The U.S. News and World Report – The Hechinger Report
“A tiny study of 40 high school students in Chicago perked up some ears recently. It found that a small amount of musical instrument instruction – only two to three hours of band class a week – improved how the teenage brain processed sound. Neuroscientists from Northwestern University made the case that the kind of brain maturation they documented was not only important for becoming a better musician, but also for developing non-musical verbal skills. “Although learning to play music does not teach skills that seem directly relevant to most careers, the results suggest that music may engender what educators refer to as ‘learning to learn,'” wrote Nina Kraus, the lead researcher of the July 2015 study, “Music training alters the course of adolescent auditory development,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed publication. “Learning to learn” refers to almost any technique that improves a brain’s ability to learn a new thing.”(more)