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Research has found that learning music facilitates learning other subjects and

enhances skills that children inevitably use in other areas. “A music-rich

experience for children of singing, listening and moving is really bringing a very

serious benefit to children as they progress into more formal learning,” says

Mary Luehrisen, executive director of the National Association of Music

Merchants (NAMM) Foundation, a not-for-profit association that promotes the

benefits of making music.

Making music involves more than the voice or fingers playing an instrument; a

child learning about music has to tap into multiple skill sets, often

simultaneously. For instance, people use their ears and eyes, as well as large

and small muscles, says Kenneth Guilmartin, cofounder of Music Together, an

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early childhood music development program for infants through

kindergarteners that involves parents or caregivers in the classes.

“Music learning supports all learning. Not that Mozart makes you smarter, but

it’s a very integrating, stimulating pastime or activity,” Guilmartin says.

Language Development

“When you look at children ages two to nine, one of the breakthroughs in that

area is music’s benefit for language development, which is so important at that

stage,” says Luehrisen. While children come into the world ready to decode

sounds and words, music education helps enhance those natural abilities.

“Growing up in a musically rich environment is often advantageous for

children’s language development,” she says. But Luehrisen adds that those

inborn capacities need to be “reinforced, practiced, celebrated,” which can be

done at home or in a more formal music education setting.

According to the Children’s Music Workshop, the effect of music education on

language development can be seen in the brain. “Recent studies have clearly

indicated that musical training physically develops the part of the left side of

the brain known to be involved with processing language, and can actually wire

the brain’s circuits in specific ways. Linking familiar songs to new information

can also help imprint information on young minds,” the group claims.

This relationship between music and language development is also socially

advantageous to young children. “The development of language over time tends

to enhance parts of the brain that help process music,” says Dr. Kyle Pruett,

clinical professor of child psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and a practicing

musician. “Language competence is at the root of social competence. Musical

experience strengthens the capacity to be verbally competent.”

Increased IQ

A study by E. Glenn Schellenberg at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, as

published in a 2004 issue of Psychological Science, found a small increase in

the IQs of six-year-olds who were given weekly voice and piano lessons.

Schellenberg provided nine months of piano and voice lessons to a dozen sixyear-

olds, drama lessons (to see if exposure to arts in general versus just music

had an effect) to a second group of six-year-olds, and no lessons to a third

group. The children’s IQs were tested before entering the first grade, then again

before entering the second grade.

Surprisingly, the children who were given music lessons over the school year

tested on average three IQ points higher than the other groups. The drama

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group didn’t have the same increase in IQ, but did experience increased social

behavior benefits not seen in the music-only group.

The Brain Works Harder

Research indicates the brain of a musician, even a young one, works differently

than that of a nonmusician. “There’s some good neuroscience research that

children involved in music have larger growth of neural activity than people not

in music training. When you’re a musician and you’re playing an instrument, you

have to be using more of your brain,” says Dr. Eric Rasmussen, chair of the Early

Childhood Music Department at the Peabody Preparatory of The Johns Hopkins

University, where he teaches a specialized music curriculum for children aged

two months to nine years.

In fact, a study led by Ellen Winner, professor of psychology at Boston College,

and Gottfried Schlaug, professor of neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical

Center and Harvard Medical School, found changes in the brain images of

children who underwent 15 months of weekly music instruction and practice.

The students in the study who received music instruction had improved sound

discrimination and fine motor tasks, and brain imaging showed changes to the

networks in the brain associated with those abilities, according to the Dana

Foundation, a private philanthropic organization that supports brain research.

Spatial-Temporal Skills

Research has also found a causal link between music and spatial intelligence,

which means that understanding music can help children visualize various

elements that should go together, like they would do when solving a math

problem.

“We have some pretty good data that music instruction does reliably improve

spatial-temporal skills in children over time,” explains Pruett, who helped found

the Performing Arts Medicine Association. These skills come into play in solving

multistep problems one would encounter in architecture, engineering, math, art,

gaming, and especially working with computers.

Improved Test Scores

A study published in 2007 by Christopher Johnson, professor of music

education and music therapy at the University of Kansas, revealed that

students in elementary schools with superior music education programs scored

around 22 percent higher in English and 20 percent higher in math scores on

standardized tests, compared to schools with low-quality music programs,

regardless of socioeconomic disparities among the schools or school districts.

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Johnson compares the concentration that music training requires to the focus

needed to perform well on a standardized test.

Aside from test score results, Johnson’s study highlights the positive effects

that a quality music education can have on a young child’s success. Luehrisen

explains this psychological phenomenon in two sentences: “Schools that have

rigorous programs and high-quality music and arts teachers probably have

high-quality teachers in other areas. If you have an environment where there are

a lot of people doing creative, smart, great things, joyful things, even people who

aren’t doing that have a tendency to go up and do better.”

And it doesn’t end there: along with better performance results on

concentration-based tasks, music training can help with basic memory recall.

“Formal training in music is also associated with other cognitive strengths such

as verbal recall proficiency,” Pruett says. “People who have had formal musical

training tend to be pretty good at remembering verbal information stored in

memory.”

Being Musical

Music can improve your child’ abilities in learning and other nonmusic tasks, but

it’s important to understand that music does not make one smarter. As Pruett

explains, the many intrinsic benefits to music education include being

disciplined, learning a skill, being part of the music world, managing

performance, being part of something you can be proud of, and even struggling

with a less than perfect teacher.

“It’s important not to oversell how smart music can make you,” Pruett says.

“Music makes your kid interesting and happy, and smart will come later. It

enriches his or her appetite for things that bring you pleasure and for the friends

you meet.” While parents may hope that enrolling their child in a music program

will make her a better student, the primary reasons to provide your child with a

musical education should be to help them become more musical, to appreciate

all aspects of music, and to respect the process of learning an instrument or

learning to sing, which is valuable on its own merit.

“There is a massive benefit from being musical that we don’t understand, but

it’s individual. Music is for music’s sake,” Rasmussen says. “The benefit of

music education for me is about being musical. It gives you have a better

understanding of yourself. The horizons are higher when you are involved in

music,” he adds. “Your understanding of art and the world, and how you can

think and express yourself, are enhanced.”