The Medical Daily – Dr. Howard L. Forman and Sacha Zilkha
“Research shows there are clear emotional and cognitive benefits to having music education early on in our lives. So much so that music education in youth has been associated with enhanced processing of visual and spatial information, greater literacy, improved ability to learn a second language, academic achievement, and resilience. Researchers believe music education, specifically learning to play an instrument, involves so many different parts of the brain coordinating at once that it leads to strengthened neural pathways. This growth only serves to enhance the development the brain goes through during childhood, the benefits of which last well into adulthood — our auditory systems are “fine-tuned” from this, and memory also improves. In a world where there’s less face-to-face communication than ever, training that increases our ability to interpret subtle emotional communication in spoken language is highly valuable, and this is something music education can provide. Seeing how long an intervention lasts before any benefits are observed is an important consideration when assessing the intervention’s effectiveness. In one study, however, it only took 20 days of music education for there to be cognitive improvement in 90 percent of subjects.”(more)