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Nearly 20 years ago a small study advanced the notion that listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major could boost mental functioning. It was not long before trademarked “Mozart effect” products appealed to neurotic parents aiming to put toddlers on the fast track to the Ivy League. Georgia’s governor even proposed giving every newborn there a classical CD or cassette.
The evidence for Mozart therapy turned out to be flimsy, perhaps nonexistent, although the original study never claimed anything more than a temporary and limited effect. In recent years, however, neuroscientists have examined the benefits of a concerted effort to study and practice music, as opposed to playing a Mozart CD or a computer-based “brain fitness” game once in a while. Advanced monitoring techniques have enabled scientists to see what happens inside your head when you listen to your mother and actually practice the violin for an hour every afternoon. And they have found that music lessons can produce profound and lasting changes that enhance the general ability to learn. These results should disabuse public officials of the idea that music classes are a mere frill, ripe for discarding in the budget crises that constantly beset public schools.
Studies have shown that assiduous instrument training from an early age can help the brain to process sounds better, making it easier to stay focused when absorbing other subjects, from literature to tensor calculus. The musically adept are better able to concentrate on a biology lesson despite the racket in the classroom or, a few years later, to finish a call with a client when a colleague in the next cubicle starts screaming at an underling. They can attend to several things at once in the mental scratch pad called working memory, an essential skill in this era of multitasking.
Discerning subtleties in pitch and timing can also help children or adults in learning a new language. The current craze for high school Mandarin classes furnishes an ideal example. The difference between m¯a (a high, level tone) and mà (falling tone) represents the difference between “mother” and “scold.” Musicians, studies show, are better than nonmusicians at picking out easily when your m¯a is màing you to practice. These skills may also help the learning disabled improve speech comprehension.
Sadly, fewer schools are giving students an opportunity to learn an instrument. In Nature Reviews Neuroscience this summer, Nina Kraus of Northwestern University and Bharath Chandrasekaran of the University of Texas at Austin, who research how music affects the brain, point to a disturbing trend of a decline of music education as part of the standard curriculum. A report by the advocacy organization Music for All Foundation found that from 1999 to 2004 the number of students taking music programs in California public schools dropped by 50 percent.
Research of our brains on music leads to the conclusion that music education needs to be preserved—and revamped, as needed, when further insights demonstrate, say, how the concentration mustered to play the clarinet or the oboe can help a problem student focus better in math class. The main reason for playing an instrument, of course, will always be the sheer joy of blowing a horn or banging out chords. But we should also be working to incorporate into the curriculum our new knowledge of music’s beneficial effect on the developing brain. Sustained involvement with an instrument from an early age is an achievable goal even with tight budgets. Music is not just an “extra.”
This article was originally published with the title Hearing the Music, Honing the Mind.
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14 Comments
Add CommentAfter teaching Science and Technology classes to 8th graders for 34 years in middle school, I noticed that every year the best students were in Band or Orchestra. It wasn't that all the good students were in the music program, it was that every year the students in music were good students. In teaching Science I believed in cause and effect, so I put my children in music starting at 5 years old and recommended the same to others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMusic should be taught in the early years of child development and through to high school. It is a no-brainer. Also, I've read that learning another language can have much of the same results.
"Also, I've read that learning another language can have much of the same results."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that one of the recent issues of Science Magazine has a piece on multilingual people being better at multitasking.
Has anyone checked for correlations between declining music programs in schools and the rate of ADHD diagnoses among their students?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would doubt it's behind the whole mess, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were a contributing factor.
