Music is taught because it is exciting, creative and powerful. It teaches children creativity, providing scaffolding and laying foundations for a child to learn and create in all areas of life. Music is special because it has a way of impacting on the heart, mind, soul and spirit of a child, stimulating thought and imagination in a unique way.
Despite the many benefits, music education is not receiving the level of support it needs. As a result of inadequate attention and funding, music has struggled to compete in an increasingly crowded curriculum, resulting in a decline in the percentage of students receiving quality music education.
Recent research finds that provision of music in Australian schools is inadequate, with 63% of primary schools and 34% of secondary schools not offering music. Only the states of Queensland and Tasmania have specialist music teachers who teach a
dedicated music curriculum. However this is not a worldwide trend, with the five top countries (Finland, Sweden, South Korea, Shanghai and Hong Kong) in the international ranking of school systems surpassed Australian scores in reading, writing, mathematics and science. They all have a far better school music education than Australia. Music education may contribute to their academic success and obviously it does not get in the way of, or interfere with, other learning.
The very things that promote literacy and numeracy are the arts, beginning with serious arts education in the early years. A creative, thinking nation is based upon the time devoted to a quality arts, and especially music, educational programme.
Early sustained music learning is actually the frame upon which education itself can be built for children, especially those from
low-socioeconomic backgrounds. Early music training allows them, and under-achieving In 2006, research involving more than 15,000 students in the USA, revealed that students learning a musical instrument outperformed non-instrumental music students from their own socioeconomic status at all year levels, in all subjects. Further, by the Ninth-Grade, low-socioeconomic instrumental music students’ results surpassed those of the high socioeconomic non-instrumental music students in all subjects.
This research was supported by a 12-year study linked to Harvard, Stanford and Columbia universities that tracked more than 25,000 students. It found that across all backgrounds, music students get higher marks in school tests than students who do not study music. In particular, that participation in music programmes makes a significant difference to students from low-income backgrounds and that sustained music participation is highly correlated to success in mathematics and reading.
These results correlate with music because the majority of learning done during a music
lesson is taught using patterns. Singing, playing or listening to music directs students
to listen and hear in new ways which exercises their aural discrimination. Learning
a rhythmic and melodic phrase employs the same skill required for reading and
comprehension. The connection with sound and reading is that when you’re learning to read you need to connect the sounds of words that you’ve heard for many years with the symbol on
the page. So you’re matching a sound to a meaningful connection. Music is almost entirely comprised of this. For example, matching a word to a melody, a melody to a rhythm and a rhythm to a steady beat. Thus, people who had musical training are better at hearing speech in noise.
Music education facilitates student academic achievement by improving recall and
retention of verbal information, cultivating creative thinking and improving the brain processing speed of sounds. In order to comprehend music, hearing, in the form of focused listening and strong concentration, must occur. Adults with music training early in life have a faster response to speech sounds than those who had never been taught music. Recent research has found that music uses both sides of the brain, a fact that makes it valuable in all areas of development, through better developed cognitive and
learning skills. Music affects the growth of a child’s brain academically, emotionally, physically and spiritually.
Music trains the brain for higher forms of thinking. Through musical training a young mind can be permanently wired for enhanced
performance. Research at the University of California has found that learning and playing music builds or modifies neural
pathways related to spatial reasoning tasks, which are crucial for higher brain functions. This study showed that preschool
children who received basic piano keyboard instruction scored an average of 34 per cent higher on tests of their reasoning skills.
Apart from the stated academic benefits of music, there are extensively documented behavioural, cultural and economic benefits
to schools and the wider community for intensive study of music.
One of the major positive benefits of school music programmes is that they have been found to improve standards of student
behaviour and commitment to study, and generally to lift the morale of schools. Important life skills such as discipline,
dependability, courage, perseverance and taking pride in your own work are some of the things which can be gained through
experiencing music. In an era of major parental concern about the lack of positive discipline in schools and the problems caused by disruptive children, this is one great benefit which school music can bring to the school community that many parents will welcome. A child involved in a music group (even if only playing a recorder or glockenspiel) will be extending their social and intellectual domains as well as developing concentration, teamwork, selfconfidence and emotional sensitivity. Furthermore, as an important part of school life, music programmes can bring the school community together, raise the school’s profile in the community, as well as boosting the morale of the whole school community.
Music is a skill that people carry for life, unlike sporting skills. Music has the additional advantage of developing the creative capacities for lifelong success, such as sharpening student attentiveness and creativity, strengthening perseverance, developing better study habits and improving self-esteem. A two-year Swiss study involved 1,200 children in 50 schools. They were taken from regular classes for three additional one-hour music classes per week. At the end of the experiment, despite missing regular classes, these students were better at languages, learned to read more easily, had better social relations, demonstrated more enjoyment in school and had a lower stress level than those who remained in regular classes.
Research from Harvard University found that students who study music and participate in school bands were far less likely to become involved with drug and alcohol abuse than other students. A further study conducted in Rhode Island found significant reductions in the arrest records of people who were involved in music. In Australia, research by Caldwell and Vaughan found that participation in musical programmes dramatically reduced truancy by up to 65%, followed by higher rates of academic achievement by students compared to those in matched schools which did not have music programmes.
As emotional beings, every child requires an artistic outlet. Music may be your child’s vehicle of expression. Learning music
improves social and emotional wellbeing. Caldwell and Vaughan’s research showed that longer-term participants in music
programmes showed the highest percentage of students with high rates of social and emotional wellbeing (resilience, positive
social skills, positive work orientation and engagement skills. Music education has well documented benefits in the socialisation,
cognitive development and academic achievements of students.
In an era when schools are increasingly focused on improving standardised test results in literacy and numeracy, the research and experts point to a balanced approach that incorporates the teaching of creativity in schools, including the teaching of music.