Annotated Bibliography: How Playing Music Affects The Developing Brain

As the children grew up, the scientists used MRI and EEG scans to observe their brains. During the first two years of this study, they found out that the children who were learning music were maturing faster and developing much more of an auditory pathway than the others. “The enhanced maturity reflects an increase in neuroplasticity – a physiological change in the brain in response to its environment – in this case, exposure to music and music instruction” (Gersema). This fast development of the brain’s neuroplasticity, and auditory pathway can accelerate certain abilities like language development, communication, and reading skills.

Did you know that music is one of the few activities that utilizes the whole entire brain? Did you know that music can physically alter your brain structure? Today I am going to be talking about the power of music and its impacts and effects on the brain. Throughout my whole life I have always had a passion for music of all different types and genres. I listen to music wherever I go and during whatever I’m doing. My mom would continually badger me about the music I was listening to and how it was corrupting my brain. After much research and many songs later, I discovered it actually has many positive effects on the brain. In the rest

What kind of music do you like? Is it rock, country, rap, pop, or something else. We all have some sort of preference that we like, and we can thank our brain for that. With this paper I will tell you how our brain reacts to music and how it affects us.

Music and music experiences support the formation of important brain connections that are being established over the first three years of life (Carlton 2000). Musical experiences are helpful for academic achievement in childhood, because music actually accelerate brain development, particularly in the areas of language acquisition and reading skills. (The University of Southern California’s Brain and Creativity Institute) Moreover, music ignites all areas of child development and skills for readiness intellectual,

At the same time, a specific report titled “School Art Programs: Should They Be Saved?” by Valeriya Metla, argues that music classes jeopardize students’ futures by distracting them from “important” core classes. However, as other research proves, music generally leaves a positive impact on students’ learning and school experience. First off, recent research shows that music education actually improves test scores. Ellen Judson wrote that according to a 10 year study tracking about 25,000 high school and middle school students, “Students in music programs scored 63 points higher on the verbal and 44 points higher on the math sections of the SATs than students with no music participation.” This shows that music helped these students learn and also helped them display their learning on tests. This, then, raises the question “What is it about music that improves learning?” Significant research has also been completed on the effects of music on children’s brains and neurological development. The National Association for Music Education explained that music helps develop language and reasoning, builds memorization skills, helps develop spatial thinking skills, and helps creative thinking.

Have you ever felt as though listening to music helped you focus when learning? Have you felt it increased your brain activity and made you work better and faster? Music is a fascinating element used by many people from different cultures to express themselves and learn. An argument at large with the use of music is, can music truly further and express learning and cognitive development? Like most debates, this topic has two opposing sides, as to whether it can or cannot affect the brain. On one side, it has been said that music has a positive effect on learning, development and brain activity and on the other hand, it has been said to have little to no effect. From the research and studies conducted, music has a positive effect on cognitive development, recall and learning. When working, listening to music can

The fifth and final premise is that the musical brain is highly resilient (Jones, 2010). The aforementioned supports the idea that music has a heavy effect on

There is scientific evidence that listening to and playing music increases skills in the brain and musicians are able to apply it to almost anything else in their lives. Neuroscientists have made an incredible breakthrough in seeing how the brain reacts in different situations using real time monitoring with technology such as PET scans. By using these scans, you can see when someone is doing activities such as reading or doing a maths problem, where certain areas of the brain activate on the monitor. However, when the participants listened to music, scientists saw the entire brain engage using multiple areas to take apart the rhythm and melody, then put them back together creating a unified sound in the mind. When listening to music, the brain engages and is able to recognise the sounds, all in a split second. This fascinating result was then compared with the study of those who play music themselves as opposed to just listening to it and it showed that when playing an instrument you are not only engaging your brain but working all the different areas just like exercise would. Even though the research is still new, it has shown the brain can simultaneously process different information at a very fast pace. The parts of the brain that control motor skills, hearing, storing audio information and memory become more active when someone learns an

Recent studies have shown that a fully matured brain is capable of changing by learning simple music techniques. This process is identified as Music Plasticity, Plasticity is permanently shaping structural brain development.(jneurosci) Changes occur because of the profound emotions that music is able to break through. Each song written holds heavy expression within it, the associations that musicians make with these expressions is particularly…. Playing an instrument is an intense, personal movement in which long periods of practice time is a must. It requires hours upon hours of repetitive movements, memorizing long phrases, and different forms of time presion levels, being so, this develops strong organizational skills within the brain,

“TDLC: Music and the Brain.” Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center An NSF of Science Learning Center. University of California San Diego, n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2015

Music is often thought of as just a form of entertainment however, scientists are finding that music could be valuable to human health. Music therapy is often used to treat a few minor conditions but the little research that has been done has shown that it can be useful to much more than people originally suspected. It was after World War I and II when music therapy became an occupation. Musicians would go to hospitals and play for the injured veterans that were suffering from physical or emotional harm. Music has been described as a mean for healing in Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, Greek, and Roman historical writings. Currently, music therapy is underused because of the limited amount of research done on how music affects the brain. However,

The question we will be researching is, what genre of music, rap, country, or pop, helps improve athletic performance? This experiment has been done before, by Miami University students. They did surveys and asked personal questions (weight, height, musical preferences etc). After this survey they conducted an experiment, it was a silent jog with 20 minute breaks in between with different music for each jog. A few questions we have are, in what way would music affect the brain? Also, why do different genres matter? Lastly, by how much will the music improve your physical performance?

Abundant examples exist since the beginning of the written human record about how music affects mood and can be used to soothe or torture, but what about whether or not music can help us maintain and support the function of our brains? There is no question that music plays a significant role in people’s lives, but the question of our brain’s reaction to music constantly makes me wonder how music could improve our brain function. Increasingly, research is focusing on how music, particularly music education, can make a difference in how our brains process and file information. Research supports the idea that music is processed in a unique area of the brain, there may be an optimal window for learning

When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active, but when you actually play an instrument that activity becomes more like a full body brain workout. This statement was written by Anita Collins a researcher at Ted Ed. She and her colleagues developed a film entitled “How playing an instrument benefits your brain,” which helped to explain what really happens inside your brain when you play an instrument. Research in the new field of Music Neuroscience shows that it is important to learn to play an instrument because it increases your intelligence, it could help to build character, and it is an outlet for creativity.

Although many, one positive way music education is beneficial to students is that it has a large impact on brain stem growth. With the incorporation of music in a student’s daily life, the brain stem’s responses become more robust (Brown). Therefore, the amount of brain stem growth correlates with recent musical training. As stated by Brown, an adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore, “student’s that are involved with a large amount of music will see more gains in brain stem growth”. Furthermore, the neural changes that occur in students as adolescents stay with them into adulthood (“Music Matters”). This allows students to be more prepared once they go into the workforce as adults. Along with the brain stem’s responses being more robust, it’s sensitivity to sound increases (“The Benefits” 1). This is abundantly evident from early on, as mother’s sing to their infants to facilitate brain stimulation and development. Enrichment through music, starting at a young age, seems to improve individuals speech sound development and use of more advanced vocabulary. Adolescents’ language also improves with the use of music in a student’s academics (Miller 46). Luehrisen