Many people enjoyed music in school. Music class provided a break from spelling and grammar. It was time to stop thinking about math equations and periodic tables. Music provided a break from the necessary but sometimes mundane aspects of formal education.
Music is frequently the favorite lesson for young students, and because it brings them so much joy, it rarely receives the recognition it deserves. Music may be perceived as much more enjoyable than some of the other subjects, but it is just as important.
Having some type of musical education throughout childhood is both beneficial and extremely important for all children. It has numerous advantages that can prepare children for the best future outcomes, even if they don’t become the next Ariana Grande.
So, why should kids learn music in school? What is the impact of music education? What are the primary benefits? Read on to learn more.
The Impact of Music Education on Schools
Historically, formal music education was reserved for the wealthy or elite members of society. Thankfully, over the last century, music has found its way into the standardised curriculums of public schools all over the world.
Most children in developed countries have had regular music instruction for a few years by the time they reach high school, and studies have shown that the impact of this education benefits millions, even at a biological level.
The area of the brain responsible for music processing is also in charge of many other skills (more on those later), and it has been discovered that musicians have a larger portion of the brain. Over the last century, simply taking regular music lessons has increased the brain capacity of countless people. However, the advantages extend beyond brain size.
The Primary Benefits of Music Education
The primary benefits of music education for children include a wide range of skills required to function in society, as well as skills and habits that can have long-term consequences and ensure the best possible employment outcomes.
- Music Promotes Brain Development in Education.
Many people are not surprised that music stimulates brain development, but there is a difference in the level of brain development depending on whether students are actively learning music or simply enjoying it.
A recent study compared students who participated in active music education to those who listened to music on a regular basis. The study’s findings revealed that students who received regular music education performed significantly better on neural processing tests than those who did not.
Neural processing is what enables humans to coordinate movement, focus, perceive, reason, and pay attention to objects. It is essentially the building blocks of intelligent behaviour.
Music education has also been associated with higher IQ. Organised music lessons appear to improve students’ potential IQ compared to those who receive no music instruction at all. Perhaps this is why so many of history’s great thinkers were also accomplished musicians.
- Music helps children learn to connect with others.
Connection and a sense of belonging are among the most fundamental human needs. Developing friendships and connecting with others are learned skills, not innate abilities. Much of this learning occurs as early as infancy.
Children are naturally social, but it takes time for them to learn how to recognize and connect with other children. It is critical for them to have common experiences that teach them how to connect. This can occur on the playground, in a sporting team, or, of course, through music.
Participating in music classes gives children a common goal to strive for. Perhaps they are learning a new song or preparing for an end-of-year concert. This type of group work helps them understand how teams work and the importance of each individual in the larger picture of a project. It also allows them to form lasting friendships.
- Music integrates many other subjects.
The skills developed in music extend far beyond learning to play a few songs. Musical education has applications in a variety of other school subjects.
Music has been shown to improve a child’s mathematics skills. It can help children understand the concepts of counting, including the use of symbols instead of numbers. Music’s time signatures provide an excellent real-world example of how fractions work.
Music can also improve a child’s reading and comprehension abilities. As children get older, the lyrics in their favorite songs tend to become more abstract. These songs are ideal candidates for lyrical analysis. This type of investigation can also involve history and geography.
- Music helps to relieve stress.
Nobody is immune to stress, including children. Their lives may appear to be much more carefree than the adults around them, but they frequently experience the same level of stress. They can feel overwhelmed when they don’t understand what’s going on, and they can be scared when they’re in a new situation.
In fact, children can experience burnout. Their lives may not be as complicated as their parents’, but they experience the same emotions at the same intensity.
Music has been shown to reduce stress and improve mood in most people. It may not seem like much, but simply listening to a few songs can help to calm the mind and provide some much-needed’me-time.’ Playing an instrument can achieve the same result and even help with minor depression and anxiety.
- Music teaches discipline.
