When Amy Richter was young, her father often traveled for work. He often came home with gifts of music and records. She recalls bonding over going through all that vinyl while exploring the world of music, from classical and rock to bluegrass.
Richter's love of music grew as he grew older, and he studied voice and piano. Diagnosed with her dyslexia, she also found that music helped her overcome her learning disability. It helped her gain her focus and confidence. So she studied music therapy in college. She knows the power of music to energize our brains.
“Music has really been a driving force in my education, helped me connect with other people, helped me build confidence through performing, and helped me with my mental health,” she said of Music Workshop, a free music curriculum designed to foster a love of music. Founder Richter said: This can help schools enhance their artwork at a low cost. Hundreds of schools in California and across the country, from Yuba City to San Diego, are now using her program. “It really became a tool in my life to make myself a better person.”
Certainly, art lovers have long argued that art changes us, but in recent years neuroscience has shown how music can shape the structure of the brain. This cognitive study sheds light on the connection between music and learning and adds weight to long-standing claims about the power of music education that are gaining new relevance following California's Proposition 28, which allocates funding for arts education in schools.
“Grades K-12 are the time when brain function evolves most rapidly and information from different types of learning and subjects is processed and absorbed, including connections between what we might think of as different school subjects. said Giuliana Conti, Director of Education and Equity at Music Workshop. Music workshops are especially popular in schools hiring substitute teachers in times of teacher absence.
“Music education provides physical and auditory experiences that build bridges to brain structures. As the brain processes musical sounds and body movements, neural pathways across different areas of the brain grow and strengthen. “The more these pathways are activated, the more useful they can be across time and other skill sets or learning experiences.”
Amid the ongoing crisis in literacy and numeracy plaguing our schools and ongoing pandemic learning loss, many arts advocates are pointing to music education as a way to improve the brain's executive functions. These improved cognitive functions, often combined with a surge in well-being, may be the secret sauce that makes music education an academic powerhouse, the study suggests. Music can prepare the brain for learning.
“Music is a wonderful, holistic way to connect almost everything important to education,” Nina Kraus, a renowned neuroscientist at Northwestern University who studies the biology of auditory learning, said during the webinar. “First of all, we know that the ingredients that are important for making music and the ingredients that are important for reading and literacy are the same ingredients. So, if you make music to strengthen your brain, you’re also strengthening your brain for language.”
Krauss, who grew up listening to his mother play the piano, is passionate about the impact of sound on the brain – from the distracting to the sublime, from noise pollution to Puccini. At the heart of much of her research is how thoroughly sound shapes cognition. For example, she says, musical training sets up children's brains to become better learners by strengthening the sound processing that underpins language.
While we live in a visually oriented world, she argues, our brains are fundamentally wired for sound. For example, reading is a relatively new phenomenon in human history, while keenly hearing the sounds of a predator is a primal impulse embedded deep in the brain. Simply put, what we hear determines who we are.
“The music is really big,” said Kraus, author of “Of Sound Mind.” She has conducted extensive research showing that music education helps raise test scores in low-income children.
Music also helps manage stress. Perhaps this is one reason why offering more music and art classes is associated with lower chronic absenteeism rates and higher attendance rates, the study found. Think of music education as lifting weights with your brain. It makes the whole device stronger and healthier.
“Music is therapeutic because it helps us regulate our emotions,” Richter said. He added that a culturally relevant music curriculum can help engage diverse students. “It helps lower cortisol levels. Helps promote relaxation. It helps with concentration and concentration. It also helps with connection. “Now more than ever we know how important connection is, especially among young people.”
In the post-pandemic era, these insights may promote the uptake of music classes in states struggling with low test scores, but the implications for brain health actually extend far beyond childhood academic skills and social-emotional well-being.
In fact, early musical experiences can confer lifelong neuroplasticity, Kraus writes. Studies have shown that 65-year-old musicians have the same neural activity as 25-year-old non-musicians. A 65-year-old who played music as a child but has never touched an instrument for a long time has faster neural responses, although slower than a die-hard musician, than his peers who have never played music.
“What I would say to anyone considering purchasing an instrument is that it is never too late,” Richter said. “Just practicing scales helps cell regeneration. That's why I encourage adults to continue learning music, whether it's playing an instrument or listening to music. This has always been very important for brain development.”
Music stimulates not only our ears but also our hearts and minds. Children must persevere to learn music and work together to perform it while receiving attention. They must learn focus, patience and grace under pressure. Experts say working as a community and sharing thrilling experiences is something new for many people.
“When music is more regularly integrated as part of a child’s daily life, we can more effectively move the needle on learning and development in different parts of their lives: social, emotional, musical, academic, and more,” Conti said.
What makes Krause most profound are the intangible effects of music education: elements that cannot be reduced to data points and parameters. Music creates a sense of joy and belonging between musician and listener, something that no other means can do in our age of digital background noise.
“Music is so important because it connects us and connects us in a way that nothing I know connects,” Kraus said. “We live in a very disconnected world. Depression, anxiety, isolation, difficulty concentrating – these are all on the rise. Intolerance is on the rise. Music is a way to bring us together.”