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Benefits of Music Lessons

There are multitudes of studies documenting the benefits to of music lessons. Here are just a few:

• A research team exploring the link between music and intelligence reported that music training is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children's abstract reasoning skills, the skills necessary for learning math and science. —

Shaw, Rauscher, Levine, Wright, Dennis and Newcomb, "Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children's spatial-temporal reasoning," Neurological Research, Vol. 19, February 1997.

• A University of California (Irvine) study showed that after eight months of music lessons, preschoolers showed a 46% boost in their spatial reasoning IQ. —

Rauscher, Shaw, Levine, Ky and Wright, "Music and Spatial Task Performance: A Causal Relationship," University of California, Irvine, 1994

• Students in two Rhode Island elementary schools who were given enriched, sequential, skill-building music lessons showed marked improvement in reading and math skills. Students in the enriched program who had started out behind the control group caught up to statistical equality in reading, and pulled ahead in math. —

Gardiner, Fox, Jeffrey and Knowles, as reported in Nature, May 23, 1996

• “The musician is constantly adjusting decisions on tempo, tone, style, rhythm, phrasing, and feeling—training the brain to become incredibly good at organizing and conducting numerous activities at once. Dedicated practice of this orchestration can have a great payoff for lifelong attention skills, intelligence, and an ability for self-knowledge and expression.” —

Ratey John J., MD. A User’s Guide to the Brain. New York: Pantheon Books, 2001.

• Data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 showed that music students received more academic honors and awards than other students, and that the percentage of piano student participants receiving As, As/Bs, and Bs was also higher.—

NELS:88 First Follow-up, 1990, National Center for Education
Statistics, Washington DC

• Students with coursework and experience in music performance scored higher on the SAT, 57 points higher on the verbal and 41 points higher on the math, than other students. —

College-Bound Seniors National Report: Profile of SAT Program Test Takers. Princeton, NJ: The College Entrance Examination Board, 2001.

• Physician and biologist Lewis Thomas studied the undergraduate majors of medical school applicants. He found that 66% of music majors who applied to medical school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group. 44% of biochemistry majors were admitted. —

As reported in "The Case for Music in the Schools," Phi Delta Kappan, February 1994

• A recent poll found that 88% of all post-graduate students in college and 83% of all people earning $150,000 or more had extensive music training –

Dee Coulter, PhD, Musikgarten Delivers, 2009

• The very best engineers and technical designers in the Silicon Valley industry are, nearly without exception, practicing musicians. —

Grant Venerable, "The Paradox of the Silicon Savior," as reported in "The Case for Sequential Music Education in the Core Curriculum of the Public Schools," The Center for the Arts in the Basic Curriculum, New York, 1989