Whether your child is the next Beyonce or more likely to sing her solos in the
shower, she is bound to benefit from some form of music education. Research
shows that learning the do-re-mis can help children excel in ways beyond the
basic ABCs.
More Than Just Music
Research has found that learning
music facilitates learning other subjects and enhances skills that children
inevitably use in other areas. “A music-rich experience for children of singing,
listening and moving is really bringing a very serious benefit to children as
they progress into more formal learning,” says Mary Luehrisen, executive
director of the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Foundation, a
not-for-profit association that promotes the benefits of making music.
Making music involves more than the voice or fingers playing an instrument; a
child learning about music has to tap into multiple skill sets, often
simultaneously. For instance, people use their ears and eyes, as well as large
and small muscles, says Kenneth Guilmartin, cofounder of Music Together, an
early childhood music development program for infants through kindergarteners
that involves parents or caregivers in the classes.
“Music learning supports all learning. Not that Mozart makes you smarter, but
it’s a very integrating, stimulating pastime or activity,” Guilmartin says.
Language Development
“When you look at children ages two
to nine, one of the breakthroughs in that area is music’s benefit for language
development, which is so important at that stage,” says Luehrisen. While
children come into the world ready to decode sounds and words, music education
helps enhance those natural abilities. “Growing up in a musically rich
environment is often advantageous for children’s language development,” she
says. But Luehrisen adds that those inborn capacities need to be “reinforced,
practiced, celebrated,” which can be done at home or in a more formal music
education setting.
According to the Children’s Music Workshop, the effect of music education on
language development can be seen in the brain. “Recent studies have clearly
indicated that musical training physically develops the part of the left side of
the brain known to be involved with processing language, and can actually wire
the brain’s circuits in specific ways. Linking familiar songs to new information
can also help imprint information on young minds,” the group claims.
This relationship between music and language development is also socially
advantageous to young children. “The development of language over time tends to
enhance parts of the brain that help process music,” says Dr. Kyle Pruett,
clinical professor of child psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and a
practicing musician. “Language competence is at the root of social competence.
Musical experience strengthens the capacity to be verbally competent.”
Increased IQ
A study by E. Glenn Schellenberg at the
University of Toronto at Mississauga, as published in a 2004 issue of
Psychological Science, found a small increase in the IQs of six-year-olds who
were given weekly voice and piano lessons. Schellenberg provided nine months of
piano and voice lessons to a dozen six-year-olds, drama lessons (to see if
exposure to arts in general versus just music had an effect) to a second group
of six-year-olds, and no lessons to a third group. The children’s IQs were
tested before entering the first grade, then again before entering the second
grade.
Surprisingly, the children who were given music lessons over the school year
tested on average three IQ points higher than the other groups. The drama group
didn’t have the same increase in IQ, but did experience increased social
behavior benefits not seen in the music-only group.
The Brain Works Harder
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,” says Dr. Eric Rasmussen, chair of the Early Childhood Music Department
at the Peabody Preparatory of The Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches a
specialized music curriculum for children aged two months to nine years.
In fact, a study led by Ellen Winner, professor of psychology at Boston
College, and Gottfried Schlaug, professor of neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, found changes in the brain images of
children who underwent 15 months of weekly music instruction and practice. The
students in the study who received music instruction had improved sound
discrimination and fine motor tasks, and brain imaging showed changes to the
networks in the brain associated with those abilities, according to the Dana
Foundation, a private philanthropic organization that supports brain research.
Spatial-Temporal Skills
Research has also found a causal
link between music and spatial intelligence, which means that understanding
music can help children visualize various elements that should go together, like
they would do when solving a math problem.
“We have some pretty good data that music instruction does reliably improve
spatial-temporal skills in children over time,” explains Pruett, who helped
found the Performing Arts Medicine Association. These skills come into play in
solving multistep problems one would encounter in architecture, engineering,
math, art, gaming, and especially working with computers.
Improved Test Scores
A study published in 2007 by
Christopher Johnson, professor of music education and music therapy at the
University of Kansas, revealed that students in elementary schools with superior
music education programs scored around 22 percent higher in English and 20
percent higher in math scores on standardized tests, compared to schools with
low-quality music programs, regardless of socioeconomic disparities among the
schools or school districts. Johnson compares the concentration that music
training requires to the focus needed to perform well on a standardized test.
Aside from test score results, Johnson’s study highlights the positive
effects that a quality music education can have on a young child’s success.
Luehrisen explains this psychological phenomenon in two sentences: “Schools that
have rigorous programs and high-quality music and arts teachers probably have
high-quality teachers in other areas. If you have an environment where there are
a lot of people doing creative, smart, great things, joyful things, even people
who aren’t doing that have a tendency to go up and do better.”
And it doesn’t end there: along with better performance results on
concentration-based tasks, music training can help with basic memory recall.
“Formal training in music is also associated with other cognitive strengths such
as verbal recall proficiency,” Pruett says. “People who have had formal musical
training tend to be pretty good at remembering verbal information stored in
memory.”
Being Musical
Music can improve your child’ abilities in
learning and other nonmusic tasks, but it’s important to understand that music
does not make one smarter. As Pruett explains, the many intrinsic benefits to
music education include being disciplined, learning a skill, being part of the
music world, managing performance, being part of something you can be proud of,
and even struggling with a less than perfect teacher.
“It’s important not to oversell how smart music can make you,” Pruett says.
“Music makes your kid interesting and happy, and smart will come later. It
enriches his or her appetite for things that bring you pleasure and for the
friends you meet.”
While parents may hope that enrolling their child in a
music program will make her a better student, the primary reasons to provide
your child with a musical education should be to help them become more musical,
to appreciate all aspects of music, and to respect the process of learning an
instrument or learning to sing, which is valuable on its own merit.
“There is a massive benefit from being musical that we don’t understand, but
it’s individual. Music is for music’s sake,” Rasmussen says. “The benefit of
music education for me is about being musical. It gives you have a better
understanding of yourself. The horizons are higher when you are involved in
music,” he adds. “Your understanding of art and the world, and how you can think
and express yourself, are enhanced.”
