Music Development

Studies show that musical training at a young age greatly aids brain development, specifically with regards to linguistic processing and mathematical analysis. According to Ewa A. Miendlarzewska, and Wiebke J. Trost, neurological scientists and coauthors of the study How musical training affects cognitive development: rhythm, reward and other modulating variables, musicians have increased functional connectivity in motor and multi-sensory areas of their brains (Miendlarzewska). Students who participate in music have consistently higher performance in advanced mathematics: students who had arts-rich experiences in high school were more likely to complete a calculus course (Caterall). Additionally, the same study concluded that in musicians, “there are structural differences (usually increased gray matter) also in somatosensory areas, premotor cortex, inferior temporal and frontal regions, as well as the cerebellum in the brains of musicians compared to non-musicians '” (Miendlarzewska). The implications for this likelihood are exponential; Students who participate in music are more involved in their communities and have a higher chance of voting and participating in civil society once older. Additionally, playing a music instrument is proven to aid the learning of a secondary, foreign language, which is done so from “better [performance] in the areas closely associated with music: fine motor skill, rhythm perception and auditory discrimination” (Miendlarzewska). The arts, and instrumental music in particular, cultivate welcoming communities for students who need a place to belong. Studies have proved that the act of making music in a group improves social awareness skills. A twelve-year longitudinal study of arts education conducted by James Caterall, Ph.D., Educational Policy Analysis and UCLA professor, concluded that, “high school students who had high levels of arts engagement were more likely to aspire to college than were students with less arts engagement” (Caterall), and “thirty percent of college students who had intensive arts experiences in middle school and high school chose a major that aligns with preparation for a professional career” (Caterall). All in all, music helps students with grades and test scores, and increases their chances of honors society membership, high school graduation, college enrollment and achievement, volunteering, and engagement in school or local politics. All young people can benefit in one way or another from a myriad of types of musical training. In order to comprehend the benefits that music has on young elementary, middle-school, and high-school students, both environmentally and biologically, some key terms must be define. The term “phonological” refers to the study of the distribution and patterning of speech sounds in a language and of the tacit rules governing pronunciation. Additionally, “brain plasticity” can be defined as the extraordinary ability of the brain to modify its own structure and function following changes within the …show more content…
Some have speculated that this is because learning to read sheet music is like learning to read a foreign language, but it has since been concluded that music lights up different parts of the brain that foreign languages do. Scientists R.L. Gordon, H. M. Fehd, and B. D. McCandliss, who published the study, Does Music Training Enhance Literacy Skills? A Meta-Analysis, under the direction of the National Center for Biotechnology Information, concluded through their research that, “Results supported the hypothesis that music training leads to gains in phonological awareness skills” (Gordon). Phonological studies are studies that describe the distribution and patterning of speech sounds in a language and of the tacit rules governing pronunciation. Thus, music training has a direct effect on an individual’s ability to process and analyze various sounds and audio stimuli. To paraphrase, the scientists who were previously mentioned, interpreted this development to conclude that students with music education are more adept at learning foreign languages, even though the brain processes that reading and analyzing music causes do not directly correlate with the processes for language, they both utilize similar language-processing regions of the brain. Furthermore, a music education may help students in their primary language to understand a breakdown a form of literature that is essential to the human condition: poetry. According to the study Does Music Training Enhance Literacy Skills? A Meta-Analysis, “…analyses revealed that transfer effects for rhyming skills tended to grow stronger with increased hours of training” (Gordon). Thus, music has a measurable positive effect on the ability of students to rhyme, create patters, and recognize patters. These skills are essential to understanding