What do we hope for out of our education system? An education should make our children smarter, more confident, creative, and happy. It should enhance cognitive abilities and develop a well-rounded human being. So, why are so many school districts across the country scaling back or cutting out completely the one subject proven to do all those things?

A music education has numerous benefits that should not be ignored. Research shows that learning music helps children learn other subjects, such as math, and enhances skills that kids use in other areas as well. In my research of this topic, the following three benefits stood out most. 

Language Development
According to professor of theory and music composition Anthony Brandt, even newborns have a basic understanding of music. He says it is the sounds of music, not the meaning of it,that babies first learn. Later, they can associate these sounds with what they mean. In his research paper titled Music and Early Language Acquisition, Brandt said that newborns can dissect parts of sounds like timbre, pitch, and rhythm, and therefore exposing the infant brain to music trains the brain for language comprehension.

The benefits do not end in infancy, however. Receiving a music education in the formative years helps develop reading comprehension skills as well. By applying the familiarity of melody to the way sentences are spoken aloud, there is a stronger likelihood of understanding the language more quickly.

Strikingly, Harvard researcher Gottfried Schlaug found a correlation between music training and language development in dyslexic children. He said, “[The findings] suggest that a music intervention that strengthens basic auditory music perception skills may also remediate some of their language deficits.”