Posted on 06/30/2019 6:09:40 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
High schoolers who take music courses score significantly better on exams in certain other subjects, including math and science, than their non-musical peers, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association.
"It is believed that students who spend school time in music classes, rather than in further developing their skills in math, science and English classes, will underperform in those disciplines. Our research suggests that, in fact, the more they study music, the better they do in those subjects."
"Students who participated in music, who had higher achievement in music, and who were highly engaged in music had higher exam scores across all subjects, while these associations were more pronounced for those who took instrumental music rather than vocal music," he said. "On average, the children who learned to play a musical instrument for many years, and were now playing in high school band and orchestra, were the equivalent of about one academic year ahead of their peers with regard to their English, mathematics and science skills, as measured by their exam grades."
Apart from the strength of the associations, the researchers were most surprised by the consistency of the associations across all three subject areas (math, science and English).
"Learning to play a musical instrument and playing in an ensemble is very demanding. A student has to learn to read music notation, develop eye-hand-mind coordination, develop keen listening skills, develop team skills for playing in an ensemble and develop discipline to practice. All those learning experiences play a role in enhancing children's cognitive capacities and their self-efficacy," he said. "It is that high levels of music engagement for which we saw the strongest effects."
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
My son in law was a music major until he switched his major to physics. Now he’s a research scientist with a large defense contractor.
I could never read a note in music.
“It is believed that students who spend school time in music classes, rather than in further developing their skills in math, science and English classes, will underperform in those disciplines.”
Who believed that?
No one.
Musicians ARE pretty smart. I would know.
They’re putting the cart before the horse.
That is, it’s been known for a long time that some people have brains wired to comprehend *abstracts*, such as mathematics or musical notation. Other people do not have this wiring, so after minimal learning they hit a dead end.
However, there are plenty of good “play by ear” musicians, who after years of trying *still* can’t read music.
So it is not the music that is improving their math grades, it is reading music and understanding it that way.
Huh...I think they are confusing correlation with causation. It’s very likely students who are good at math, take more music classes.
Heck, I can’t read music, play an instrument or sing.
I wasn’t even allowed to sing in the 5th grade Christmas program!
the musician were already born with the talent?
Learning to play a musical instrument and playing in an ensemble is very demanding. A student has to learn to read music notation, develop eye-hand-mind coordination, develop keen listening skills, develop team skills [get along]for playing in an ensemble and develop discipline to practice. All those learning experiences play a role in enhancing children's cognitive capacities and their self-efficacy," he said. "It is that high levels of music engagement for which we saw the strongest effects."
Something to that. Beats Atari, fer sure.
I wonder who does better in math - music or chess players?
Is the data adjusted for family income?
Even the one's who didn't go to music school or study, SO MANY software guys are musicians on the side.
Software is way more about language expression and invisible moving architecture than math expression. So - way more like music. Music is of course mathematical too, but software is more about language than math.
“These associations continued to be significant even when the researchers controlled for demographic factors such as gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background and prior achievement on similar exams in seventh grade.”
I used to hire inexperienced guys to train in computer programming. I would always take a musician or a classics major, they worked out well.
Hold on—if you had two Einsteins, the one who played violin would be a grade ahead. Something like that.
(ducking)
During WWII musicians were recruited for code breaking.
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