@Johnay, I have often wondered this myself. I am a cellist, and when I was a high school and college student taught private lessons to local kids, including a few students who had different learning disabilities and conditions. Perhaps not surprisingly, their parents would often tell me that not only were they beginning to advance in orchestra class, they were also functioning better in other subjects.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for mentioning in the article that there is value in learning music for its own sake. It is great to know that musical learning enhances performance in other subjects and in addition steers children away from a need to seek out some other "high," but I look forward to the day when American society once more values art for its own sake. It is the arts after all, better than almost any other pursuit, that foster a connection between humans from all times and places.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, this doesn't surprise me either. Although it hasn't been conclusively shown yet, I think chess helps the brain in general too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRock on!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've played guitar for 41 years. Nothing expands my brain more then when free soloing to the blues or rock. There are patterns of notes rushing through my brain and I'm choosing between 'doors' in split second decision making. It's akin to a hundred tennis players serving a ball to you and you return everyone with with a quick effortless ease.
I am a music educator and have always believed that music helps students in every aspect of their lives. I am currently involved in an afterschool music program in a Title 1 school that focuses on social change through music. In addition to making a concerted effort to instill ideas of self-worth and citizenship, music naturally fosters cooperation between the students. In order have a cohesive ensemble they must work together and these ideas are carried over into other areas of their lives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, my wife is in the Army band and nearly all of the musicians in the Army are expert marksmen. Music teaches a person how to focus.
Mausman, when I was in high school I had teacers that made the same observations that you have.
please dont forget that Music is the universal language.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMusic in the schools does not have to be limited to band or orchestra. The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) has a wonderful program called, "Bluegrass In The Schools." (http://www.ibma.org/events.programs/schools/index.asp) For more info on the Bluegrass in the Schools program, contact Nancy Cardwell at (615) 256-3222, 888-GET-IBMA or nancyc@ibma.org. For info on the Foundation for Bluegrass Music go to www.bluegrassfoundation.org or contact Dan Hays at danh@ibma.org.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a former private piano teacher, I have had the opportunity to teach piano to many students. Two profound experiences come to mind. One student had a brain disorder where the electrical impulse controlling one side of the body would cause the other side of the body, mainly the hands, to duplicate the process. If this person was writing or coloring the other hand would mimic the movement. Knowing the parents and having some medical knowledge I asked if they would consider allowing me to give her piano lessons. The experience might help her problem. I explained that the brain learns to focus on both hands to be able to do two things at once. I worked with her for one year and to her delight there was a very marked improvement in her ability to keep the other side quiet. She improved in many areas of her life as she no longer had to focus all her energies on this problem that was out of control for her.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI had another student who had Downs Syndrome. She too took lessons from me for about a year. I do not remember exactly, but her IQ was raised by 10 points. She was either at 50 at the start and was later tested to be a 60 or it was 60 at the start and her IQ went to 70.
Studying an instrument can do much to help with depression, the immune system and many other things. I know, because it was a very big part of my life and it had a profound effect in many ways. It now gives me a satisfying profession as a church organist.
I'm not affiliated with music education, so have no stake in such outcomes. But I am a fan and believer of music and music therapy after a 1992 brain injury and CNS shunt. It wasn't the music that changed my life after the injury, but the drumming! There were subtle movement and concentration tricks I began doing after I started drumming that I was not aware of. My brain figured these tricks out all on its own, like taping on myself as I moved and turned, playing air piano to keep my focus while driving. Then, after I got involved in drum circle facilitation, I noticed I communicated so much better, more intuitively and with my body. I could even at times pick up on foreign language better. Today, I speak and write on rhythm and the brain. Music comes from human expression & language, and rhythm from movement & coordination. Do it and your health and development will drmatically change. My friends, this is the fountain of youth!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not affiliated with music education, so have no stake in such outcomes. But I am a fan and believer of music and music therapy after a 1992 brain injury and CNS shunt. It wasn't the music that changed my life after the injury, but the drumming! There were subtle movement and concentration tricks I began doing after I started drumming that I was not aware of. My brain figured these tricks out all on its own, like taping on myself as I moved and turned, playing air piano to keep my focus while driving. Then, after I got involved in drum circle facilitation, I noticed I communicated so much better, more intuitively and with my body. I could even at times pick up on foreign language better. Today, I speak and write on rhythm and the brain. Music comes from human expression & language, and rhythm from movement & coordination. Do it and your health and development will drmatically change. My friends, this is the fountain of youth!
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