Music Lesson Benefits

The Benefits of Taking Music Lessons

Many scientific studies have proven the benefits -- to both children and adults -- of learning a musical instrument. These benefits include:

• Enhanced abstract reasoning skills
• Strengthened eye-hand coordination and fine/gross motor skills
• Improved goal-setting, self-discipline and concentration
• Higher level of cultural literacy
• Higher scores on cognitive development tests.

Quotes from these studies include:

• Childhood music lessons actually enlarge portions of the brain. German researchers found that the brain area used to analyze musical pitch is an average of 25% larger in musicians. The younger the musical training begins, the larger the area.
  • Journal of Nature
• In a study involving 25,000 students over a period of ten years, UCLA professor Dr. James Catterall found that, regardless of socioeconomic background, students involved in music get higher marks in standardized tests (ex: SAT) and reading proficiency exams, compared to students who had no music involvement.
  •  The Imagination Project at UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies
• ...Math performance is significantly correlated with the music skill achievement of students...Reading scores also improved most dramatically for those students with additional music classes.
  • Elizabeth Olson, Math and Reading Scores Increase at Minneapolis Public Schools
• Music instruction...has been used effectively to aid beginning readers by reinforcing their auditory and visual reception and discrimination abilities, visual sequential memory, and language reception and expression abilities. Music experiences, thus, may foster the acquisition of students' basic communication skills.
  • Laura J. Andrews and Patricia E. Sink, Integrating Music and Reading Instruction
• While it is understood that music education can have an important impact on musical intelligence, there is accumulating a significant amount of research supporting the impact of music education on all seven [of Howard Gardner’s basic] intelligences.
  • Arthur Harvey, An Intelligence View of Music Education
• Participation in the music program inducts all students into a unique system of nonverbal symbols through which the noblest thoughts and feelings of human beings have been expressed and can be communicated.
  • Charles Leonhard, A Realistic Rational for Teaching Music
• After learning eighth, quarter, half and whole notes, second and third graders scored 100% higher than their peers who were taught fractions using traditional methods.
  • Journal of Neurological Research
• Music majors are better readers and more successful med school applicants. A study of 7,500 university students revealed that music majors scored the highest reading scores among all majors including English, biology, chemistry and math. 66% of music majors who applied to med school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group. Forty-four percent (44%) of biochemistry majors were admitted.
  • Peter H. Wood, The Comparative Academic Abilities of Students in Education and in Other Areas of a Multi-focus University

And finally, here's a quote from one of today's brightest musician minds.

• Music enhances the education of our children by helping them make connections and broadening the depth with which they think and feel. If we are to hope for a society of culturally literate people, music must be a vital part of our children's education.
  • Yo Yo Ma, The Gifts of Music

Contact RhythmicLee Music Studios for more information about the music lessons we offer students of all ages.