Changing Early Childhood Perceptual-Motor Performance” Perceptual and Motor Skills, vol. 53, no. 1, 1981, pp. 151–154.

17. Creates happiness

There are numerous ways we all seek happiness, and everyone, particularly children, have a unique take on what makes us feel joyful.

These results were measured against those who listened to music not of their own choosing, noting that an autonomous choice of music was more likely to reflect on one’s personal pleasure and experience, thus leading to feelings of joy. ( Source )

Key study/paper: Morinville, A., Miranda, D., & Gaudreau, P. (2013). “Music listening motivation is associated with global happiness in Canadian late adolescents”. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 7(4), 384–390.

Wrapping up

Studying and performing music in the classroom, at private lessons, or at home, has been proven to offer a wealth of benefits to our kids, inspiring a sense of pride and fostering motivation that can benefit them throughout their lifetime.

Homeschooling can be tough on parents, especially since you can feel alone or isolated while trying to come up with curriculums

Enter the bento box! Japan’s answer to diverse, portion-controlled meals on the go. Bento boxes are an elegant solution to kids’ lunchtime.

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How Children Benefit from Music Education in Schools

In this article:.

How Children Benefit from Music Education In Schools

Educational benefits/facts:.

• Children who study music tend to have larger vocabularies and more advanced reading skills than their peers who do not participate in music lessons (Arete Music Academy. "Statistical benefits of music in education." Arete Music Academy. Accessed July 17, 2014).
• Regardless of socioeconomic status or school district, students (3rd graders) who participate in high-quality music programs score higher on reading and spelling tests (Hille, Katrin, et al. "Associations between music education, intelligence, and spelling ability in elementary school." Adv Cogn Psychol 7, 2011: 1–6. Web. Accessed February 24, 2015).
• Schools that have music programs have an attendance rate of 93.3% compared to 84.9% in schools without music programs (The National Association for Music Education. "Music Makes the Grade." The National Association for Music Education. Accessed February 24, 2015).
• Students in high-quality school music education programs score higher on standardized tests compared to students in schools with deficient music education programs, regardless of the socioeconomic level of community (Nature Neuroscience, April 2007).
• Students in all regions with lower-quality instrumental programs scored higher in English and mathematics than students who had no music at all (Journal for Research in Music Education, June 2007; Dr. Christopher Johnson, Jenny Memmott).
• Students at schools with excellent music programs had higher English test scores across the country thanstudents in schools with low-quality music programs; this was also true when considering mathematics (Journal for Research in Music Education, June 2007; Dr. Christopher Johnson, Jenny Memmott).
• Students in top-quality instrumental programs scored 17% higher in mathematics than children in schools without a music program, and 33% higher in mathematics than students in a deficient choral program (Journal for Research in Music Education, June 2007; Dr. Christopher Johnson, Jenny Memmott).
• Students in top-quality instrumental programs scored 19% higher in English than students in schools without a music program, and 32% higher in English than students in a deficient choral program (Journal for Research in Music Education, June 2007; Dr. Christopher Johnson, Jenny Memmott).
• Substantial majorities of both teachers and  parents view student access to music and  arts education as “extremely” or “very” important ( NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015.  Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in  the United States: 2015).
• Both parents and teachers have high  standards and expectations for quality  music programs, especially the importance of competent, certified teachers ( NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015.  Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in  the United States: 2015). ​
• On average, students have had only  about three years of in-school music  education, according to parents; more  than a third have had one year or less,  with one in six of all students having had no music instruction at all ( NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015.  Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in  the United States: 2015).
• Substantial majorities of both parents  and teachers want to see the scope  of elementary school music education expanded (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Substantial majorities of teachers and  parents believe budget cuts in music  programs hurt students and that music  is not as adequately funded as other  core subjects. Most teachers and  parents rate the funding for their own  school’s music program as average or worse (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Asked about 15 possible ways to cut  school budgets, both teachers and parents  are more willing to make cuts in 12  of the 14 other curricular, administrative  and service areas than cut music and  arts education. Only the number and salaries of teachers are more sacrosanct (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• More than 80 percent of teachers, and  nearly as many parents, say that the time  allotted to music education—adequate  rehearsal time, class duration and class  frequency— is important for a quality music education program (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Eight in 10 teachers and more than seven in 10  parents believe the number of minutes of  music education required every week is an important quality component (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• The number and quality of musical instruments,  along with materials, are high  on parents’ lists of “must haves” for a  quality program. But many teachers report that these essentials are in short supply (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Fewer than half of teachers (42 percent)  and parents (46 percent) say their schools  have the musical instruments they need for all students who want to learn to play (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Just 41 percent of teachers and 46 percent  of parents say their schools have enough sheet music for every participating child (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Teachers in urban schools are more likely  to consider music and arts education as  core to the curriculum (38 percent) and  value access to it (81 percent), compared  to teachers in rural areas (30 percent of  whom consider music and arts education  as core to the curriculum and 70 percent of whom value access to it) (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Urban  teachers also believe more strongly that  music education can build 21st century  skills, such as communication, critical  thinking, problem-solving and innovation skills (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• African-American parents (76 percent)  and Hispanic parents (75 percent) are  significantly more likely than Caucasian  parents (67 percent) to enroll their  children in school music classes where  opportunities exist, and they are more  interested in their children participating in  virtually every type of music class in or out of school (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• African-American and Hispanic  parents generally believe more strongly  in a wide array of potential benefits from  music education, are more likely to have  seen these positive impacts on their own  child and more strongly support expanding  music education programs. Ironically,  these parents also are more likely to report  that there are no music programs in their  schools (21 percent of African-American  parents and 22 percent of Hispanic parents report this, compared to 15 percent of Caucasian parents)(NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Students in the West are  more likely to have school music programs  that take place only outside of school  hours—and they have access to fewer types of programs as well (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• It’s  striking  that both teachers (87 percent) and parents  (79 percent) strongly believe music  education has a positive impact on overall academic performance (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• More than eight  in 10 teachers  (83 percent) and  more than seven  in 10 parents  (73 percent) say  budget cuts in  music education  are detrimental to students (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• On average, both teachers and  parents would be more willing  to cut spending in 12 of  15  other programs before they’d cut funding for music and arts education (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Teachers in Title I schools are more likely to report  that their schools have no music program  at all. In Title I schools that do offer music  programs, teacher responses suggest that  they have fewer full-time music teachers—  and teachers in these schools are more  likely to report there are no professional  development opportunities for the music teachers they do have (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Federal education policy specifically  authorizes the use Title I funds for music  and arts education. But few teachers—  even the majority who know what Title I  is—are aware of this significant opportunity  to provide or improve music programs  in the country. Even fewer parents are  familiar with Title I, let alone the fact that Title I funds can be used for music education (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• The College Board identifies the arts as one of the six basic academic subject areas students should study in order to succeed in college (Academic Preparation for College: What Students Need to Know and Be Able to Do, 1983 [still in use], The College Board, New York).
• Nine in ten adults believe students benefit from having music included in their curriculum (89 percent) ("Public Schools are Improving Their Grades, but Private Schools Remain at the Head of the Class," Harris Poll, September 29, 2015).
• Research at McGill University in Montreal, Canada showed that grade-school kids who took music lessons scored higher on tests of general and spatial cognitive development, the abilities that form the basis for performance in math and engineering (http://nisom.com/index.php/instruction/health-benefits).
• A study of 8 to 11-year-olds found that, those who had extra-curricular music classes, developed higher verbal IQ, and visual abilities, in comparison to those with no musical training ( Forgeard et al., "Practicing a Musical Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning," PLOS One, 2008).
• A study of almost one thousand Finnish pupils who took part in extended music classes, found they reported higher satisfaction at school in almost every area, even those not related to the music classes themselves (Eerola & Eerola, "Extended music education enhances the quality of school life," Music Education Research, 2013).
• A 2012 U.S. Department of Education report that compared surveys from 1999-2000 and 2009-2010 found that music was offered in 94 percent of elementary schools during both timeframes, and that visual art offerings dropped only slightly, from 87 percent of schools in 2000 to 82 in 2010 (Jessica Siegel, "Amid Tests and Tight Budgets, Schools Find Room for Arts," CityLimits.Org, June 7, 2013).
• Learning a musical language could have cognitive benefits similar to those evident in bilingual children.  Although this view has intuitive appeal because music and language are both auditory communication systems, the positive effects of bilingualism are evident for fluid intelligence (i.e., executive control) but not for crystallized intelligence (e.g., knowledge acquired through experience, such as vocabulary), whereas the effects of music lessons appear to extend to both domains (E. Glenn Schellenberg, "Music and Cognitive Abilities," Current Directions in Psychological Science Journal, Vol. 14, No. 6, December 2005).

