Why Music?

Music does more than entertain our children;music also helps to shape our children's minds.Researchers have long suspected that music affects the brain the most profound ways.

According to much recent neurological research,early musical experiences can produce lasting effects on a child's development.

Why should my child study music?

Music boosts intelligence and higher level reasoning skills.

Student who study music score higher on both the verbal and math portions of the SAT than
nonmusical students. (College Entrance Examination Board as reported in Symphony, Sept. - Oct. 1996)

About 80 percent of all students accepted to Harvard, regardless of their major, have had serious music instruction. (Creative Child, July-August 1999)

In a study of medical school applicant, 66 percent of music majors who applied to medical school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group. Only 44 percent of biochemistry majors were admitted. (Lewis Thomas, as reported in Phi Delta Kappan, February 1994)

The very best engineers and technical designers in the Silicon Valley industry are, nearly without exception, practicing musicians. (Grant Venerable, The Center for the Arts in the Basic Curriculum, NY

Music increases abilities inspatial/temporal reasoning, language,math and other areas.

Three year olds who received twice-weekly special singing lessons over a three-year period showed greater improvement than children who attended only regular nursery school programs on measures of motor ability (particularly coordination), abstract conceptual thinking, play improvisation, originality, and verbal abilities. (Weinberger, MuSICA Research Notes, Fall 1996)

Researchers found a high degree of correlation between how well first graders could read both standard and phonic materials and how well they could discriminate musical pitch. (Lamb, Gregory, as reported in Educational Psychology, 13, 1993)

Student in two Rhode Island elementary school given a sequential, skill-building program in music and art showed a marked improvement in reading and math skills. (Gardiner, Fox, Jeffry, and Knowles, as reported in Nature, May 23. 1996)

Preschoolers who studied piano performed 34% better in spatial and temporal reasoning ability than preschoolers who spent the same amount of time learning to use computers. (Rauscher, Shaw, as reported in Neurological research, February 1997)