What are some benefits of music education?

You might wonder what long-term benefits your children gain from Kindermusik. Here are some proven benefits of music education:

1. Early musical training helps develop brain areas involved in language and reasoning. Recent studies have clearly indicated that musical training physically develops the part of the left side of the brain known to be involved with processing language, and can actually wire the brain's circuits in specific ways. Linking familiar songs to new information can also help imprint information on young minds.

2. There is also a link between music and spatial intelligence (the ability to perceive the world accurately and to form mental pictures of things). This kind of intelligence, by which one can visualize various elements that should go together, is critical to the sort of thinking necessary for everything from solving advanced mathematics problems to being able to pack a book-bag with everything that will be needed for the day.

3. Students of the arts learn to think creatively and to solve problems by imagining various solutions. Questions about the arts do not have only one right answer.

4. A study of the arts provides children with an internal glimpse of other cultures and teaches them to be empathetic towards the people of these cultures. This development of compassion and empathy provides a bridge across cultures that leads to a respect of other races at an early age.

5. Music provides children a means of self-expression which enhances a child's self-esteem.

6. Music study develops skills that are necessary in the workplace. In the music classroom, students learn to better communicate and cooperate with one another.

Article from School Music Today.