New research in neuroscience is powerfully underscoring something that music teachers have known for many years: music deeply affects the minds and hearts of musicians. More than just pleasant pastime, casual entertainment, or community-building activity (although it can be all of these), music actually shapes the way we think and feel and process our human experience. It is a lens to understand the world. This is actually evolutionary. Prominent researchers Daniel Levitin, Nina Kraus, and Anita Collins have shown the ways we are hard-wired from birth to make sense of the world through sound, and music in particular. Leveraging this bold new research is already having an impact on studies in language acquisition, literacy, and success in school, especially in early childhood education. Anita Collins’ famous TED video–with over 12 million views–shows how music is like a full-body workout for the brain, impacting cognitive function, memory skills, focus and attention.
But music does so much more for the mind than this. As a language of its own, with its own patterns and structures, and cultural and historical context, music is a way to enhance critical thinking skills, “expert noticing”, analysis and interpretive skills, and the kinds of cognitive work spelled out in the Common Core Standards, and made more specific in the National Co Arts Standards.
Wisconsin’s great gift to music education–the CMP Model (Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance)–has for fifty years shown how being intentional about all parts students’ musical experience, beyond just the skills of playing or singing, enhances their experience and enlarges their cognitive capacity. The Knowledge Outcome focused specifically on this aspect of understanding music and being able to think, talk, and write about it. But the true innovation of the CMP Model was the Affective Outcome, creating an intention goal for students to understand and explore the connections between a piece of music, their own mind and emotions, and other people, whether their own community or those from distant places or eras. Social emotional learning (SEL) is built into music education, but the Affective Outcome made it tangible and drawn powerfully from the music being studied (as opposed to an “extra” social/emotional idea taught in the abstract). Resilience, problem solving, risk-taking, patience in practicing slow repetition, delayed gratification, and even managing frustration—these are among the many social-emotional skills that music education provides. And even the physiological benefits of making music with others has a powerful effect on the mind and spirit. One small example: research now show that singers in a group, like a choir, “sync up” their brain waves in the act of making music together, releasing beneficial endorphins and oxytocin, and building empathy.
By advocating for music education, we affirm its vital role in shaping social-emotional identities and enhancing cognitive growth, equipping all students—regardless of their abilities—with the tools they need for personal and interpersonal success.
