Music 'makes children smarter'

Music is as important as reading, writing and maths for the child's development since it boosts intelligence and general well-being.

This was recently confirmed in a study conducted by Susan Hallam at the University of London's Institute of Education, entitled Music Psychology in Education, which looked into the impact of music on the brain.

Prof. Hallam said that playing music together also taught children to work as a team. She said that learning to play an instrument has demonstrable effects on intelligence, while singing helped younger children with language development.

She said: "Music should play an important part in early years education, not least because making and listening to music are rewarding for children as well as adults."

In Malta, music education is not receiving the attention it deserves but is concentrated around singing which is only a small part of the totality of music, according to Norman Cristina, who has been teaching music at Chiswick House School for the past seven years and who is the author of the B.Ed. thesis Towards A Better Music Education In Maltese State Secondary Schools.

Mr Cristina, whose compositions and improvisations have been the setting for various successful drama activities locally and abroad, said that not all teachers truly believe in the need to have music lessons and the situation is made worse by some parents' negative attitudes towards music education.

The benefits of music have been illustrated in various studies. Late last year, research published by Stanford University showed that musical training improves how the brain processes the spoken word, a finding that researchers say could lead to improving the reading ability of children who have dyslexia and other reading problems.

The research was performed at Stanford in 2004 and was presented last year at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in Washington. Researcher John Gabrieli, a former Stanford psychology professor now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, said: "What this study shows, that's novel, is that there's a specific aspect of language... that's changed in the minds and brains of people with musical training. Especially for children... who aren't good at rapid auditory processing and are high-risk for becoming poor readers, they may especially benefit from musical training."

The US National Association for Music Education, based in Virginia, further reinforced what studies have been highlighting: "Success in school and in society depends on an array of abilities. Without joining the intense ongoing debate about the nature of intelligence as a basic ability, we can demonstrate that some measures of a child's intelligence are indeed increased with music instruction. Once again, this burgeoning range of data supports a long-established base of anecdotal knowledge to the effect that music education makes kids smarter.

"What is new and especially compelling, however, is a combination of tightly-controlled behavioural studies and groundbreaking neurological research that show how music study can actively contribute to brain development."

However, despite what studies continue to confirm, music education is still sometimes portrayed as extra in the Maltese school timetable, Mr Cristina said.

The University of London study argues that music's proven benefits for health, well-being and social cohesion should earn it a prime place in the school curriculum, "so it is worrying that teachers round the world find they have to battle to incorporate it into the classroom".

In Malta's case, Mr Cristina said that music lessons in state secondary schools are not always available for all levels. He said that in the majority of cases, music forms part of a subject-slot known as AML (art, music, literature) in which the students are taught one subject per term. Furthermore, music teachers in state schools are not normally on a full-time basis and teach a large number of classes in various schools. This significantly reduces the number of music lessons per class.

Regarding the feedback received from parents, Mr Cristina said: "Little do the parents realise how much music education helps obtain strongly better academic results in most other academic subjects.

"The only way for possible improvement in the Maltese educational system is by placing music education at the core of the educational system rather than consider it as merely part of the expressive arts," he said.