[pianotech] It's official: music rewires the brain (as if youdidn't know)

[Ken & Pat Gerler]

I don't remember the particulars, but, yes, the study years ago was three 
groups of children in which pianos were the vehicle.  One control group no 
pianos, one control group with pianos, with no lessons, just having a piano, 
and the third control group with pianos and music lessons.  Like the study 
you mention, grades in other academic fields of the students were highest in 
the third group, some improvement in the second group.

Ken Gerler

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Boyce" <David at piano.plus.com>
To: <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 28, 2010 8:05 AM
Subject: Re: [pianotech] It's official: music rewires the brain (as if 
youdidn't know)


> Very interesting! It bears out something I heard on a radio news show some 
> 20 years ago:
>
> At a school in England, as an experiment, all the children who were 
> considered "tone deaf" were given special music instraction and practice 
> and formed into a choir over a period of months. They played before and 
> after performances. Before, was just a collecetion of children singing 
> random notes, horrible, and after, a very nice children's choir.
>
> But the most interesting thing was that they found over the period of 
> instruction that the children's LITERACY skills shot up, without any extra 
> instruction in that area. The music instruction and practice, did 
> something to the part of the brain that processes literacy.
>
> Best regards,
>
> David Boyce.
>
>
>> Learning to play, he has found, is a far better bet. In a 2004 study, he 
>> and his colleagues randomly assigned 144 6-year-olds to receive 
>> instruction in keyboard, voice, drama or nothing. After a year, kids who 
>> got keyboard or voice lessons showed a 3-point IQ boost on average over 
>> the kids taking drama or no lessons at all.
>>
>> It's a modest improvement but one that may build on itself since, for all 
>> its faults, IQ is a reliable predictor of a child's performance in 
>> school. Better performance in school typically leads to more and better 
>> schooling — which, in turn, further increases IQ.
>>
>> For those receiving musical instruction, "there is evidence that music 
>> changes the brain in positive and permanent ways," says Laurel Trainor, 
>> professor of psychology, neuroscience and behavior, and director of the 
>> auditory development lab of McMaster University in Toronto. Yet like a 
>> medication that powerfully treats an illness, but in mysterious ways, the 
>> means by which music might enhance cognitive powers has eluded scientists 
>> so far.