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, …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