Teens see music as their “social glue” and as a bridge for building acceptance and tolerance for people of different ages and cultural backgrounds.
It is said that the state of mankind improves through music; music not only trains but educates individuals and makes them fit for a life of community. Music is spiritual and mental food, an edifying and educational power. In comparison with sports (the motion of bodies), music (the motion of sounds) belongs to a higher sphere. In extreme cases, one encounters the tenet that music actually elevates man into a higher realm, transforming him into a new form of the human species.
One great thing about writing a blog is that you get to read a number of other blogs. Like music education itself, The blogosphere isn’t a great pit of competition, it is an entity that is always trying to improve through practice, influence, and collaboration to achieve higher levels of skill and performance. Here are a few of my favorite blogs I’ve encountered that I read on a weekly basis:
Music training leads to greater gains in auditory and motor function when begun in young childhood; by adolescence, the plasticity that characterizes childhood has begun to decline. Nevertheless, our results establish that music training impacts the auditory system even when it is begun in adolescence, suggesting that a modest amount of training begun later in life can affect neural function.
Young children who take music lessons show different brain development and improved memory over the course of a year, compared to children who do not receive musical training.
The September 2017 Staff Spotlight is with Derek Felix of Chops Percussion. Derek has been with Chops from the very beginning, joining the Paige’s Music staff back in 2006 when Chops was launched. Please watch this interview to learn a little more about him and where he’s going on tour in just a few weeks!
Much like expert technical skills, mastery in arts and humanities is closely correlated to a greater understanding of language components.
U.S. Department of Education data on more than 25,000 secondary school students found that 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.”