Cognitive Benefits/Facts:

• Everyday listening skills are stronger in musically-trained children than in those without music training. Significantly, listening skills are closely tied to the ability to: perceive speech in a noisy background, pay attention, and keep sounds in memory (Strait, D.L. and N. Kraus, Biological impact of auditory expertise across the life span: musicians as a model of auditory learning. Hearing Research, 2013.)
• Music training in childhood “fundamentally alters the nervous system such that neural changes persist in adulthood after auditory training has ceased" (Skoe, E. & N. Kraus.  2012.  A little goes a long way: How the Adult Brain Is Shaped by Musical Training in Childhood.  The Journal of Neuroscience, 32(34):11507–11510).
• Studies have shown that young children who take keyboard lessons have greater abstract reasoning abilities than their peers, and that these abilities improve over time with sustained training in music (Rauscher, F.H. , & Zupan, M., "Classroom keyboard instruction improves kindergarten children's spatial-temporal performance: A field experiment" Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 15 , 215-228.2000).
• Children with learning disabilities or dyslexia who tend to lose focus with more noise could benefit greatly from music lessons (Arete Music Academy. "Statistical benefits of music in education." Arete Music Academy. Accessed July 17, 2014).
• Young children who take music lessons show different brain development and improved memory over the course of a year, compared to children who do not receive musical training (National Association for Music Education. "The Benefits of the Study of Music." National Association for Music Education. Accessed July 17, 2014).
• Young Children who take music lessons show different brain development and  improved memory over the course of a year, compared to children who do not receive musical training ( Dr. Laurel Trainor, Prof. of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behavior at  McMaster University, 2006).
• Musically trained children performed better in a memory test that is  correlated with general intelligence skills such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing, mathematics, and IQ ( Dr. Laurel Trainor, Prof. of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behavior at  McMaster University, 2006).
• Music education sharpens student attentiveness (Arts Education Partnership, 2011).
• Music education equips students to be creative (Arts Education Partnership, 2011).
• Everyday listening skills are stronger in musically-trained children than in those without music training.  Significantly, listening skills are closely tied to the ability to: perceive speech in a noisy background, pay attention, and keep sounds in memory ( Strait, D.L. and N. Kraus, Biological impact of auditory expertise across the life span: musicians as a model of auditory learning.  Hearing Research, 2013.)
• According to research published in a 2014 article  in Parents magazine, learning how to play percussion  instruments helps children develop coordination and  motor skills, because they require movement of the hands, arms, and feet (Kwan, A. 2013, “6 Benefits of Music Lessons,” Parents).
• Music and math are highly intertwined. By understanding beat, rhythm, and scales, children are learning how to divide, create fractions, and recognize patterns (Lynn Kleiner, founder of Music Rhapsody in Redondo Beach, CA).
• Certain instruments, such as percussion, help children develop coordination and motor skills; they require movement of the hands, arms, and feet (Kristen Regester, Early Childhood Program Manager at Sherwood Community Music School at Columbia College Chicago. Copyright © 2013 Meredith Corporation).
• In order to fully reap the cognitive benefits of a music class, kids can’t just sit there and let the sound of music wash over them. They have to be actively engaged in the music and participate in the class (Dr. Nina Kraus, director of Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory).
• Researchers found that after two years, children who not only regularly attended music classes, but also actively participated in the class, showed larger improvements in how the brain processes speech and reading scores than their less-involved peers (Nina Kraus, director of Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, quoted in Melissa Locker, "This Is How Music Can Change Your Brain," Time, December 16, 2014).
• A study at the University of California at Irvine demonstrated that young kids who participated in music instruction showed dramatic enhancements in abstract reasoning skills. In fact, researchers have found neural firing patterns that suggest that music may hold the key to higher brain function ( Rauscher, Shaw, Levine , Ky and Wright, "Music and Spatial Task Performance: A Causal Relationship," University of California , Irvine , 1994) .
• Playing a musical instrument strengthens eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills, and kids who study an instrument learn a lot about discipline, dedication and the rewards of hard work ( http://nisom.com/index.php/instruction/health-benefits).
• Music training not only helps children develop fine motor skills, but aids emotional and behavioral maturation as well, according to a new study, one of the largest to investigate the effects of playing an instrument on brain development (Amy Ellis Nutt, "Music lessons spur emotional and behavioral growth in children, new study says," The Washington Post, January 7, 2015).
• Music training leads to greater gains in auditory and motor function when begun in young childhood; by adolescence, the plasticity that characterizes childhood has begun to decline.  Nevertheless, our results establish that music training impacts the auditory system even when it is begun in adolescence, suggesting that a modest amount of training begun later in life can affect neural function (Adam T. Tierney, Jennifer Krizman, Nina Kraus, "Music training alters the course of adolescent auditory development," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015).
• A Canadian study of 48 preschoolers and published in 2011, found that verbal IQ increased after only 20 days of music training. In fact, the increase was five times that of a control group of preschoolers, who were given visual art lessons, says lead researcher Sylvain Moreno, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. He found that music training enhanced the children’s “executive function”—that is, their brains’ ability to plan, organize, strategize and solve problems. And he found the effect in 90% of the children, an unusually high rate (Joanne Lipman, "A Musical Fix for American Schools," The Wall Street Journal,  October 10, 2014).
• In a 2009 study in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers used an MRI to study the brains of 31 6-year-old children, before and after they took lessons on musical instrument for 15 months. They found that the music students’ brains grew larger in the areas that control fine motor skills and hearing—and that students’ abilities in both those areas also improved. The corpus callosum, which connects the left and right sides of the brain, grew as well (Joanne Lipman, "A Musical Fix for American Schools," The Wall Street Journal,  October 10, 2014).
• Exposing children to music during early development helps them learn the sounds and meanings of words. Dancing to music helps children build motor skills while allowing them to practice self-expression. For children and adults, music helps strengthen memory skills (© 2015 Program for Early Parent Support (PEPS), a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization).