Extracurricular activities teach children about commitment and time management. They participate in these activities outside of school, and as a result, they learn how to plan their lives around them. Music is an excellent example of this, particularly when a child is learning to play an instrument.
They must plan their time and devote adequate time to practice, and they will eventually reap the benefits.
Most children pick up an instrument and believe they will become experts within a year. After the first year, they understand that progress takes time, but they can already see how far they’ve come. They receive a more immediate sense of reward than they would from their understanding of mathematics or science.
Music teaches children the importance of perseverance and skill development. This, combined with the necessary time management skills, will better prepare them for adulthood, where the concept of work-life balance can sometimes seem like an impossible dream.
Social Benefits of Music Education
As previously stated, music education provides incredible technological and developmental benefits, as well as incredible social benefits.
1. Teamwork and Collaboration Skills
Everyone has heard that there is no ‘I’ in ‘team,’ but many people forget how long it took them to learn how to work in a group. Teamwork is not a natural human ability. It is something that people develop over time, and music provides an excellent framework for experiencing and improving effective teamwork.
They take time to understand the importance of a group of musicians and how each one plays a distinct role in an orchestra or band. When it comes to composition, children will have to negotiate while also learning that other people may have better ideas than their own, which is okay.
2. Listening Skills
Music helps to improve children’s listening skills.
This is a more obvious benefit of children learning music in school. Any musician improves their listening skills as they progress through their studies, but the type of listening skills practiced is critical.
When playing instruments in a band or orchestra, students must improve their ability to distinguish one instrument from the crowd. They must also adjust the overall volume of a piece of music to determine whether they are playing their instrument too loudly or too softly.
They have a better understanding of dynamics and pitch. These abilities are not only useful in a concert hall. Musical education-developed listening skills have been shown to improve a student’s overall listening and comprehension in a regular classroom setting.
3. Active Listening Skills
Active listening is an extremely useful skill. It is the ability to not only hear and understand what another person is saying, but also to deduce meaning from the overall context of a situation.
People who excel at active listening are often excellent communicators, salespeople, natural team leaders, and good friends. Good active listeners can hear every word spoken in a conversation and likely repeat it verbatim.
This may not appear to be a particularly impressive skill, but keep in mind that the majority of people are constantly summarizing conversations with others rather than paying close attention to each word spoken.
Music education teaches active listening in a way that no other school subject can.
4. Relationship Skills
The ability to initiate, navigate, and maintain relationships is quite complex, and humans begin to develop this skill at a young age.
In the early stages of childhood, the world is divided into two types of relationships: known and unknown. It is often not until a child enters school that they begin to understand the complex web of relationships that comprise the human experience.
The process of navigating these relationships is critical for development.
Children need to form friendships and feel a sense of belonging, but they also need to learn what it’s like to work with someone they don’t know well or don’t even like. Music education is once again an excellent source of these opportunities.
Because every role in a specific music piece must be filled, children frequently do not have the opportunity to work only with those they know in a music class.
Music can help children experience various cultures.
For many children, music is their first encounter with other cultures. Most adults who grew up in America or Europe can remember noticing that Bob Marley’s songs sounded different than what they normally heard on the radio.
Later in life, they most likely discovered that this distinct sound was Reggae, a genre unique to Jamaica and other Caribbean islands.
It can be exciting to discover how popular sounds in other countries differ greatly from one’s own, and musical education can open up some fascinating cultural doors.
Music can support children’s school work.
Music does more than just improve your mood and relieve stress. It can provide additional stimulation and entertainment for other school subjects. Learning math equations to music has been a common practice in many schools for nearly 30 years because it has been shown to help students retain information.
There is also a huge boom in educational technology right now, which has resulted in incredible ways to incorporate music into a child’s education.
Conclusion
When children learn music in school, they are taught more than just how to form notes and play an instrument. They are developing their brains faster than those who do not learn music. They are also developing and honing skills that will give them the best possible advantages as they age.
The world of tomorrow will be very different from today, and learning music appears to be an excellent way to give children the best chance of success.