Recent Posts
- Are You Ready for Spirit Week 2024?!?! BY ISABELLA CAROLOW
- Extra Schoolwork During Advisory??? Perspectives from Students and Teachers on SAT Prep BY SAMUEL HIERS
- Embracing Perspective: Finding Beauty in the Ordinary and Extraordinary BY SAMANTHA MIGNANELLI
- The Taylor Swift “Thing” BY KEELY SULLIVAN
- CHS Renovations BY HAZEL DUROSS
Recent Comments
- Maureen Couture on Quality Education Comes in Many Forms BY Justin Curran
- Gwen Schumacher on Quality Education Comes in Many Forms BY Justin Curran
- chakal on How to Prepare for Final Exams BY Mrs. Murgida (from CHS Guidance)
- MAJ P. on The Healthy Benefits of Music that is Surely “Pop” for the Soul! BY Samuel Hiers
- MAJ P. on Planning for a Life in the U.S. Military BY Matthew Capwell
Archives
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- June 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- May 2021
- March 2021
- May 2020
- February 2020
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- December 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- May 2017
- March 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- November 2015
- October 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- November 2014
- October 2014
Music and the Brain: How Musical Training Can Help One’s Learning Abilities By Lily Mancini
Coordination and auditory discrimination skills can be increased through playing an instrument. Music requires many factors to play one note, including hand eye coordination to the instrument, reading the sheet swiftly and correctly, hearing what the note sounds like and should sound like in pitch and tone to the rest of the band, and being able to change that sound through the mouth or hand in exact timing. Over time, this builds tremendous reading and listening skills as well as coordination.
Music has been around for ages and is known to be therapeutic, relaxing, or just a spirit booster. However, the emotional aspect isn’t the only thing to come out of playing music. Mentally, playing an instrument can improve students’ (or anyone’s) cognitive abilities.
Mr. William Smith, the CHS band and jazz teacher has been known to say, “Band kids are the best students in the school.” Why? Likely because learning an instrument and any other music training has been shown to improve skills such as fine motor skills, rhythmic qualities, auditory discrimination (ability to differentiate sounds and words no matter the similarity) and linguistic properties. Other executive qualities may support learning and study techniques, including maturity in attention and practice, multi-tasking, and the rewarding experience provided by the process of music. Physically, the musicians brain plasticity volumizes in auditory and motor skills places, especially during sensitive, young periods of age. “Although learning to play music does not teach skills that seem directly relevant to most careers, the results suggest that music may engender what educators refer to as ‘learning to learn,’” says Nina Kraus of Northwestern University.
Coordination and auditory discrimination skills can be increased through playing an instrument. Music requires many factors to play one note, including hand eye coordination to the instrument, reading the sheet swiftly and correctly, hearing what the note sounds like and should sound like in pitch and tone to the rest of the band, and being able to change that sound through the mouth or hand in exact timing. Over time, this builds tremendous reading and listening skills as well as coordination.
A study by Northwestern University showed just this point by studying a group of kids throughout high school. Half of the kids participated in band while the other half were put into an ROTC program. Both student groups went to the same school in low-income Chicago neighborhoods. By senior year, the band students showed higher linguistic and reading skills then the ROTC members, and improved sensitivity to sound perception.
According to the study, “Music performance, unlike most other motor activities, in addition requires precise timing of several hierarchically organized actions and control over pitch interval production. Music, like all sounds, unfolds over time. Thus, the auditory cognitive system must depend on working memory mechanisms that allow a stimulus to be maintained on-line to be able to relate one element in a sequence to another that occurs later.”
Other qualities related to cognitive development surface during the training, skills that are important in the process of study and learning. Mr. Smith describes how maturity level and self-discipline come to play during practice. Playing an instrument requires constant self assessment, knowing what areas to work on and what to leave alone. Music training also yields many feelings of reward and relief, provided by the demand of practice. These traits may carry on into other areas such as study habits and simply the ability to pick up on subjects faster.
“I think the self discipline of music helps you to learn- because it gets detail….the amount of counting…again all those fine motor skills come together and you have no choice but to focus,” stated Smith.
Academically, band students have been shown to have higher SAT scores and/or normal test scores for English and math, especially math. The qualities already mentioned can be beneficial for the subjects inside the brain, but practically, music provides many opportunities for basic math, such as counting and fractions. Mr. Smith discussed his own experience:
“A couple years ago I was doing a Student Learning Objective, which included using notes and rests and put them in fraction form and so, now, my whole goal was making sure people understood-so to give an example I take an eighth note, and an eighth rest, and then a sixteenth note and you would divide it this way according to 4/4 time what were the durations of those, an eighth note is a half a beat, an eighth rest is a half a beat- a sixteenth note is a quarter of a beat you had add those, to my astonishment- some people didn’t know what the heck a common denominator was, you know some people didn’t know how to do fractions, but on the flip side what happened was, some of them told me they used music values to help them with fractions- so from that angle, I guess you could say, yeah that helped learning.”
Ultimately, age always contributes as a big factor in cognitive development. Though music training can strengthen minds of any maturity, like most cognitive moments of growth, it is more extreme before puberty and younger. Most general auditory growth ends around the age of five, and lessens after the start of teenage years. Habits pertaining to study and self discipline are usually stronger when introduced then also, but not impossible to reinforce as one gets older. Overall, most cognitive benefits music training provides may be more significant at a younger, more sensitive age. Maybe being a band geek isn’t so bad after all.