Many people have heard of the hotly contested ‘Mozart Effect’. The idea goes that simply exposing children to classical music can transform them into geniuses by the sheer virtue of how clever the music is.
The truth is a little more complicated, but there is some good news. Endless amounts of research in recent years have adding to the already extensive evidence that music can have a profound effect on your child’s brain.
The Positive Effects of Music.
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Language skills and perception improve.
In 2012 the University of Southern California began a five-year longitudinal study which investigated how music impacted the brain development of children.
What they found was that the areas of the brain which govern several important cognitive and social abilities, namely language and speech processing, matured faster when children were enrolled in music classes after school compared to children involved in non-musical or no after school classes.
In this particular study, the children engaged in seven hours a week of violin practice, both solo and group practice.
Two years into the study, monitoring with MRI, ECG and behavioural tests demonstrated that these areas of the brain had ‘matured’ quicker for these children compared to the control group and the group who played soccer as an after school activity.
Alongside more obvious developments such as increased ability to differentiate between tonal shifts, general sound processing ability, reading, language and speech perception showed improvements.
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Improved math.
Children with a solid grasp of mathematics are setting themselves up well in the future. Better math skills at an early age are found to correlate with improved academic achievement, even if they do not study a math-focused subject.
Studying music and learning to play an instrument have been found to lead to improved performance in math tests in certain areas with overlapping skills.
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Better memory and attention.
A comparative study by Northumbria University found that music can improve performance in tasks which require high levels of mental alertness. In particular, they found that of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, the first movement of Spring showed the biggest increase in performance.
Musical training has also been linked to structural differences in areas of the brain related to memory, and that there are significant differences in long-term memory compared to those without musical training.
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Improved self-esteem.
Children who are highly engaged with music training are shown to have better self-perception. This may be due to the bonding experience of adults teaching children music and the effect of playing as part of a group with other children.
Children who have received musical training are also shown to have more confidence when learning other new skills and have improved self-esteem.
What we’re seeing is that simply listening to music isn’t enough to change your child’s brain. Active participation and engagement is necessary to experience the biggest benefits. In a sense, this isn’t a surprise. Learning to competently play any musical activity is a complicated process involving dozens of skills and the ability to understand and apply theoretical information, patterns, fine motor control and creativity. All of this adds up to an incredible amount of learning and encouraging the kind of dedication and curiosity that leads to musical talent will also have an impact in other areas of life.
About the Author: Zac Green
Zac Green is chief editor of popular music blog ZingInstruments.com. He believes that music isn’t just a thing you do – it’s a mindset, an attitude, a way of life.
![It’s the simple things that are everything. We know play, conversation, micro-connections, predictability, and having a responsive reliable relationship with at least one loving adult, can make the most profound difference in buffering and absorbing the sharp edges of the world. Not all children will get this at home. Many are receiving it from childcare or school. It all matters - so much.
But simple isn’t always easy.
Even for children from safe, loving, homes with engaged, loving parent/s there is so much now that can swallow our kids whole if we let it - the unsafe corners of the internet; screen time that intrudes on play, connection, stillness, sleep, and joy; social media that force feeds unsafe ideas of ‘normal’, and algorithms that hijack the way they see the world.
They don’t need us to be perfect. They just need us to be enough. Enough to balance what they’re getting fed when they aren’t with us. Enough talking to them, playing with them, laughing with them, noticing them, enjoying them, loving and leading them. Not all the time. Just enough of the time.
But first, we might have to actively protect the time when screens, social media, and the internet are out of their reach. Sometimes we’ll need to do this even when they fight hard against it.
We don’t need them to agree with us. We just need to hear their anger or upset when we change what they’ve become used to. ‘I know you don’t want this and I know you’re angry at me for reducing your screen time. And it’s happening. You can be annoyed, and we’re still [putting phones and iPads in the basket from 5pm] (or whatever your new rules are).’♥️](https://www.heysigmund.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed-pro/img/placeholder.png)
In 2009, our son and his girlfriend had a sweet baby boy. From the moment he came to live with us we wxposed him to classical music on the music channel. I am a true believer of music therapy. This little baby is now 8 and he has excelled in all his academics!! From birth to 5 he listened to classicalmusic.
Excellent,useful for parenting,teaching staff and all such,people connected with music