Brain Research and Music Education

Although many of us observe and note anecdotal evidence of the benefits of music education, it is exciting and amazing that scientists can now SEE and document how music affects our brains. Here are a few favorite research quotes about music and neuroscience:

 

“Young children who take music lessons show different brain development and improved memory over the course of a year, compared to children who do not receive musical training.” Dr. Laurel Trainor, Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience,

and Behaviour at McMaster University, Canada, 2006

“The ability to recognize music is contained in the prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that also plays a key role in learning and in the response and control of emotions.” - Patricia Wolfe in Building the Reading Brain, 2004

“The relationship between musical and linguistic stimulus processing has been examined on a neurophysiological level in various studies and using various techniques, which reveal that both words and musical tones caused similar activity in the left superior temporal sulcus, temporal medial gyrus, angular gyrus, and frontal lateral lobe. It has also been shown that the primary auditory regions and supplementary motor areas respond similarly to linguistic and musical stimuli.” - Binder, Frost, Hammeke, Rai & Cox, 1996

“Arts Integration techniques, which use multiple senses to repeat information, cause more information to be stored in long-term —as opposed to short-term— memory, and may actually change the structure of the neurons. “

- Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America's Future Through Creative Schools

2010, President's Committee on the Arts andHumanities

 

“Meta-analyses indicate that there is `a strong and reliable association between the study of music and performance on standardized reading and verbal tests´… Research now offers a theoretical basis for, and growing evidence of, the significant effects of learning shared between music and other measures of academic achievement.”

                       – Dr. Larry Scripp, An Overview of Research on Music and Learning


I will be posting more music advocacy and research quotes soon : )

It is rewarding and
motivating to be a
music educator!