This woman is Dr Anita Collins, a neuromusical educator. What you just heard is an extract from her TEDtalk about the benefits of music education to our cognitive, social and emotional functions. The question that titles this talk, ‘What if every child had access to music education from birth?’, is one I and my family have asked ourselves very often. My background – with both parents in professional orchestras whose careers adjoined span 60 years – means it is not in the least surprising that I’m choosing to investigate this.
My name is Charlotte Addinall. I’m an oboist and a singer. I both listen to music and write it; I play in youth orchestras and sing in choirs; sometimes, I even do my college work. Clearly, I’m very biased. And here I am to explore what benefits music education can really bring to everyone who undertakes it. Welcome to my podcast.
Firstly, I have no qualms with the fact that classical music does not appeal to the majority of people, certainly with whom I’ve come into contact. I’ve been aware of this my entire life and as much as I hate to say it, I’m fairly certain of the fact that it’s not going to change anytime soon. Why is this relevant? Well, some would say that it supports the argument against music education in the curriculum – at least, adding more of it.
However, the internationally famous violinist Nicola Benedetti makes a contradictory point very well in one of her many interviews, saying:
“Needing the child’s approval for what they do in school is just such an alien concept when you’re talking about maths, science, history or English…
“when you bring music into the mix, it’s: ‘Oh no, we can’t show them anything that they don’t instantly love because that would be like forcing children into something that they don’t want to do.’”
This does not automatically mean, of course, that force-feeding children absolutely anything is appropriate when it’s performed within the context of education. But it does highlight how the subject is treated so differently to those that we in this day and age would consider core subjects, and its educational powers so undermined in comparison.
*interview* do you think music should be a compulsory subject?
I find that music’s benefits can be split into 2 very broad areas: academic and social merits. Music making is the only activity which employs the simultaneous usage of all brain areas at once. The number of psychological studies that have been conducted with reference to this, and music from a scientific point of view, is endless. The famous Mozart effect was first documented in 1993. The psychologist that conducted it, Frances H. Rauscher, found remarkable and significant differences in the spatial IQ of the students between the music condition and the other 2 conditions. Rauscher was quoted as having said, with regard to this and other studies she conducted:
“Music lessons, and even simply listening to music, can enhance spatial reasoning performance, a critical higher-brain function necessary to perform complex tasks including mathematics.”
This vein of research in its earliest form, as seen here, can obviously be criticised heavily today. However, the results are supported by a great number of other studies conducted since 1993, including those who disregard Mozart’s music as a factor and instead focus on music in general as a stimulus. Researchers such as Schellenberg, Costa-Giomi and Bilhartz to name a few have all produced studies that contribute to the idea that music improves cognitive function. Similar results are found for research into motor functioning.
*interview*
The magnified details of studies such as these would be ill-placed in a short film, but I can assure you, they are mostly comprehensive. It would be foolish to claim that they all support this idea completely, because no one thing in this entire world is certain. There are always exceptions. Nevertheless in this instance, the simple argument that music improves learning more than it hinders it is reliably proven by a stretch.
According to the ‘International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement Test’, the world’s top academic countries place a high value on music education. Hungary, the Netherlands and Japan have required music training at the elementary and middle school levels, both instrumental and vocal, for several decades. Whilst the correlation between these 2 factors is very possibly a coincidence, I rather doubt it.
*interview*
So the academic benefits are plentiful then. But to normal people – people like me, maybe like you – not admissions tutors or employment recruiters or educational researchers – this isn’t really that significant or important for our everyday lives. It’s impressive perhaps, and it demonstrates a lot; but realistically, what can we do with this information? Well, whilst I myself can’t tell what difference playing an instrument has made to my academic abilities, I can certainly tell what it has done for my social life. I’ve always been incredibly awkward, that’s just a fact of life. It’s probably written in the Bible somewhere. As a young child – a little posh-voiced nerd, I was – I was especially inept. Whilst I’m not saying I’m not awkward now – because I am – I’m now more confident, more relaxed; I take myself less seriously, and I deal with potentially embarrassing situations with more ease. I am by no means putting this all down to playing an instrument because as far as I, being an average teenager, understand it, growing less socially unskillful as you grow older is fairly standard amongst the human race. But even I have noticed the changes in myself. I just handle myself better.
Don’t take my word for it. In their study on the influence of music on social cognitive skills, Ulfarsdottir and Erwin studied whether skills in interpersonal cognitive problem solving would improve by a short music therapy intervention in regular pre-schools. Whilst no significant differences were observed in the control or intervention group between the pre- and post-interventions assessments, a follow-up test showed a significant difference after seven months. The children who had attended the music therapy program showed a significant improvement with regard to alternative solution thinking and consequential thinking – which appear to generally underpin social adjustment – compared to children in the control group. For the children in the musically-enriched pre-school, there was even more of a difference. And from the outcome of his research, Bastian concluded that music education can improve the social climate in a classroom and the school as a whole.
