According to Wikipedia music is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture. While this seems simple, our expertise is using these simple elements to do powerful things.

We each have our own experiences. Whether it be the song sung to us as a child, the favorite music festival, or just that song we listen to on repeat, most of us have already seen the power of music.

"Music has the power to cause emotions to well up within us. These feelings are gripping - often irresistible - and seem to emerge from nowhere. These feelings colour our moods, affect our perceptions and generate a behavioural pattern. The indisputable fact about music is its power to evoke emotions. Is there anyone, for whom, music is completely emotional - neutral? Music has the ability to inevitably tap the still, mysterious deep well of our emotions.

However, music can produce various emotional responses in different individuals and even different responses in the same person at different times. Music may produce expressions of various emotions - peaceful, relaxing, exciting, festive, boring, unsettling, unstimulating, invigorating...and so on.

Music is an extremely versatile medium of communication. It is capable of exploring all the features that are used in verbal communication. Moreover, it does so in an explicit and structured way, which makes it an interesting and useful window into human communication, in general."

-Bombay Jayashri Ramnath

Creativity | Memory | Brain Function | Reading & Math | Skills & Awareness | Scholarly Success

Creativity (top)

“Creativity is more than a component of coping; it is a facet of our inner selves that enables us to develop perspective & flexibility, both of which help us to be more resilient. As I have watched my children grow, I have seen first-hand how creative expression can give kids a voice to articulate their emotions as well as a way to lose themselves in the act of creation.”
          --Kenneth Ginsburg, MD from Building Resilience in Children & Teens
          (American Academy of Pediatrics), 2006  

Music Makes a Difference in Memory (top)

The American Psychological Association wrote:
"Piano lessons pay off in unexpected ways: According to a new study, children with music training had significantly better verbal memory than their counterparts without such training, plus, the longer the training, the better the verbal memory. Psychologists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong studied 90 boys between age six and fifteen. Half had musical training as members of their school's string orchestra program. The other 45 participants were schoolmates with no musical training.

The researchers, led by Agnes S. Chan, Ph.D., gave the children verbal memory tests, to see how many words they recalled from a list, and a comparable visual memory test for images. Students with musical training recalled significantly more words than the untrained students..." 1

Music Enhances Higher Brain Function (top)

Music lessons have been shown to improve a child's performance in school. A research team exploring the link between music and intelligence reports that music training - specifically piano instruction - is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children's abstract reasoning skills which are necessary for learning math and science. This experiment included three groups of pre-schoolers, each group was given different training:

1. private piano/keyboard lessons and singing lessons
2. private computer lessons
3. no training

After six months, those children who received piano/keyboard training performed 34% higher on tests measuring spatial-temporal ability than the others. These findings indicate that music uniquely enhances higher brain functions required for mathematics, science and engineering.2

Improves Reading & Math Performances (top)

A research team studying first graders from two Rhode Island, US elementary schools found that students who participated in an "enriched, sequential skill building music program" dramatically increased their math and reading performance.3

Music study can help children understand advanced math concepts. A grasp of proportional math and fractions is a prerequisite to math at higher levels and children who do not master these areas cannot understand more advanced math critical to high-tech fields.

Music involves ratios, fractions, proportions and thinking in space and time. Second-grade students were given four months of piano keyboard training in addition to use of a newly designed math software program. The group scored over 27% higher on proportional math and fractions tests than children who used only the math software.4

Provides Important Experiences (top)

Musical activities provide children with important experiences that can help them develop physical coordination, timing, memory, visual, aural and language skills. When they work to increase their command of music and exercise musical skills in the company of others, they gain important experience with self-paced learning, mental concentration and a heightened personal and social awareness.5

Linked to Scholarly Success (top)

Data from the US showed that music participants received more academic honors and awards than non-music students and that the percentage of music participants receiving grades of A, A/B, and B was higher than the percentage of non-participants receiving those grades.6

A ten-year study tracking more than 25,000 students shows that music-making improves test scores. Regardless of socioeconomic background, music-making students get higher marks in standardized tests than those who had no music involvement. The test scores studied were not only in standardized tests, such as the SAT (school admission test), but also in reading proficiency exams.7

The world's top academic countries place a high value on music education. Hungary, Netherlands and Japan stand atop worldwide science achievement and share a strong commitment to music education. All three countries have required music training at the elementary and middle school levels, both instrumental and vocal, for several decades. The centrality of music education to learning in the top-ranked countries seems to contradict the United States' focus on math, science, vocabulary and technology.8

Sources:
1 Music Training Improves Verbal but Not Visual Memory," American Psychological Association, Neuropsychology, Vol. 17, No. 3.
2 Neurological Research, Feb. 1997; Shaw, Rauscher, et al.
3 Nature, May 23, 1996; Gardiner, Fox Jeffery and Knowles.
4 Neurological Research, March, 1999.
5 "Music and Your Child," American Music Conference publication; Frank R. Wilson, M.D., Associate Clinical Professor of Neurology - University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco.
6 National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 First Follow-Up (1990), U.S. Department of Education.
7 Dr. James Catterall, UCLA, 1997.
8 1988 International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IAEEA) Test.