Social Benefits/Facts:

• Children who study a musical instrument are more likely to excel in all of their studies, work better in teams, have enhanced critical thinking skills, stay in school, and pursue further education (Arte Music Academy. "Statistical benefits of music in education." Statistical-Benefits-Of-Music-In-Education. Accessed July 17, 2014).
• Music education supports better study habits and self-esteem (Arts Education Partnership, 2011).
• Hispanic and African-American parents  generally feel music provides more benefits  to children than other parents do.  Like their urban counterparts, however,  they feel they’re being shortchanged in  a number of ways—though they’re taking  steps to overcome these deficits that could model solutions for other groups ( NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015.  Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Majorities of both parents and teachers  see a myriad of social-emotional,  academic, 21st century skill, community,  and physical and health benefits  from music education—especially social-emotional benefits (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Majorities of both parents and teachers  are aware of research on the effects of  music on the developing brain, and have  personally experienced the benefits of music education on their own children or students (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Four of the top five benefits  teachers see in  the potential of music education to  help students express themselves (cited  by 92 percent of  teachers), become  more confident  (90 percent), and  develop better  practice habits (89  percent) and more  self-discipline (88 percent) (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Majorities of parents whose children  are involved in music classes also credit  music education for making them  happier, more focused, more selfdisciplined,  stronger academically and more helpful (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Taking music lessons offers a space where kids  learn how to accept and give constructive criticism,  according to research published in The Wall Street Journal in 2014 (Joanne Lipman, "A Musical Fix for American Schools," The Wall Street Journal,  October 10, 2014).
• Group classes require peer interaction and communication, which encourage teamwork, as children must collaborate to create a crescendo or an accelerando (Kristen Regester, Early Childhood Program Manager at Sherwood Community Music School at Columbia College Chicago. Copyright © 2013 Meredith Corporation).
• Playing an instrument teaches kids to persevere through hours, months, and sometimes years of practice before they reach specific goals, such as performing with a band or memorizing a solo piece (Mary Larew, Suzuki violin teacher at the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, Connecticut. Copyright © 2013 Meredith Corporation).
• Lessons offer a forum where children can learn to accept and give constructive criticism. Turning negative feedback into positive change helps build self-confidence (Mary Larew, Suzuki violin teacher at the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, Connecticut. Copyright © 2013 Meredith Corporation).
• Making music together, children learn to work as a team while they each contribute to the song in their own way. At the same time, music helps children learn that together they can make something larger than the sum of its parts (© 2015 Program for Early Parent Support (PEPS), a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization).
• More benefits of music for children include learning cooperation, sharing, compromise, creativity, and concentration - skills that become invaluable as they enter school, face new challenges, and begin to form new friendships and develop social skills (© 2015 Program for Early Parent Support (PEPS), a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization).
• Kids who make music have been shown to get along better with classmates and have fewer discipline problems. More of them get into their preferred colleges, too (http://nisom.com/index.php/instruction/health-benefits).
• 95 percent of Americans consider music to be part of a well-rounded education, and 93 percent feel that schools should offer music education as part of the regular curriculum.  Nearly four in five (79 percent) even say that music education should be mandated for every student in school (2003 Gallup Poll conducted for NAMM).