Aside from the personal social benefits, which concern an individual’s ability to interact with others, I think the most important element of life that I’ve gained through my musical experiences is friendship. Simple, pure friendship, which can be so hard to find in the world today. I don’t love playing in an orchestra the most out of everything just because of the music, although that’s obviously a very big part of it. I love it especially because of the other people. Life, to me, is worthless without other people. There are no words to describe the feeling that comes with playing amazing music with people who love it just as much as you do. I feel sorry that the whole world can’t experience it. (CSYO Mahler story)
*interview* what’s been your most powerful musical experience?
Music has helped me make some of the closest friends in my life. It brings people with the same love together. Every Saturday I spend over 7 hours at the RNCM in Manchester as part of their Juniors programme, which is basically music college for students up until they attend higher education after A-levels. A great deal of the musicians there take up senior positions in the National Youth Orchestra, which is really quite impressive. I’ve only been there a year but I met one of the closest friends of my life there. It’s a lovely environment because everyone is there for the same reason, it’s not competitive in the slightest and the standard at the older end is exceptional. Without music education and instrumental lessons, nobody can experience this. It’s a dangerously precarious subject to teach and it’s very difficult to get right, and the majority of people who undertake it probably won’t fall in love with it like I have. The odds are against us. I often feel like it’s the musicians versus the world at large.
But you heard what I said: even if it doesn’t change them, music can enrich the lives of children to an extent that can’t be replicated by anything else, both socially and academically. For a young child struggling in school – finding the work hard, having trouble making friends – to suddenly discover they understand something that brings them joy, those lessons are invaluable. To feel like they have something to work for, something they can do. If we were to take a look at the situation from a more general perspective, it’s not just music that’s in dire need of attention – all the arts are suffering massively. I was lucky enough to be able to attend a school that paid the subject enough attention to help me develop my skills and feel that I was good at something. But for those millions of creative children who don’t have that financial privilege, that cushion, school just becomes a place that they don’t want to be; they don’t have a hunger for knowledge or motivation to learn because they feel like they’re not good enough at anything. Their self-esteem will suffer massively. And even if schools invest in a department lower down, there’s no guarantee that the few students who love the subject will be able to continue studying it at GCSE or A-level. I read recently about a student called Archie Ttwheam who, despite being predicted 99% for the composition section of his music GCSE, will be forced to drop the subject because none of the schools local to him provide it as a A-level. How is this happening in the 21st century? Just 6 months ago it was announced that the arts would be excluded from the new English baccalaureate. I think that demonstrates this government’s attitude towards the arts perfectly. Music A-level was one of the subjects with the biggest falls in popularity over the past decade, with entries plummeting by 39%. GCSE entries fell by 31% over the same period. And fewer students means even fewer music teachers in the future, to keep the subject alive. It’s ridiculous and unacceptable.
It’s just not the same in the rest of the world – look at El Sistema in Venezuela. It’s protecting hundreds of thousands of young, impoverished children from crime and drugs on the street; and not only that, it’s giving them something to look forward to; it’s enriching their social lives; it’s bringing suffering families together; and it’s producing some of the most fantastic young musicians. A man called Edicson Ruiz became the youngest person to ever join the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra – widely recognised as one of the best professional orchestras in the world – when he started there at 17. Seventeen. All this incredible talent could never have been harvested if it wasn’t for a music programme. Classical music is not elitist. Classical music is for anyone.
I’ve rather strayed from what this podcast was originally going to be about, which is what benefits classical music can bring to its students. Although I have in fact talked about that, I’ve only scratched the surface. I couldn’t possibly tell you the details of all the research that has been conducted in relation to this topic because we would be here for a considerable number of hours. What I’m trying to do now is demonstrate why anyone should care about it all. And at the end of the day, the science doesn’t matter to me. I’m not going to hold it close to my heart and treasure it every day. As I already said, it’s impressive enough, and it’s really quite convenient that it’s supporting what I’m trying to argue, but I won’t remember any of those statistics. Neither will you. What I’m hoping you will remember is the power of music. That concert happened over 18 months ago, and just the memory of it brings me to tears. The emotional, political and rehabilitative powers are different to anything else in the world. Why should this matter in our educational system? Well, for some children, school is the only place where they can access music in that way. For some, it’s the only safe place in their life. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the thing that saves them.