The benefits of a musical

education
vicky 7 April, 2011 Music & Education
The importance of music in schools is an issue that is
coming to the fore again. A UK Department of
Education press notice recently stated that;
Giving all young people the best possible music
education will help the Government achieve its twin
aims of driving up standards and reducing the attainment
gap
But are they serious? Music educators and psychologists
are growing increasingly concerned for the role of music
in schools, in light of the fact that the same government
who spoke the words above is in the process of rolling
out the English Baccalaureate. The English
Baccalaureate is an award that will be given to any pupil
who secures good GCSE or iGCSE passes in all of the
following subjects:
English
Maths
The sciences
A modern or ancient foreign language
A humanity: history or geography
As you can see no room for music there. Critics fear
that the Baccalaureate, which will eventually take its
place in official school league tables, will force schools
to focus even more on traditional academic subjects in
their curriculum at the expense of practical subjects like
the technologies and creative subjects like art and music.
Leading experts in the field of music education are not
going to take such a worrying change lightly. Musical
engagement is a vital part of education that is their line
of argument (and mine!). The key is to expose the right
people to all the evidence suggesting that involving
children with music provides a multitude of benefits for
their cognitive, neurological and social development, as
well as for the classroom environment in general.
This week I was fortunate enough to take part in a
seminar convened by The All-Party Parliamentary Group
on Science Research in Learning and Education called
The Musical Brain: Implications for Education. The
idea was to hear and discuss the scientific evidence for
the relationship between musical training and academic
ability, and the seminar featured presentations from
Professor Philip Sheppard (Royal Academy of Music),
my boss Dr Lauren Stewart (Goldsmith, University of
London), and Professor Susan Hallam (Institute of
Education, London).
It was a fascinating series of talks, and I am only sorry
that there were so few people in the room to hear them. I
dont have the space to go into depth about each
speakers wonderful presentation, but here are some of
the highlights.
Philip Sheppard
The Mozart effect, the idea that passively listening to
music can confer cognitive benefits, is akin to watching
the Olympics and expecting it to make you fit. The key
to using music as part of learning is participation and not
just passive reception.
Ensnaring a childs imagination with music can build
on their ability to focus and be creative, and it can boost
their memory and communication skills, and therefore
impact positively on their intelligence an overarching
ability which he described simply as the ability to
learn.
We are all born with keen pitch acuity and this is lost if
we dont use it. He cited as evidence the example of
higher rates of perfect pitch in Asian students who speak
tonal languages.
Teaching music should focus more on exploration,
creativity and play. Language learning is full of
legitimate creative practise, while music is taught more
by accurate reproduction. Music teachers should focus
less on the right way of doing something and embrace
more the idea of letting a child find their own love within
music, thereby allowing them to explore, develop a sense
of identity and self, create their own transmission
techniques for ideas, and to grow in confidence.
Lauren Stewart
Music as a model of neural plasticity. Neurons and
their connections change and grow through learning and
experience. Skill learning in particular has large effects
on the brain, citing the example of the London Taxi
driver study (Maguire, 2000)
Music is a super skill that confers multiple
benefits: Motor, coordination between effectors,
integration of sensory modalities and online performance
monitoring.
Musicians brains are different: Changes to motor and
sensory areas, auditory and visuo-spatial processing, and
hemispheric integration
Developing expertise as listeners: Listening is a
complex mental process of construction whereby we
seek order and patterns in the vibration of the sound
molecules around us. In music we have an opportunity to
practise learning rule structures, to test expectations, and
to tune our environmental responses in a safe and
rewarding context.
Facets of musicality: We dont need formal musical
training to develop skills in music. The creative and
social aspects of music engagement are too often
overlooked. They are currently being explored in
the How musical are you? project with the BBC

Susan Hallam
There are a multitude of wider benefits associated with
musical engagement in children. These include
improvements in early encoding of sound, structural
analysis of sound, verbal memory, motor coordination
(important for writing skills) and phonological
awareness.
Positive impact of rhythm training on conditions like
dyslexia and dyspraxia.
Giving a child a sense of achievement, improving self
esteem, self discipline, expression, social skills
(negotiation and compromise; especially in group music
situations) and commitment to projects. All these skills
are good for learning in general.
Discussed the In Harmony project in Liverpool. Huge
personal and social benefits of a class where children
make music together. Much better performance on
English and Maths STAT exams even though 4 hours of
English and Maths was cut from the timetable to make
room for the music!
Music in everyday life beyond the school
years: Research in older groups suggests involvement in
music clubs can help physical wellbeing (better motor
coordination, breathing, less falls and visits to the
doctor) and mental wellbeing (more autonomy, pleasure
out of life, sense of belonging, less stress and depression,
and help with making friendships and going through
grieving process)
The paradox of music education is that music is still
often seen as a leisure activity that has limited benefits
when it comes to preparing someone for the real world:
The traditional, if somewhat unreasonable argument, is
to compare an education in music to an education in
subjects like Maths or English. The speakers at this
meeting, and the following round table discussion
featuring leading academics from music psychology,
presented so many powerful arguments as to why music
is such a vital part of learning, at all stages of life.
Turning childs play into childs progress: what could
be simpler, more cost effective or more rewarding
than that?