Cognitive development power of music

“Life without playing music is inconceivable for me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most joy in life out of music” — Albert Einstein

In multiple studies conducted and reports published around the world, it’s been clearly established that music education greatly aids the cognitive development of children. Children who learn music have higher IQs and this is because music engages the left and right brain simultaneously.

A study conducted jointly by the University of Wisconsin and University of California at Irvine in 1997 indicates that three-four-year-olds with eight months of music instruction, including singing and keyboard lessons, averaged 43 percent more in IQ tests than children who didn’t sign up for music lessons. Similarly, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study reveals that the cerebral cortex of concert pianists is 30 percent larger than of acknowledged intellectuals without music education.

Likewise, a research study conducted by Susan Hallam in 2010 at the Institute of Education, University of London, concluded that students with formal music education tend to have higher academic scores in primary, middle and high school years.

Yet despite the obvious creative and disciplinary benefits of music education, this discipline is not mandatory in the majority of India’s 1.40 million schools. At best, singing is encouraged in pre-primary and primary years with a dedicated period set aside for this activity. By the time children reach secondary school, music as a subject and even singing classes, are dropped with a small minority left to acquire music education on their own. Even though CBSE and the CISCE boards offer music as an elective at the secondary level, very few schools actively encourage music traditions.

On the other hand, in schools affiliated with the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate Organisation, music is an important element in children’s education and is taught as an integral subject of the curriculum from primary years onwards. It’s not coincidence that since it was founded in 1968, IBO — which offers four education programmes (primary, middle years, careers-related and diploma (class XII)) is emerging as the world’s most preferred school board with 4,375 affiliated schools in 147 countries.

Although in India, government policy tends to ignore formal music education, progressive governments around the world have introduced compulsory music education with defined goals and objectives into their school systems. Following the lead of the UK and US, a growing number of countries are providing access to music instruction in public and private schools through the formal curriculum. Countries such as Hungary, The Netherlands, Japan and China, whose students consistently fare well in international learning measurement and assessment tests, have made music a mandatory curriculum subject in primary-secondary school, and an optional subject with academic credits in higher education.

Although Hungary until the 1990s was a member-nation of the Soviet controlled Warsaw Pact, one of the few benefits of communist dictatorship was a robust education system in which music learning was compulsory. This tradition continues, and today music education is compulsory in every public and private school from class I-X. Hungary’s school curriculum requires all children to create, appreciate and acknowledge good music. Unsurprisingly, Hungarian children perform well in Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment — an international test which assesses science, maths and reading competencies of 15-year-olds) and are ranked #39, above Turkey and Israel.

Similarly in The Netherlands, music education is integrated into school curriculums with all students obliged to learn the subject in theory and practice. No surprise then, that Dutch 15-year-olds rank among the Top 10 in the annual Pisa test. Likewise in Japan, music education is integral to the national culture. From an early age, students are obliged to learn art, homemaking, music and physical education, with music as a core academic subject on a par with maths. Japan’s Pisa rank: #7.

The world’s top-ranked ‘nation’ in the Pisa league table (2013) is Shanghai-China with a maths score of 613 (cf. the OECD average of 494), reading score of 570 (496) and science 580 (501). In the Shanghai-China region, all primary-secondary students are taught to read music and play an instrument, with most of them encouraged to learn at least two instruments. Moreover, music exams and participation in festivals and Chinese and Western classical music concerts is mandatory.

The evidence is irrefutable. Music with its notes, scales, keys and written and oral body of work stretching over centuries, if not millennia, is an academic discipline and universal language that deserves to be incorporated into every school’s formal curriculum. Educators in India need to agree on introducing music education right from primary school to not only improve and enhance the creative and cognitive skills of students, but to also keep valuable cultural traditions alive.

(Tanuja Gomes is the Mumbai-based co-CEO of Furtados School of Music)