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Research that Supports Early Music Training
Source: MENC-The National Association for Music Education "Benefits of Music Education" Brochure, Spring 2002"
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Music can actively contribute to brain development

►"The musician is constantly adjusting decisions on tempo, tone, style, rhythm, phrasing, and feeling-training the brain to become incredibly good at organizing and conducting numerous activities at once. Dedicated practice of this orchestration can have a great payoff for lifelong attentional skills, intelligence, and an ability for self-knowledge and expression." -Ratey John J., MD. A User's Guide to the Brain. New York: Pantheon Books, 2001.

►A research team exploring the link between music and intelligence reported that music training is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children's abstract reasoning skills, the skills necessary for learning math and science. -Shaw, Rauscher, Levine, Wright, Dennis and Newcomb, "Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children's spatial-temporal reasoning." Neurological Research, Vol. 19, February 1997

►Students in two Rhode Island elementary schools who were given an enriched, sequential, skill-building music program showed marked improvement in reading and math skills. Students in the enriched program who had started out behind the control group caught up to statistical equality in reading and pulled ahead in math. -Gardiner, Fox, Jeffrey and Knowles, as reported in Nature, May 23, 1996

►A University of California (Irvine) study showed that after eight months of keyboard lessons, preschoolers showed a 46% boost in their spatial reasoning IQ. -Rauscher, Shaw, Levine, Ky and Wright, "Music and Spatial Task Performance: A Causal Relationship," University of California, Irvine, 1994

►An Auburn University study found significant increases in overall self-concept of at-risk children participating in an arts program that included music, movement, dramatics and art, as measured by the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale. -N.H. Barry, Project ARISE: Meeting the needs of disadvantaged students through the arts, Auburn University, 1992

►A research team led by Gottfried Schlaug, of Germany�s Hienrich Heime University in Dasseldorf, found that the corpus callosum, the central bundle of nerve fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres, was larger in musicians who had trained from an early age. Schlaug thinks that because playing a musical instrument requires good coordination between hands, training early in life lays down a better insulated wiring that speeds motor communication between the brain�s left and right hemispheres. -Shreeve, James. �Music of the Hemispheres.� Discover. October 1996: 90-100.

►It is during the childhood stage of neural development that we see the corpus callosum complete its development and allows both hemispheres of the brain to respond to an event simultaneously. Since studies of musicians have found their corpus collasum is thickened and more fully developed, the idea that the music enlarges existing neural pathways is reinforced. -Campbell, Don. The Mozart Effect. New York: Avon. 1997.

►There are periods of time known as windows of opportunity in the child�s brain development when it is especially open to certain kinds of learning. The learning window for music beginners is between the ages of three and ten years of age. -Begley, Sharon. �How to Build a Baby�s Brain.� Newsweek. Special Issue 1997: 28-32, ---�Your Child�s Brain.� Newsweek. 127. 1996: 58-59.

►Musical training early in life helps speed up the motor communication between our left and right hemispheres of the brain. -Shreeve, James. �Music of the Hemispheres.� Discover. October 1996: 90-100.

Music education contributes to success in society

►"Music is a magical gift we must nourish and cultivate in our children, especially now as scientific evidence proves that an education in the arts makes better math and science students, enhances spatial intelligence in newborns, and let's not forget that the arts are a compelling solution to teen violence, certainly not the cause of it!" -Michael Greene, Recording Academy President and CEO at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards, February 2000.

►The very best engineers and technical designers in the Silicon Valley industry are, nearly without exception, practicing musicians. -Grant Venerable, "The Paradox of the Silicon Savior," as reported in "The Case for Sequential Music Education in the Core Curriculum of the Public Schools," The Center for the Arts in the Basic Curriculum, New York, 1989

Music training leads to success in school

►Skills learned through the discipline of music transfer to study skills, communication skills, and cognitive skills useful in every part of the curriculum. -MENC Brochure, Spring 2002

►A study of 237 second grade children used piano keyboard training and newly designed math software to demonstrate improvement in math skills. The group scored 27% higher on proportional math and fractions tests than children that used only the math software. -Graziano, Amy, Matthew Peterson, and Gordon Shaw, "Enhanced learning of proportional math through music training and spatial-temporal training." Neurological Research 21 (March 1999).

►Students with coursework or experience in music performance and music appreciation scored higher on the SAT: students in music performance scored 57 points higher on the verbal and 41 points higher on the math, and students in music appreciation scored 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on the math, than did students with no arts participation. -College-Bound Seniors National Report: Profile of SAT Program Test Takers. Princeton, NJ: The College Entrance Examination Board, 2001.

►Frances Rauscher, a psychologist, began a study that measured the effects of music lessons on three-year-olds. She discovered that children who received voice and keyboard lessons scored between eight and ten points higher on IG tests that measured their spatial-temporal skills�the ability to visualize the world accurately. These skills are very important in understanding math and engineering concepts. -Rauscher, Frances H. �Music and Spatial Task Performance.� Nature 365: 1993: 61.

►Researchers at the University of California Irvine studied the power of music to train us for higher thinking. They observed two separate groups of preschoolers. Group one took piano lessons and sang daily in a chorus. Group two did neither. After a period of eight months the musical three year olds in group one were expert puzzle masters scoring eighty percent higher than their playmates in spatial intelligence. -Hancock, LynNell. �Why Do Schools Flunk Biology.� Newsweek 147. (1996): 58.

►A study was conducted by Leng and Shaw of preschool children who received piano keyboard lessons for six months. An impressive gain was found in their spatial-temporal reasoning tasks. It was also found in appropriate control groups using other methods (including a computer group) that they did not significantly improve. This suggests math and science concepts that are difficult to teach can be learned using ST reasoning at an early age. Music instructions at an early age can enhance the hardware in the brain for spatial-temporal reasoning. -Grandin, Temple, Matthew Peterson and Gordon L. Shaw. �Spatial-Temporal Versus Language-Analytic Reasoning.� Arts Education Policy Review 99: July/August 1998.

►In 1996 the College Entrance Examination Board reported that students with musical performance experience scored fifty-one points higher than the national average on the verbal part of the SAT and thirty-nine points higher on the math section. Edward J. Kvet, director of the school of music at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant concluded: �Study in music and the other arts generally seems to have a cumulative effect and is undeniably correlated with improvement over time in students� standardized test scores.� -Campbell, Don. The Mozart Effect. New York: Avon. 1997.

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Know about other studies on music education or music and math? Email the info to becky@mozartmath.com!!

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