Quotes/Testimonials:

"One of the biggest kicks is to see a child come into the music program as an introvert and leave as a student leader. That's a tremendous process." - Dick Zentner, 2013 Patrick John Hughes Parent/Booster Award Recipient

“We have this holistic opportunity to teach children the benefits of direct participatory music education.” -  Linda Edelstein, Milwaukee youth symphony orchestra

“At this time when you are making critical and far-reaching budget and program decisions…I write to bring to your attention the importance of the arts as a core academic subject and part of a complete education for all students. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act defines the arts as a core subject, and the arts play a significant role in children’s development and learning process. The arts can help students become tenacious, team-oriented problem solvers who are confident and able to think creatively.” - Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, Letter to Schools and Community Leaders, 2009

"Early sustained music learning is actually the frame upon which education itself can be built for low-income kids." - Margaret Martin, founder, Harmony Project, quoted in PBS NEWS HOUR. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education-jan-june14-harmony_01-04

"In science I had very low grades and then once I started learning about music and being able to practice and concentrating, my science grades have gone higher and so have my other grade in other subjects. I would concentrate in my music and it was something to be focused on and not be bothered by anyone. I was using that on my homework and on any type of class work also. Science is now one of my best subjects." - Vianey Calixto, student and Harmony Project Participant quoted in PBS NEWS HOUR. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education-jan-june14-harmony_01-04

"While more affluent students do better in school than children from lower income backgrounds, we are finding that musical training can alter the nervous system to create a better learner and help offset this academic gap." - Dr. Nina Kraus, director of Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory quoted in "Musical training 'can improve language and reading" http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28703013

"Music is no cure-all, nor is it likely to turn your child into a Nobel Prize winner. But there is compelling evidence that it can boost children’s academic performance and help fix some of our schools’ most intractable problems." - Joanne Lipman, "A Musical Fix for American Schools," The Wall Street Journal,  October 10, 2014

"A kid with a music degree isn’t limited to a performance or teaching career. Musicians are everywhere. We are project managers, marketers, Finance folks, IT people and engineers. In my twenty-some years as a corporate HR person, I was always impressed by the way musical people excelled at logic and non-linear thinking, both." - Liz Ryan, "Let the kids study music, already!" Forbes, September 3, 2014

"Being able to think on your feet, approach tasks from different perspectives and think ‘outside of the box’ will distinguish your child from others. In an arts program, your child will be asked to recite a monologue in 6 different ways, create a painting that represents a memory, or compose a new rhythm to enhance a piece of music. If children have practice thinking creatively, it will come naturally to them now and in their future career." - Lisa Phillips, "The artistic edge: 7 skills children need to succeed in an increasingly right brain world," ARTSblog, Americans for the Arts, 2013

"When a child picks up a violin for the first time, she/he knows that playing Bach right away is not an option; however, when that child practices, learns the skills and techniques and doesn’t give up, that Bach concerto is that much closer. In an increasingly competitive world, where people are being asked to continually develop new skills, perseverance is essential to achieving success." - Lisa Phillips, "The artistic edge: 7 skills children need to succeed in an increasingly right brain world," ARTSblog, Americans for the Arts, 2013

"The ability to focus is a key skill developed through ensemble work. Keeping a balance between listening and contributing involves a great deal of concentration and focus. It requires each participant to not only think about their role, but how their role contributes to the big picture of what is being created. Recent research has shown that participation in the arts improves children’s abilities to concentrate and focus in other aspects of their lives." - Lisa Phillips, "The artistic edge: 7 skills children need to succeed in an increasingly right brain world," ARTSblog, Americans for the Arts, 2013

"When a child has a part to play in a music ensemble, or a theater or dance production, they begin to understand that their contribution is necessary for the success of the group. Through these experiences children gain confidence and start to learn that their contributions have value even if they don’t have the biggest role." - Lisa Phillips, "The artistic edge: 7 skills children need to succeed in an increasingly right brain world," ARTSblog, Americans for the Arts, 2013

