Why would music lessons enhance intelligence?

As noted by Schellenberg (2005) and other researchers (Shlaug et al 2005), a variety of explanations might account for it. For example, music lessons might enhance intelligence because they train kids to

• focus attention for long periods of time

• decode a complex symbolic system (musical notation)

• translate the code into precise motor patterns

• recognize patterns of sound across time

• learn rules of pattern formation

• memorize long passages of music

• understand ratios and fractions (e.g., a quarter note is half as long as a half note)

• improvise within a set of musical rules

All of these explanations have in common the idea that music lessons cause higher IQs.

But there is also the “killjoy” hypothesis--the idea that music lessons are the effect, not the cause, of higher IQs.

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How musical training shapes the brain

Brain scanning technologies have permitted neuroscientists to test ideas about the link between music and intelligence.

And some of the results are clear:

Musicians have distinctively different brains.

For instance, if you examine the brain of a keyboard player, you’ll find that the region of the brain that controls finger movements is enlarged (Pascual-Leone 2001).

Moreover, brain scans of 9- to 11-year old children have revealed that those kids who play musical instruments have significantly more grey matter volume in both the sensorimotor cortex and the occipital lobes (Schlaug et al 2005).

In fact, musicians have significantly more grey matter in several brain regions (Schlaug et al 2005), and the effects of music lessons seem to increase with the intensity of training.

One study compared professional keyboard players with amateurs. Although both groups had music training, the professionals practiced twice as much. The professionals also had significantly more grey matter volume in a number of brain regions (Gaser and Schlaug 2003).

In the genes?

It's not simply a case of genetics—-i.e., that people with more grey matter volume are more likely to become musicians. Research suggests that the brains of non-musicians change in response to musical training.

In one study, non-musicians were assigned to perform a 5-finger exercise on the piano for two hours a day. Within five days, subjects showed evidence of re-wiring. The size of the area associated with finger movements had become larger and more active (Pascual-Leone 2001)

So it's reasonable to think that the brain grows in response to music training. Does these brain differences reflect differences in intelligence?

Maybe so.

In the study of 9 to 11-year olds, musicians performed better on several tests than did their non-musical peers. They scored significantly higher on tests of vocabulary and finger tapping. They also exhibited a strong, but statistically non-significant, trend towards better spatial and math skills (Schlaug et al 2005).

And other studies reveal a variety of notable--and statistically significant --differences in test scores between musicians and non-musicians.
Music and intelligence:
Musicians perform better on cognitive tasks
People with music training often outperform their non-musical peers on cognitive tasks (Schellenberg 2006).

For instance, a study of 4 to 6-year olds found that musically-trained kids performed better on a test of working memory (Fujioka et al 2006).

Other research indicates that musicians perform significantly better on tests of

• Spatial-temporal skills

• Math ability

• Reading skills

• Vocabulary

• Verbal memory

• Phonemic awareness

(For reviews, see Schellenberg 2006 and Patel and Iverson 2007).

Musically-trained people perform better on general intelligence tests.

In a cross-sectional study of Canadian school children, E. Glenn Schellenberg (2006) found that kids who took music lessons had slightly higher IQs. The effects were general, cutting across several different intellectual abilities (e.g., verbal, mathematical, and temporal-spatial). Music lessons were associated with abilities associated with fluid intelligence, such as

• Working memory

• Perceptual organization

• Processing speed

They were also associated with increased verbal comprehension and better high school grades.

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The Effect of Music on Children’s Intelligence

Studies after studies are showing that learning music can make kids smart.  When your child learns to play a musical instrument, not only does he learn how to make tunes, but he also enhances other capabilities of his brain as well:

