The Case for Creating Music

Over the years I'm sure you've seen many "Baby Einstein" commercials promising that your child is going to be a genius if you just blast Mozart to them in the womb...and in their crib...and in the car...and in their sleep, etc.

Well maybe I'm exaggerating the commercials a bit, but you've no doubt heard this notion that listening to classical music will make you smarter. Unfortunately that's not entirely true. To some extent it is, and listening to that genre of music will certainly do no harm...except perhaps bore you, but the original research that introduced the "Mozart Effect" has been somewhat glamorized and misrepresented. Here are the facts taken from the book I am currently reading and highly recommend, "How The Brain Learns" by David A. Sousa:

Studies have shown that passive listening to Mozart can, in fact, stimulate the parts of the brain responsible for spatial tasks, memory recall, visual imagery tasks, concentration, and attention based tasks. It can also make working more efficient when it's played as background music (which is why many classrooms use it). But these benefits of listening seem to be short term. 

If you want to see long term, permanent changes in the brain, creating music is the way to go. As it turns out, there is some pretty awesome research out there supporting strings programs in schools across socioeconomic backgrounds. Parts of the brain are actually larger in musicians than non-musicians. And get this, studies show that this is not from birth, it is the direct result of learning to play music. Clearly some people are born with natural tendencies to be better musicians than others, but all people seem to benefit from learning to play instruments. Here's how it breaks down directly for schooling subjects:

Math: fMRI studies show that the same parts of the brain are used for mathematical processing that are used during musical training. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Reading music involves counting, sequences, patterns, geometry, ratios, proportions, etc.

Reading: Written music uses very different symbols than our written language. However, reading each of them involves both comprehension and decoding in similar ways. It's also been discovered that by age 4 and 5, children who have had some musical training have better phonological awareness and more developed reading skills.

Attention principals, superintendents, and politicians (specifically you politicians who are creating education law but don't really know anything about education) since tests scores are so important, I hope music programs are too you as well! A wealth of studies show a strong correlation between creating music and higher standardized testing scores. Let's get those children creating music!!