“I believe arts education in music, theater, dance, and the visual arts is one of the most creative ways we have to find the gold that is buried just beneath the surface. They (children) have an enthusiasm for life a spark of creativity, and vivid imaginations that need training – training that prepares them to become confident young men and women.” - Richard W. Riley, Former US Secretary of Education

“Music education opens doors that help children pass from school into the world around them – a world of work, culture, intellectual activity, and human involvement. The future of our nation depends on providing our children with a complete education that includes music.” - Gerald Ford, Former President of the United States

“Music is about communication, creativity, and cooperation, and by studying music in schools, students have the opportunity to build on these skills, enrich their lives, and experience the world from a new perspective.” - Bill Clinton, Former President of the United States

"A broad education in the arts helps give children a better understanding of their world… We need students who are culturally literate as well as math and science literate." - Paul Ostergard, Vice President, Citicorp

"Arts education aids students in skills needed in the workplace: flexibility, the ability to solve problems and communicate, the ability to learn new skills, to be creative and innovative, and to strive for excellence." - Joseph M. Calahan, Director of Cooperate Communications, Xerox Corporation

"The hope of our music, the entire future of our music, unquestionably lies in our children." - Aubertine Woodward Moore, "Our Children, The Hope of Music: Building a Musical America," The Art World, Vol. 2, No. 6, pp. 512-514, September 1917

"Research indicates the brain of a musician, even a young one, works differently than that of a nonmusician.  "There's some good neuroscience research that children involved in music have larger growth of neural activity than people not in music training.  When you're a musician and you're playing an instrument, you have to be using more of your brain." - Dr. Eric Rasmussen, chair of the Early Childhood Music Department at the Peabody Preparatory of The John Hopkins University, quoted in "The Benefits of Music Education," pbs.org, Laura Lewis Brown

"I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning." - Plato

More Benefits/Facts:

• Research tells us children who play music do better in school and in life.
• A recent Gallup Poll revealed that 94 percent of Americans consider music to be part of a well-rounded education. (Source: NAMM Gallup poll 2006.)
• A Columbia University study revealed that students in the arts are found to be more cooperative with teachers and peers, more self-confident and better able to express their ideas. (Source: Burton, J., Horowitz, R., Abeles, H. Champions of Change, Arts Education Partnership, 1999.)
• Students indicate that arts participation motivates them to stay in school, and that the arts create a supportive environment that promotes constructive acceptance of criticism and one in which it is safe to take risks. (Source: Barry, N., Taylor, K. and K. Walls Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, AEP, 2002.)
• A study examined the influence of music education on nonmusical abilities, the effects of music lessons on academic performance, and cognitive abilities. The study revealed that students who participated in music lessons showed statistically higher intelligence quotients. (Source: Glenn Schellenberg, Music Lessons Enhance IQ, Psychological Science, Vol. 15, No. 8, 2004.)
• A study of rural and urban inner-city schools found that arts programs helped schools in economically disadvantaged communities develop students’ critical-thinking and problem solving skills. (Source: Stevenson, L., Deasy, R., Third Space: When Learning Matters, AEP, 2005.)
• With music in schools, students connect to each other better— greater camaraderie, fewer fights, less racism and reduced use of hurtful sarcasm. (Source: Jensen, E., Arts With the Brain In Mind, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2001.)
• The vast majority —96 percent—of the school principals interviewed in a recent study agree that participation in music education encourages and motivates students to stay in school. Further, 89 percent of principals feel that a high-quality music education program contributes to their school achieving higher graduation rates. (Source: Harris Interactive Poll, 2006.)
• The skills gained through sequential music instruction, including discipline and the ability to analyze, solve problems, communicate and work cooperatively, are vital for success in the 21st century workplace. (Source: U.S. House of Representatives, Concurrent Resolution 355, March 6, 2006.)

Photo credit: Rob Davidson Photography

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5 Developing a Student-Centered and Inclusive Music Classroom

• Published: August 2024
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This chapter is designed to provide effective tools and strategies at the micro level (e.g., behavior and management techniques) and the macro level by informing the reader of philosophical underpinnings that encompass a successful inclusive classroom. The socialization and lasting relationships that all students develop in school are also of considerable importance. Therefore, it is imperative for music educators to strive for a caring, inclusive environment that is conducive for all students to learn. The practical strategies suggested at the end of this chapter are presented to encourage music educators to create a tolerant, caring classroom that is conducive for music teaching and learning. Many of the techniques discussed in this chapter are just examples of good teaching, regardless of what population of students you are teaching.

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