Music and the Mind

Over the last 30 years, music instruction for young children has become increasingly popular. We attribute this largely to the advances in research into the benefits of exposing children to music at a young age. In fact, the entire field of early childhood is much more developed than it was 20-30 years ago, leading to some exciting findings.

• In order to allow pianists to be more creative, imaginative and musical, young beginners at Harmony Road are given the opportunity to enhance the neurophysiology of their brains using a whole brain approach to learning. Harmony Road helps students develop a greater understanding of music; obtain a greater sense of physical ease and depth of expression while playing; increase enjoyment and motivational levels; experience less anxiety and physical tension while performing; and demonstrate improved sight reading ability effectively through the use of solfege singing.
• When whole brain teaching and listening skills are at the center of a music program, students experience greater unification between the brain, the body and their emotions. The right hemisphere of the brain is able to develop more intuitive and special skills in partnership with the more logical and analytical left hemisphere. This allows students to develop a deep, unconscious well of musical experience from which they can draw, thereby increasing their sensitivity and understanding of music in general.
• When children are shown how and encouraged to internalize music from the first lesson, they will be less prone to physical problems due to musicular tensions in their arms and legs. By taking a pupil-centered approach, students have more partnership with the teacher and are more involved in making decisions. Their enjoyment levels rise and their fears of external censure are diminished. Many a promising careers in music has been ended due to stress and physical injury from tension beginning in the early years. (Chappell, 2001)
• Early childhood music lessons actually enlarge the brain areas used to analyze pitch by 25%. The younger the music training begins, the larger the area. It is postulated that children are born with perfect pitch but are unable to discern it if these areas are not continuously stimulated and neurological connections formed. It is a use it or lose it situation. (Nature, 1998)
• College bound seniors who had taken music lessons at some point in their lives scored 52 points higher on the verbal portion of their SAT’s and 37 points higher in math than those without: a total of 88 points higher than the national average. Subsequently a study of 7500 music majors showed they had the highest levels of reading scores of any students on campus including those in Math, English, Chemistry, and Biology. (Profiles of SAT and Achievement Test Takers, the College Board, 1998)
• The University of California at Irvine found that after six months of pre-school piano lessons, students performed 34% better on spacio-temporal testing than those who received no training and those who had played computer games. After learning eighth, quarter, half and whole notes, second and third graders scored 100% higher than their peers who were taught fractions by traditional methods. (Neurological Research, February 1997)
  
• “Music lessons improve memory and learning ability in young children by encouraging different patterns of brain development.” - Dr.Takako Fujioka
  
• “After one year, those who had taken weekly piano lessons and participated in group singing scored 80% higher on test of spatial and temporal reasoning.” - Francis Rauscher, Ph.D.