For generations, music education has been considered an important extracurricular activity for children. While the motivations for parents signing their children up for lessons may differ from one household to another, the overarching wager remains the same: there must be some benefit for the child that makes the investment in studying music worthwhile. But is this perceived benefit merely that? Perceived?
Is it nothing more than an illusion of the mind, conjured up by wishful parents who want it to be true? And if the benefit is real, then why isn’t music education considered a core subject in state education curricula when so many parents place its value high enough to invest over $2,500 annually for years on end?
Why Is Music Education So Critical?
In 2011, a team of researchers from the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University teamed up with Project Harmony. Their goal? To find out whether music education had a benefit beyond itself. Dr. Margaret Martin founded Project Harmony in 2001 as a non-profit which provides free music lessons for children in lower socioeconomic communities throughout Los Angeles. In the first decade of operations, she noticed something happening. Students once considered at-risk or who were struggling academically were improving in all aspects of their work. Not just musically, but academically and socially, too. She wondered if the students’ brain development was somehow being positively affected by music education. So she made a phone call.
Together, the two institutions orchestrated a study (pun intended) to quantify the benefit of music education on brain development in children. In 2007, two research papers published by the laboratory demonstrated that musicians did possess heightened cognitive abilities compared to non-musicians. However, there were skeptics who questioned whether the musicians already possessed these abilities prior to their musical training, arguing that the musicians’ heightened abilities could have been the reason they chose to become musicians in the first place. This is the classic “chicken vs. egg” conundrum. Does music education produce cognitively enhanced individuals, or do cognitively enhanced individuals become great musicians?
Getting to the Bottom of the Question
The new Northwestern-Project Harmony study was devised specifically to remove this variable. This was achieved by studying 75 children who had previously never studied music. On day one, every student was tested on five capacities. These included hearing, facility with language, neural responses to speech, attention/concentration, and memory. Half of the students were then given private music lessons on an instrument for one year. The other half were enrolled in music topic classes. These included music appreciation, music history, and music theory) without their actively playing an instrument. After one year, the research team returned to LA to retest the students on their cognitive abilities and neural processing.
They found no change whatsoever in any of the children of either cohort.
So…Does Music Really Have No Effect on the Brain? Were the Skeptics Correct?
Dr. Martin insisted the researchers allow the study to continue for another year, convinced that the results would change over time. So the first cohort continued their music lessons while the second cohort spent another year listening to and learning about music rather than actively playing or singing. Twelve months later, the researchers returned to Project Harmony to repeat their cognitive tests.
This time, the results were undeniable.
The students who were taking lessons had drastically improved in all aspects of cognition and neuroplasticity, while the other cohort remained at the same cognitive level as before. To further remove any doubt about their findings, the researchers replicated their study with 150 high school students in Chicago. Once again, the students who were given music lessons showed large increases in cognitive abilities after exactly two years of study compared to their peers.
Further research conducted by the team has led to two rather remarkable discoveries:
- The longer a student studies music, the greater the increase in cognitive benefits (as long as the student studies for at least two years).
- These benefits are permanent, regardless of when the student stops studying. Adults who studied music for at least two years as children will enjoy enhanced cognitive abilities as adults.
So, why isn’t music a core subject in state education curricula when its value extends beyond the music room? Perhaps because of the common misconception that music education is offered solely as a creative outlet to students. Or worse, as an entertaining break from doing actual “work.” Thanks to the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University, we now know the benefits earned through music education. That early music education positively affects the work these students will do in all other subject areas and will stay with them forever.
Seen this way, the gift of music education and studying music may be one of the most impactful and important any child can receive from parents or guardians: the gift of future success, regardless of what field they choose to pursue.
Jonathan Stinson