The Role of Music in Education

Posted admin on April 14th, 2008 | Filed under Music in Education

As an educator and personally, I think that music has a huge role in education. 

Music not only creates enthusiasm for learning across the curriculum, but it also gives the students a sense of confidence.  For those learners who are auditory, it may provide a great “sense of relief” from book learning.  

Rhythm is a great teaching method to use when learning new concepts, from singing to creating raps, to clapping or tapping etc.    Repetition such as this tends to stay in the students minds longer than mere lectures or reading at times, sometimes quite humorously.  Students will find themselves humming, singing or performing while playing, doing other classwork, travelling to and from school etc.

Every child should be encouraged in the field of music, whether they have natural talent or not.  You never know what their future holds!  When I was a child and did performances with our school choir, my mother has often told me that I sang with great enthusiasm and of course, totally off key.  But, because I knew the songs, it gave me great confidence in my abilities or lack thereof.   All I knew was that I was giving 100%. 

Who would have thought it?  Over the years, I have learned to become more “on key” and have started and directed both choirs and bands in various schools.  It is like seeing a caterpillar morph into a butterfly with these students.  At the beginning, they are unsure and want to sing or particularly play their instrument as quietly as possible, just in case…  However, in a very short time, they are playing with confidence and not only self-correcting, but learning which harmonies or chords should be sung/played and often correcting each other.  In what seems to be no time at all, most students are happy to put their talents “on parade”.

I was a very shy student and rarely asked questions aloud in class.  Part of that was personality, but part of that was the presence of particular educators in class who made you feel lower than dirt and that you were stupid if you asked questions when you didn’t understand.  As a result, I learned to figure most things out for myself as in the following…

One day, when I was in about sixth grade, my mother came home and announced that she was beginning and directing a band at my school.  It just so happened that we lived in the Canadian prairires and it was about an hour’s drive to the nearest major city.  My mother said that we were going to the city and I was to pick out the instrument that I wanted to play in the band.  I had no clue what I wanted to play.  All I knew was that someone I looked up to played the clarinet.  So, when we went into the music store, guess what I chose? 

On the way home, my mother broke the “great news” to me that I would be showing my clarinet the next day in class.  “Sure”, I thought, “No problem”.   As long as it didn’t involve public speaking, up front in class, I was fine with it.  Of course, then came a clause.  She also informed me that I would play a few notes so that others could see what a clarinet sounded like and make decisions about the instruments that they would like to play.  

Anyone who plays the clarinet, or another reed instrument, can relate to me about now.  One of the greatest fears of a beginner is squeaking in public and what else does a beginner do, but squeak until they learn the right placement for their mouths on the mouthpiece and learn how much air is required to create sound.  Frankly, at the beginning it is definitely noise more than music.  I had that evening to learn not only how to put my instrument together, but to make a sound and learn to play some notes. 

I was sure I would die of embarassment in class, but when the other students saw the various instruments they were more intrigued than analytical.  Thank goodness!  When the realization came to me that I would have a head start, because I already had my instrument, suddenly, I felt more confident knowing that we would all be in the “same boat”.

Whether or not I had a head start, music has given me a great sense of satisfaction, confidence and enjoyment over the years.  Now I play numerous instruments including the piano.

Everybody has to start somewhere!  For those that do not have natural singing talent or do not enjoy it, they can still reap the benefits of music through instruments.

I have come across some very interesting studies and research about music in education.  Here is one example, there are thousands more… I have bolded the text which I find most notable in the selection.)

Effects of Instrumental Music Training on Brain and Cognitive Development in Young Children: A Longitudinal Study

“At baseline, prior to initiation of music lessons, there were no differences between the music and control children on any of our outcome variables.

Ellen Winner, Ph.D.

Boston College

Preliminary analyses after one year of music training have revealed significantly greater growth in the music group in manual dexterity and music perception skills and nonsignificant trends favoring the music group in verbal and mathematical performance and in gray matter brain volume. A parallel cross-sectional study in our lab has shown that nine- to eleven-year-olds with an average of three to four years of music training significantly outperformed a control group in verbal and mathematical performance and had significantly more gray matter volume regionally pronounced in the sensorimotor cortex.”       (By The Dana Foundation)

I recommend watching the movie, “Mr. Holland’s Opus”, if you haven’t seen it. 

NBC news produced a story a few months back, about the importance of music in education.   They stated that of students who had music education in elementary school, something like 75% were more likely to graduate from both high school and college and about half of them would have jobs with annual incomes of $100,000 +.    As stated in the previous article, the verbal, mathematical and other skills of students with music education were much stronger. 

In my opinion, it is very sad music is one of the first courses to go in school cutbacks.  People do not recognize how important it is!