MUSIC, KIDS, AND SCHOOLS: 

Music and the Mind  

This article is from MENC's Web Page

MENC: The National Association for Music Education is all about music, kids, and schools. If you’re wondering what music has to do with kids’ minds, you may be surprised to know that, as it’s been said, “Music makes you smarter.”

Music has multiple learning benefits, and two recent studies establish a causal relationship between music and enhanced learning abilities.

Music lessons are superior to computer instruction in the development of reasoning skills.

In 1997, psychologist Frances Rauscher, Ph.D., now at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, and Dr. Gordon Shaw, professor emeritus of physics at UC Irvine, reported that music training, specifically piano instruction, is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children’s abstract reasoning skills, which are essential to learning subjects such as math and science. Rauscher and Shaw compared the spatial and temporal reasoning ability of three- and four-year-olds that had studied piano with that of their peers who had spent the same amount of time learning to use computers. At the end of the study, the piano students performed 34% better on spatial and temporal ability tests than the computer students.

Music lessons contribute to the development of the brain and spatial intelligence.

In 1994, Frances Rauscher, Ph.D., and Dr. Gordon Shaw reported at the American Psychological Association convention that preschoolers who took daily, 30-minute group singing lessons (led by a professional vocal instructor) and weekly 10- to 15-minute private electronic keyboard lessons (taught by two professional piano instructors) scored 80 percent higher on object assembly (puzzle) tests than students at the same preschool who did not have the music lessons.

Music studies increase reading skills and math proficiency dramatically. According to a controlled study of first graders in the Pawtucket, Rhode Island, school system, reported in the Journal Nature in May 1996, the study of music can improve children’s academic performance. At the end of the seven-month study in Rhode Island, 96 first graders took standardized tests. The children in the more active and frequent music program not only had better attitudes toward learning, but also had significantly increased their reading scores and math performance. In addition, the Rhode Island team found that the children who continued their special music and visual arts classes for a second year continued to improve in math.

In this light, other studies take on new significance: Music improves reading ability.

Twenty years ago, researchers in Massachusetts found that first-graders who received 40 minutes of Kodaly music instruction five days a week for seven months scored significantly higher (88th percentile) than those students with no music training (72^nd percentile) on a standard reading test.

Music study improves SAT scores.

Scholastic Aptitude Tests compared over seven years show that students who studied music performance or appreciation scored higher on both the verbal and math portions of the test than students with no coursework or experience in the arts.

Music molds the brain to create musical ability.

Dr. Gottfried Schlaug at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital recently conducted MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) brain scans that show that people with perfect pitch have a larger left temporal lobe than other people.

Music enhances linguistic skills.

Sandra Trehub, a psychologist at the University of Toronto reported that since music attunes a child’s brain to changing rhythms and pitches, the tradition of singing to your baby takes on new significance as a tool to foster basic linguistic skills .

As Dr. John J. Mahlmann, Executive Director of MENC, said in a letter recently-published in The Washington Post, “Without music in every child’s education, we will not be giving our children the best possible education for their development as human beings. Music contributes to a person’s ability to perform– whether that’s with a musical instrument or a new technology we’ve yet to dream of.”

The evidence is in. 

Music can make you smarter.