The Benefits of Music Education

The Benefits of Music Education

Many band teachers will be happy to recount all of the ways that playing an instrument will make you smarter, but are they really true? Of course! Many studies have been done that show music education expediting learning in other subjects and boosting abilities that are sure to be used in everyday life (Brown 2). One of these studies was published by the Psychology of Music journal. It found that playing an instrument can improve reading and comprehension skills because of the music making process. In order to play a song, notes have to be read, the name of the note must be recognized, converted into the finger position or slide, and comprehend how much air is needed for a particular section (Matthews 2). Because math is used in every measure of music, playing an instrument can greatly benefit anyone’s math skills. Division, fractions, counting and pattern recognition are all math skills needed to play an instrument, and which can be improved by learning to play scales, reading time signatures, and counting beats and rhythms (Kwan 1). Music education can be especially beneficial in young children because it helps one learn to distinguish different sounds, pitches and frequencies, which plays an integral part in improving linguistic performance for everyday listening tasks and when learning a foreign language (Wilcox 2). Another study done by the University of Toronto in Mississauga found that the average IQ of six year olds went up three points after they took music lessons for nine months, versus no increase in IQ in the control group of children who had no music lessons (Brown 2). Not only did music education improve IQ, the University of Kansas has proven that playing an instrument improves standardized test scores