WHY STUDY MUSIC? 

• The College Board identifies the arts as one of the six basic academic subject area students should study in order to succeed in college.
• Secondary students who participated in band or orchestra reported the lowest lifetime and current use of all substances (alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs).
• Students who report consistent high levels of involvement in instrumental music over the middle and high school years show “significantly higher levels of mathematics proficiency by grade 12.”
• Physician and biologist Lewis Thomas studied the undergraduate majors of medical school applicants. He found that 66% of music majors who applied to music school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group. 44% of biochemistry majors were admitted.
• A research team exploring the link between music and intelligence reported that music training is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children’s abstract reasoning skills, the skills necessary for learning math and science.
• A University of California (Irvine) study showed that after eight months of keyboard lessons, preschoolers showed a 46% boost in their spatial reasoning IQ.
• A McGill University study found that pattern recognition and mental representation scores improved significantly for students given piano instruction over a three-year period. They also found that self-esteem and musical skills measures improved for the student given piano instruction.

Sources:
1.        Academic Preparation for College: What Students Need to Know and Be Able to Do, [still in use], The College Board, New York
2.        Texas Commission on Drugs and Alcohol Abuse Report. Reported in the Houston Chronicle, January 1998.
3.        Catterall, James S., Richard Chapleau, and John Iwanaga. “Involvement in the Arts and Human Development: General  Involvement and Intensive Involvement in Music and Theater Arts” Los Angeles, CA: The Imagination Project at UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, 1999.
4.        As reported in “The Case for Music in the Schools,” Phi Delta Kappan, Febuary 1994.
5.        Shaw, Rauscher, Levine, Wright, Dennis and Newcomb, “Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial-temporal reasoning,” Neurological Research, Vol. 19, February 1997.
6.        Rauscher, Shaw, Levine, Ky and Wright, “Music and Spatial Task Performance: A Causal Relationship,” University of California, Irvine, 1994
Costa-Giomi, E. (1998,April). The McGill Piano Project: Effects of three years of piano instruction on children’s cognitive abilities, academic achievement and self-esteem. Paper presented at the meeting of the Music Educators National Conference, Phoenix, AZ.