Wanderlust: Expat Life & Style in Thailand Aug / Sept 2017: The Kids & Family Issue | Page 21

MIND OVER MUSIC
The idea that listening to music improves children’s cognition has
been debunked, much to the disappointment of music-loving
parents everywhere. But there is something about music and
children. Here, Kyla Gardner evens the score by reporting on the
life-long impacts of learning how to play a musical instrument.
J
ust about anyone who took pi-
ano lessons as a child can re-
member how to play Chopsticks
decades later, but early exposure to
music lessons has a much more com-
plex chorus of benefits than can be
heard in a simple tune.
A large body of research in the field
shows that kids who learn to strum
a guitar or blow a trumpet see many
cognitive and emotional developmen-
tal benefits that extend far beyond the
concert hall or practice room. Music
students experience boosts to their
learning abilities, academic achieve-
ments, language and literacy, creativ-
ity and emotional development in a
way their music-less peers don’t.
BRAIN CHANGE
Young children have especially plas-
tic, or malleable, brains. Especially
at young ages, when the brain is
still developing, music can have
far-reaching impacts on overall
development.
The human brain contains
about 100 billion neurons and be-
tween them they each have about
1,000 connections. During informa-
tion processing, or learning, connec-
tions between neurons are strength-
ened, solidified and pruned for more
efficient future processing, according
to “The Power of Music,” a 2011 article
in the International Journal of Music
Education.
Extensive musical training ef-
fectively reorganizes the brain.
Strengthened neural pathways will
be nearly permanently changed, af-
fecting the way information is pro-
cessed thereafter. Those strength-
ened neural pathways can then be
used for learning and processing in-
formation in other, non-music-related
areas. For example, a child trained in
listening intently to a piece of music
will then stand a chance to become a
better listener during a spoken lesson
in the history classroom.
LEARNING TO LEARN
While music students practice their
scales, memorize short composi-
tions and find rhythm, they aren’t just
learning music — they are learning
how to learn.
“Music Matters,” a report from the
U.S. Arts Education Partnership on
the biggest findings from the existing
body of research on the topic, found
that musical training improves the
ability to learn.
Music students enhance their fine
motor skills, increasing their adept-
ness at writing and computer use,
which are both critical classroom
skills. Musicians show better mem-
ory control during memorization
tasks. They also tend to have a better
working memory, which is the part of
the brain that holds information and
manipulates it in real-time to prob-
lem solve.
In a 2000 study, children ages four
to six who received music instruc-
tion for 25 minutes per day for sev-
en weeks showed increased cogni-
tion compared to those who didn’t
receive music training, according to
“The Power of Music.”
Music students, according to the
“Music Matters” report, also think bet-
ter. Abstract reasoning was shown
in one study to be stronger in young
keyboard players than in their peers.
WWW.WANDERLUSTMAG.COMWANDERLUST 21