"When researchers opened the doors of how music affects the brain, no one was prepared for how thoroughly integrated music is in our brain activity." - INSIDE Magazine
Greetings musical minds! I've got a cool subject today, one which I luckily stumbled upon in my program of a play called "Inventing Van Gogh" last night. I have been wanting to write a short blog about this many times but never got around to it. So let's get to it.
Why is music the best extra-curricular activity parents can get their kids involved in? Is it a coincidence that the greatest minds of all time like Leonardo DaVinci, Albert Einstein, Issac Newton and Bill Gates among others were musicians? I think not.
Music is scientifically proven to improve mathematical skills. In an info graphic that can be seen here: http://dailyinfographic.com/music-lessons-make-you-smarter-infographic, we can see that "in a study of 96 children ages 5-7, those who received 7 months of supplementary music and arts classes earned HIGHER MATHEMATICS SCORES than those with the schools' typical music and arts training."
Math is not the only benefit, reading skills are also proven to be better. After all, music is yet another language us musicians speak! In the same info graphic as above we see another study "with over 500,000 high school students" that proved "a strong correlation between music instruction and HIGHER READING TEST SCORES."
Click HERE for link to info graphic.
This is not all, music kids have higher IQ's and score higher in standardized tests such as the SAT.
Music has a profound impact in brain activity. According to an article in INSIDE Magazine, "studies over time showed that the brain changes shape as the result of exposure to music: that discovery was mind-bending."
In an even better example of the power of music, "researchers pitted music against anti-anxiety drugs in pre-operation patients, and they discovered that the patients who listened to music had lower cortisol levels (the hormone secreted to deal with stress) than the group who took medication." A cool little thing I learned last night: sad music makes the brain release prolactin, the hormonal tranquilizer found in mother's milk, making sad music a NATURAL TRANQUILIZER. -INSIDE Magazine.