    * A 10 year study involving 25,000 students show that music-making improves test scores in standardized tests, as well as in reading proficiency exams (Source: James Catterall, UCLA, 1997).
    * High school music students score higher on the math and verbal portion of SAT, compared to their peers (Profile of SAT and Achievement Test Takers, The College Board, compiled by Music Educators Conference, 2001).
    * The IQ’s of young students who had nine months of weekly training in piano or voice rose nearly three points more than their untrained peers (Study by E. Glenn Schellenberg, of the University of Toronto at Mississauga, 2004.)
    * Piano students can understand mathematical and scientific concepts more readily.  Children who received piano training performed 34 percent higher on tests measuring proportional reasoning – ratios, fractions, proportions, and thinking in space and time (Neurological Research, 1997).
    * Pattern recognition and mental representation scores improved significantly in students who were given a 3-year piano instruction (Dr. Eugenia Costa-Giomi study presented at the meeting of the Music Educators National Conference, Phoenix, AZ, 1998).
    * Music students received more academic honors and awards than non-music students.  These music students also have more A and B grades compared to non-music students (National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 First Follow-Up, U.S. Department of Education).
    * More music majors who applied for medical school were admitted compared to those in other majors including English, biology, chemistry and math. (“The Comparative Academic Abilites of Students in Education and in Other Areas of a Multi-focus University,” Peter H. Wood, ERIC Document No. ED327480; “The Case for Music in Schools”, Phi Delta Kappan, 1994)

Other research also linked music making with increased language discrimination and development, improved school grades, and better-adjusted social behavior.

Why does this happen?  What is at work here?

Researchers think that since piano and music-learning involve appreciating the length of notes in proportion to others (half-note has half-duration when played compared to whole note, etc), when a child plays music, he exercises the part of his brain that processes proportional thinking.

A grasp of proportional math and fractions is required for students to understand math at higher levels.  Children who do not master these areas of math cannot understand more advanced math which is important in high-tech fields.

Learning musical instruments also involves interpreting notes and musical symbols that the brain sees to form melodies - a series of sounds that vary with time.  Music making therefore enhances the brain’s “hard-wiring” for the ability to visualize and transform objects in space and time.

Also, learning to play music develops discipline that is beneficial to academic achievement.

"With music lessons, because there are so many different facets involved--such as memorizing, expressing emotion, learning about musical interval and chords--the multidimensional nature of the experience may be motivating the [IQ] effect," said study author E. Glenn Schellenberg, of the University of Toronto at Mississauga.

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Benefits of Music for Children

During the period of infants to school age, children try to get the nuances of musical stimulation. Why? Because rhythm and timbre (musical colors) encourage children to do the movements that will affect the overall development of  motor skills. What are the benefits of other music?

- Stimulation of memory

If you've ever heard of certain music in the past, people will associate the music with his past experience. That is, the music serves as a stimulus generator to the memory of the past. Not only generate objective experience, but also the subjective experience (feelings when experiencing it.)

- Generating a sense of comfort

If we play soft music before sleeping child, he would feel comfortable in the contest. Usually the music itself is in the tempo Adagio, Andante, Moderato, which is not far from the rhythm of the pulse or heart rate in a matter of one tap per second, slightly faster, slightly slower. Not using a tempo lento a very slow or very fast presto.

- hypnotic effect

Music to lull impact. This is called a hypnotic effect (impression hypnotic). Evidence, when listening to music one tends mengentak hands or feet or follow humming the music.

- Entertaining

Music aims to entertain (from muse). Music comfort in times of joy and sorrow. Music also entertain the children. So, just by listening to music you like, someone has to feel comforted.

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5 Ways to Stimulate the Potential of Children

Followed Sani, in the "Wall of Gain Moment", the launch of new packaging  and dairy Gain Plus Gain School of Abbot some time ago at the Mall of Indonesia, Sunday, January 30, 2011,  the potential can be extracted through the stimulation of children. Here are 5 ways to stimulate the  potential  of children, namely:

1. Motion game or a game function
That game is implemented with the purpose to train the function of movement and sensory organs. For example: throwing objects, move their legs, squeezing her body, voice identification, sound, and others.

2. Games fantasy / role
That game is influenced by the fantasy of a child. For example: a role as father / mother, doctors, fishermen, and others.

3. Problem solving games
Games that contain intelligence / thinking skills. Which involves solving problems, for example, answer the riddle or find the answer in a problem, and others.

4. Gaming forms
Trying to form a (constructive) a work or memugarnya (destructive), a work because they want to know the component or want to change it.

