Did you or someone you love play music as a child? If so, you know first hand about how music enriches the lives of children. Here are just a few things we know about the positive impacts of music education:
- Music encourages students to stay in school
- Music helps children understand the multicultural world in which we live
- Music builds self-esteem
- Music contributes to higher test scores by providing core lessons in many subjects:
Music is a Science
Music requires research. It is specific and demands exact acoustics. For instance, a conductor’s full score is a chart or graph, indicating frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody, and harmony all at once and with exact control of time.
Music is Mathematical
It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions, which must be done instantaneously.
Music is a Foreign Language
The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language. Most of the terms are in Italian, German, or French. The language of music also incorporates notations, which represent a highly developed form of shorthand, using symbols to represent ideas.
Music is History
Music often reflects the environment and times of its creation. From music, children learn lessons about historical events, as well as the ethnic and cultural heritage reflected in the piece.
Music is Physical Education
It requires fantastic coordination of fingers, hands, arms, lip, cheek, and facial muscles. Children who play music also show extraordinary control of the diaphragmatic, back, stomach, and chest muscles, which respond instantly to sounds heard by the ear and interpreted by the mind
Music is Art
It develops insight and creates emotion. Through music, children learn to share their humanism, express thoughts and feelings, and contribute to the infinite and collective spirit we call “life.”
Provided by the Music Achievement Council
