The Mozart Effect Paper
The Mozart Effect For centuries, people have been captivated by the mysterious power of music. Anecdotal evidence suggested that music could help people in any number of ways; until recently, there was no evidence to back up these claims. Now, thanks to several scientific studies, we are better able to link music-related activities, such as playing instruments and listening to music, with learning. Several scientific studies have been able to link music-related activities, such as musical training and listening to music, not just with learning, but with healthy brain development. According to a study published in The Journal of Neuroscience in 2014, musical training helps your ear for speech. The study was conducted at a nonprofit after-school
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program called the Harmony Project in Los Angeles; the program teaches music to children in low-income communities. Two nights a week, 24 children learned how to play flutes, oboes, trombones, and trumpets. Anecdotal evidence suggests that music helps with learning; according to the founder of the Harmony Project, since 2008, 93% of the high school seniors graduated in four years and have gone on to college, despite dropout rates of 50% or more in the neighborhoods where the students live. Nina Kraus, the neurobiologist who ran the experiment, noticed in a different experiment that children who come from poverty, like many who participate in the Harmony Project, hear fewer words by age five. According to Krause, in the absence of stimulation, the nervous system will make things up. In the absence of sound, these kids’ minds produce “static”. This “static” makes it difficult to process sound. For the kids who received two years of music instruction, the “static” didn’t go away, but their brains became better at processing sound. (“This is your brain…”) Other studies have shown that music can make your brain structure stronger. According to Virginia Penhune, a psychology professor at Concordia University in Montreal, there’s a “sensitive period” when musical training most interacts with normal brain development. Her lab published a study in the Journal of Neuroscience in which 36 adult musicians had their brains scanned while performing a simple movement exercise. Half of the musicians began musical training before age seven, and the other half began at a later age. The study concluded that the younger you start your training, the stronger the connection between the two motor regions of your brain. This, according to Penhune, makes sense because a high level of coordination is needed to play a violin or piano, for instance. ("After the 'Mozart Effect': Music's Real Impact on the Brain.") Music not only helps with brain development, but it also helps children to learn.
A study published in 2007 by Christopher Johnson, professor of music education and music therapy at the University of Kansas, found that students in elementary schools with superior music education programs scored approximately 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. Johnson compared the concentration that music training requires to the focus needed to perform well on a standardized test. At the same time, the study concludes that while music might help with test scores, the primary reasons to provide children with music 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. (“The Benefits of Music Education.”) In essence, several scientific studies have shown that music has the power to aid in healthy brain development and learning. Not only can music activities help with learning and brain development, but it can also be an activity that gives children the opportunity to have fun, raise their confidence, and make friends. In the future, music might be utilized more commonly as a tool to help their students learn. Will music be a more commonly utilized tool to help students learn? Will people continue to be skeptical about the effects of music? Only time will
tell.
program called the Harmony Project in Los Angeles; the program teaches music to children in low-income communities. Two nights a week, 24 children learned how to play flutes, oboes, trombones, and trumpets. Anecdotal evidence suggests that music helps with learning; according to the founder of the Harmony Project, since 2008, 93% of the high school seniors graduated in four years and have gone on to college, despite dropout rates of 50% or more in the neighborhoods where the students live. Nina Kraus, the neurobiologist who ran the experiment, noticed in a different experiment that children who come from poverty, like many who participate in the Harmony Project, hear fewer words by age five. According to Krause, in the absence of stimulation, the nervous system will make things up. In the absence of sound, these kids’ minds produce “static”. This “static” makes it difficult to process sound. For the kids who received two years of music instruction, the “static” didn’t go away, but their brains became better at processing sound. (“This is your brain…”) Other studies have shown that music can make your brain structure stronger. According to Virginia Penhune, a psychology professor at Concordia University in Montreal, there’s a “sensitive period” when musical training most interacts with normal brain development. Her lab published a study in the Journal of Neuroscience in which 36 adult musicians had their brains scanned while performing a simple movement exercise. Half of the musicians began musical training before age seven, and the other half began at a later age. The study concluded that the younger you start your training, the stronger the connection between the two motor regions of your brain. This, according to Penhune, makes sense because a high level of coordination is needed to play a violin or piano, for instance. ("After the 'Mozart Effect': Music's Real Impact on the Brain.") Music not only helps with brain development, but it also helps children to learn.
A study published in 2007 by Christopher Johnson, professor of music education and music therapy at the University of Kansas, found that students in elementary schools with superior music education programs scored approximately 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. Johnson compared the concentration that music training requires to the focus needed to perform well on a standardized test. At the same time, the study concludes that while music might help with test scores, the primary reasons to provide children with music 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. (“The Benefits of Music Education.”) In essence, several scientific studies have shown that music has the power to aid in healthy brain development and learning. Not only can music activities help with learning and brain development, but it can also be an activity that gives children the opportunity to have fun, raise their confidence, and make friends. In the future, music might be utilized more commonly as a tool to help their students learn. Will music be a more commonly utilized tool to help students learn? Will people continue to be skeptical about the effects of music? Only time will
tell.