5. Game group (team work)
For example, create slogans or building a tower.

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5 Myths of Infant Brain Development

Some common myths circulating in the community:
1. Play Mozart to babies in the womb could increase its future ability of Mathematics.
Fact: The baby is only going to remember something after their birth. Similarly, Mozart's music. Your baby will remember them after their birth, nor with anything that he listen to, smell, or feel in the womb. If you want your child has a value of Math is good enough, you can teach mastery in the early years.

2. Providing language learning DVD for infants and children can improve their language skills.
Fact: Some DVDs can actually reduce precisely language vocabulary toddler. It is true that many words you use when talking to babies could increase his vocabulary and IQ. However, the words must come from you, his mother, who asked her to speak from time to time.

3. To improve brain power, children can be taught French from the age of 3 years, playing with toys that stimulate the brain, and various educational DVD.
Fact: The biggest technology in improving a child's brain is with a plain cardboard box, a box of colored pencils, and two hours of time spent. While television is the worst way to stimulate the brain.

4. Telling children that they are smart to increase her confidence.
Fact: Apparently, if always touted that they are smart, the child will be reluctant to do something challenging. To encourage children to someday be a student or students who are intelligent, praise his efforts in achieving these accomplishments.

5. The children can find happiness in his own way.
Fact: The biggest criteria of happiness is having friends. How do you teach a child to gain and maintain friendships? This would indicate that the child also has the ability to decipher nonverbal communication. Studying a musical instrument can enhance this capability by 50 percent. While the way that can impair the ability of these was to send SMS.

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Music for Infant Stimulation Tip

Actual musical stimulation for infants not much different from when I was in the womb. Only, after birth, the baby already has more ability and the baby was already more freely explore the capabilities. For example, he was able to hear, move, smile, and so forth. Therefore, the stimulation that we give should be tailored to the capabilities of the infant.

How to stimulate and sign-rambunya:

- If fetal like slow music, a baby was more like music a rhythm faster.

- Perdengarkan music through various media with a moderate. Mom can customize it according to the conditions and area of ​​the room.

- Stimulation can be done when your child awake, such as after meals, after a bath, and finished playing. Choose own time and, if it chose, try to provide continuous stimulation at these times that maximize results.

- Perdengarkan 1-3 type of music or more if the baby is still comfortable. The overall duration of about 30 minutes.

- Give your baby the opportunity to move and mumble (mumbling), maybe he enjoys the music and mengapresiasikannya through movements and sounds. We recommend that you put it in the mattress so he could move freely.

- If your baby can stand, let him shake his body as if dancing.

- Very good when we go humming or take the baby to move their arms and legs, such as by clapping their hands. Of course what we do must not damage the concentration of baby listening to music. The focus of his hearing fixed to the music, not to other noises, such as our voice.

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Infants with Hearing Train Music

Sound off music to the fetus in the womb can provide a pleasant atmosphere for the fetus. In fact, the effect of calmness that will carry over after his birth because the baby was able to remember the music that he heard three weeks before he was born.

Human sense of hearing has developed since the last trimester of pregnancy. Previous research has shown, the fetus can hear sounds with minimal distortion. At the age of 34 weeks of gestation, the inner ear called the cochlea has developed because it is more perfect hearing.

To find out whether babies can remember sounds heard in the womb, a team of researchers from France to listen to a melody to the fetus and then listen again after their birth.

A total of 50 pregnant women who are involved in this study were asked to listen to a brief recording of low-pitched piano melody twice a day at 35-37 weeks of gestation. Records of the melody a duration of 3.6 seconds with a length of nine notes.

Then after a month-old, the baby was a piano melody is played back the recording when the baby is asleep.

The researchers found, when the piano melody is heard again, the baby's heartbeat gradually slowed down to 12 bits per minute, but when I heard the music that has never heard, his heartbeat dropped only 5 bits per minute.

"The music or sound is often heard fetus in the womb will produce a stronger response in the baby's heart. Decrease in heart rate high enough that indicate baby give more attention to melody he had heard, though he did not hear it again for six weeks," said Granier- Deferre, researcher.

The results of this study also confirmed the baby will remember the familiar voices in his ear, including her mother's voice, especially if the mother regularly invites her fetus in conversation.

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