Some proof points regarding the value of music in education: - Playing a musical instrument significantly enhances the brainstem's sensitivity to speech sounds. This finding has broad implications because it applies to sound encoding skills involved not only in music but also in language. - Nearly 100% of past winners in the prestigious Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science, and Technology play one or more musical instruments. - Secondary students who participated in band or orchestra reported the lowest lifetime and current use of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs. - US Dept of Education data found that students who report consistently high levels of involvement in instrumental music in middle and high school years show significantly higher levels of math proficiency by grade 12. - Musically trained children perform better in a memory test that is correlated with general intelligence skills such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing, mathematics, and IQ. - The very best engineers and technical designers in Silicon Valley are, nearly without exception, practicing musicians. Something to sing about?
So you are telling me that the hours of screeching coming from Keira's violin will be worth it? Hehe. We actually thought very hard about what activities we were willing to pay for and we chose music for those reasons and because it is something they can take with them for a life time. Not that soccer or gymnastics isnt great, but even if you make a career out of it, you probably wont be doing it when you are 70. Music is something you can do when you are older and I certainly don't mind investing into something that my children can carry with them for a lifetime!
I'm glad to see this post. This is something I have been thinking a lot about. I come from a very musical family. I want to pass this on to my children. However, my 6 year old has absolutely no interest and I'm not sure what to do. I have given him the choice between piano and violin and he says he doesn't want to learn either. So do you force your children to learn an instrument that they have no interest in? I've been debating this for some time and would love some opinions.
I would like to learn (and teach) some basic instrument (guitar...drums... or recorder) but I have little interest and even less talent. I dont think any of my students are interested in an instrument...
Have you tried asking him what he is interested in? Are you open to letting your child learn the drums or guitar or whatever if thats what they chose?
In our case, we required our older daughter to listen for an hour each day to Dr. Karl Haas on a local PBS station. It was a great introduction to classical music. We tried teaching each of them an instrument, but it only 'took' in a couple of cases. Both daughters, though, sang in a chorale of some sort. There are some great homeschooling programs for classical music. While we've not used her material, I would recommend Professor Carol. She is SO enthusiastic, and her love of music is contagious. I met her at the Southeast Homeschool Expo in Atlanta.
Although I agree that teaching our children music has a lot of benefits I will say that correlation does not equal causation. In fact it could be that the successful people chose to learn an instrument or their parents chose for them because they were already had what it takes. Often that means involved parents who will provide lessons, time and sometimes encouragement to practice, the fact that many of these people had above average parents in math and music areas, and probably the money to buy them the instruments etc. One cannot rightfully decipher what things are the cause and what is the effect. I have a hunch it's backwards from what most studies show.
I think the point he was making is that the portion of the brain that is in charge of music is also in charge of math, creativity, and engineering. It's been ... gosh... 15 years? since I studied this in college (I majored in music), but I know there's a medical reason for the correlation between music and jobs that require a lot of math or science.
We have definitely not done enough music. My son has been asking for piano for years but we have no piano and since we live so far away from everything it is hard to find teachers that aren't an hour away. I have a whole series of art and music unit studies planned for next summer so hopefully we will get more music in next year. My daughter took violin for 5 years and loved it and I took flute for 8 years when I was younger - so I do believe that music is very important - however that violin never made her any better in math...so I agree with Frogger. It doesn't necessarily translate into other areas - but it certainly can't hurt.
Math and the sciences are not Em's strong points, yet she flourishes in music. She not only plays the piano and is also working on the violin, but she can also write her own music or make a dull song sound full. She has incredible timing and she can master the dynamics of a piece. BUT! Put a math or science book in front of her face and she really has to put forth an extra effort because neither come easy for her. She just gets by in these areas and she most likely will not be winning any awards in these two subjects. So I also agree with Frogger.
I was thinking more along the lines of the studies that show people who co habitat before marriage are less likely to stay married. It's not a big stretch of the imagination to see that this study would support common sense. I just balk when that turns into if you don't live together before you're married you will be less likely to get a divorce. I think the kinds of people who choose not to live together before marriage have certain attitudes and beliefs that cause them to both not cohabitat prior to marriage and not get a divorce. I also think when scientist start throwing in variables to try to account for different circumstances it gets a little fuzzy. Humans are funny creatures hard to experiment on, that's why my mom used to say practicing medicine was an art not a science(though you used science). She was a doctor. I find your answers interesting ColoradoMom and Emmas#1fan because music basically is an audio form of math but I completely understand it not translating into what we call math in school. My son is very mathematical but not very audio. I have never been able to teach him to clap with the beat even though he is in a choir/music class for part of every year that has a terrific teacher. He didn't learn to talk until much later than usual but he was putting together puzzles for much older children. He saw visual patterns quickly and was always figuring out how everything worked. Of course, he is an outlier of the statistics. There will always be those. Maybe your children are good at math but have a hard time because we teach all the concepts visually. In kindergarten we make patterns and then show them visually that numbers make patterns, etc. Maybe not, I'm just rambling because it seems interesting to me.
The first few years of math, Ems thrived. She just got it and it did come easy. I was told to put her in piano because she do well. Sure enough, she thrived in piano while her math started to dwindled. LOL Still, I can see the math in reading music and in the timing. Counting music comes very easy for Ems. We were at choir practice and the timing of the piece was very different. Our instructor said we would probably never see it again unless we actually played an instrument. She tried to break it down for us and immediately Ems got it and I could see that she was also very excited because she was the only person who understood.
From The College Board, music students perform better on the SAT: "Students with coursework in music study/appreciation scored 61 points higher on the verbal portion of the test and 42 points higher on the math portion than students with no coursework or experience in the arts. Students in music performance scored 53 points higher on the verbal portion and 39 points higher on the math portion than students with no arts participation."
