At Piano Power, we’ve always known that music education was fun and stimulating.  Recent research supports our view that the benefits of music education are both specific and far-reaching.  Here’s a sampling of the benefits of music education:

Music education improves academic performance and test-taking.

• High school music students have been shown to hold higher grade point averages (GPA) than non-musicians in the same school. (National Educational Longitudinal Study, 1988)

• Music training helps under-achievers. Students lagging behind in scholastic performance caught up to their fellow students in reading and surpassed their classmates in math by 22% when given music instruction over seven months. (Nature, May 23, 1996)

Music education improves self-esteem and overall social development.

• With music in schools, students connect to each other better — greater camaraderie, fewer fights, less racism and reduced use of hurtful sarcasm. (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2001)

• During moments of musical euphoria, blood travels through the brain to areas that produce contentment and joy — and travels away from areas associated with depression and fear. (AMC Music News, June 2, 1999)

Music education improves college admission prospects.

• Students in music-performance courses scored 57 points higher on verbal section of the SAT, and 41 points higher on the math, than did students with no arts participation. (The College Entrance Examination Board, 2001)

Music education prepares students for successful professional lives.

• The nation’s top business executives agree that arts education programs can help repair weaknesses in American education and better prepare workers for the 21st century. (BusinessWeek, October 1996)

• The foremost technical designers and engineers in Silicon Valley are almost all practicing musicians. (Music and the Mind, 1993)

Outstanding music education leads to a lifelong love of music… and a love of life.

Outstanding music education benefits the mind, body, and soul in a dramatic way.  The following quote from former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley says it all:

“Pablo Casals says music fills him with the wonder of life and the ‘incredible marvel’ of being a human.  Charles Ives says it expands his mind and challenges him to be a true individual.  Leonard Bernstein says it is enriching and ennobling.  To me, that sounds like a good case for making music and the arts an integral part of every child’s education.  Studying music and the arts elevates children’s education, expands students’ horizons, and teaches them to appreciate the wonder of life.”