Benefits of music education in schools

¶ … Music in the coming years have increased manifold. The Scientific Research has proven Music as a strong medium, which can incorporate mathematical skills and personal attributes into an individual. Music has generated positive impact on the learning capabilities of the human, all this has been proven scientifically, biological changes results in the human subjected to musical activities. Furthermore Music has introduced essence of creativity, intellectual inspiration, motivation into the mankind. This medium of expression has crossed all the geographical barriers ands have penetrated deep into the human soul transpiring a feeling of comfort, and advocating a bridge of understanding and conflict resolution.

Irrespective of the professional association, the success of all the professionals and scientists is attributed with their partial or complete affiliation with Music.

INTRODUCTION

The professional advocacy previously used to be judged on the basis of the academic proficiency, experience and related skills. But soon we realized that professional excellence requires elements beyond the scope of professional learning. Those elements are set of those activities which generate and provoke creativity, enthusiasm and passion towards the objective. The inquisitive set of activities always needs to be incorporated into the academic levels to enhance and support the spiritual and personal motivation of an individual. The practice of such activities are termed as 'food for thought' as the combination of those activities further increase the mental spectrum of human mind to excel professionally and academically.

The human body and mind corresponds and develops harmony for achieving and accomplishing certain task, the continuous stress of academic load disturbs the equilibrium between the mind and body. The unbalance can be easily removed if set of extra circular activities are practiced, such activities brings relief towards the mental tiredness of an individual.

The non-academic activities soothe human soul and mind, and helps in removing all the mental constraints.

Music is termed as 'food for soul' much because it organizes the mental activities, and then correspond those according to the physical behavior of an individual. The nature of Music develops the mental capabilities of human mind, by nourishing the mental capabilities, thus making an individual adaptable towards the unexpected circumstances. The complexities of human mid, feeling of uneasiness, state of confusion, and in worst cases mental disorder ness and psychiatric problems can be controlled, handled, and cured by introducing the music, into different activities of life, in certain proportion. The orderly arrangement of frequencies in form of melodies and notes has major impact on the human activities.

These factors have contributed significantly towards building understanding with in academicians and professionals for introducing music as subject in schools and other academic levels.

IMPORTANCE of MUSIC

The very first statement of 'The Value and Quality of Arts Education: A Statement of Principles', a document presented by the America's leading educational organization (i.e. American Association of School Administrators, the National Education Association, the National Parent Teacher Association, and the National school Boards Association) reads, 'Every Student in the nation should have an education in the arts'.

The common human perception regarding Arts is discouraging, majority of the people belief that, the subject has no significant impact on the professional life and behavioral characteristics of an individual. Art is more confine is to undertaken as hobby, but considering Art as subject to learn and apply is strange concept.

Music is form of Art, and normally it is observed that due to lack of interest, non- serious attitude and inadequacy of the resources, the school management ignores and drops the idea of introducing Music as a subject. The research proves that Music has positive impact on the mental performance of a student; it composes and harmonizes all the sets of activities pursued by the students. Music is responsible for bringing success into all the expeditions and conquests followed by its listener, Music is responsible for introducing success in the worldly and spiritual life of the student, success is achieved by the student in his academic career, success is attained in developing and broadening of intelligence, and most importantly in brings success into individual's character and personality which is recognized and appreciated by the society. Music is therefore responsible for bringing stable social standing to the individual.

Music is segment of our social activities; it is practiced and adopted at different level excluding academics with vigor and enthusiasm. Many cultures share their affiliations with music of different forms. Music is not only viewed as source of delight, comfort and relaxation rather Music is significantly adopted as a medium for forwarding thoughts. In many of the cases Music is termed as 'Universal Language', a language that has no word but still has lot to convey. Music therefore has positive consequences on different front of societies including social, cultural and economical (Music industry and Tourism foster economic growth).

All these factors have convinced the school management to introduce and teach Music as formal subject in their schools, the Music subject has equal factor in terms of grade evaluation as compare to any other subject, Music has to be necessarily considered as core subject for teaching, "The term 'core academic subjects' means English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography"(No Child Left Behind Act of 2002).

Following facts and figures are listed to support the case,

According to College-Bound Seniors National Report: Profile of SAT Program Test Takers, Students having involved in the environment or experience of music scored averaged 55 points higher in verbal portion, 42 points higher in math as compare with did students having no involvement in Music.

According to National Data Resource Center, disruptive students (involved in frequent skipping of classes, times in trouble, in-school suspensions, disciplinary reasons given, arrests, and relegations) are 12% of the entire school population. Only 8% of the students involved in music classes are involved in disruptive activities.

Neurological Research 21 (March 1999) reported that the selected group of students who learnt mathematical software along with piano keyboard training, scored 27% higher in math evaluations than the students who learnt only the math software.

The analysis of U.S. Education Department reported that students having involvement in instrumental music during middle and high school years show 'significantly higher levels of mathematics proficiency by grade 12'.

McGill Piano Project concluded that the students given piano instruction for period of three years scored greater in evaluation of pattern recognition and mental representation, than other colleagues. The level of self-esteem and musical skills improved tremendously.

Researchers observed that set of those students who have learnt piano lessons scored higher in their spatial-temporal IQ scores than the children who received computer lessons, and practiced casual singing.

During International Conference for Music Perception and Cognition, the brain scans of musicians were discussed, and it was observed that musicians had comparatively larger planum-temporale (brain region related to reading skills), and had thicker corpus callosum (nerves connecting the two halves of brain).