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Music helps you learn

05.08.2015

Music lessons develop hearing and increase the ability to distinguish sounds of very different timbres, pitches, etc. The same is required when learning another language - we must clearly hear the sounds of speech, no matter how slurred it may be, and feel the intonation of the speaker. Can, then, music lessons stimulate academic success in language subjects?

Nina Kraus and her colleagues at Northwestern University selected 40 junior high school students whose progress they followed through senior year. Half of the students signed up for music classes, in which they play 2-3 hours a week on some instruments; the other half went to the classes of the youth department of the Training Corps of Reserve Officers, where about the same time (2-3 hours a week) was spent on a variety of physical exercises. All participants in the experiment attended the same schools and belonged to families with not very high incomes.

Success in language subjects was noted by all students, but those who studied music achieved more. Of course, the researchers did not limit themselves to just comparing school grades - recordings of brain activity made at the beginning of high school and then, three years later, indicated that the areas responsible for recognizing sounds in “musical” students developed faster. The brains of those who played musical instruments were more sensitive to sound nuances, and this, apparently, had its advantages in learning the language. The research results are published in the journal PNAS.

Here we can recall another article that was published in 2013 by the staff of the University of Exeter. They found that reading from the point of view of brain physiology can be akin to listening to music - it turned out that our favorite books awaken the same zones in our head that are responsible for musical experiences. True, language students participated in those experiments, and it would, of course, be interesting to conduct the same study, but with those for whom literature is not a professional choice.

Nevertheless, as we can see, music is a language not only from the point of view of semiotics, aesthetics, etc., but also from the point of view of neurobiology, and this conclusion in this case is based on data on the work of the brain. (For those who suddenly disagree with this conclusion, let's put it this way: music and "ordinary" language have very, very, very much in common.) If we talk about some practical-educational consequences from the new data, then we have to admit that music lessons in childhood are not as useless as they might seem, and that they literally help develop speech and language skills.

On the other hand, there are purely psychological benefits from music for a child: just six months ago, we talked about studies by psychologists from the University of Vermont, who came to the conclusion that music lessons help children manage their own emotions, increase attentiveness and reduce anxiety.

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