By Tom Mulhern
Anyone who isn’t convinced that musicality is present in every child should observe a toddler when someone turns on a radio or plays a tape or a CD. It doesn’t matter whether the speaker is emitting the sounds of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lawrence Welk, J.S. Bach, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, or Tibetan Monks. The dancing, the squealing, and the imitating of the voices and instruments comes naturally–and quickly. In a nutshell, kids are into music, and they want to be a part of it. All they need is to be exposed to music.
There’s something captivating, even mesmerizing about music. You probably wouldn’t be reading this article if music hadn’t hooked you at some point in your life–probably quite early. You know its power. But more and more research is coming out to support the idea that music is not only fun and beneficial to a well-rounded learning experience, but that it is indeed vital, providing benefits far beyond dexterity on an instrument or learning music appreciation. It’s becoming clear that although listening to music has an effect on the ability to learn, actually playing an instrument–and doing so at an early age–really revs up the brain, possibly for an entire lifetime.
This changes many things. For instance, with rare exceptions, learning an instrument has been widely viewed as something that kids "grew into," say, in grammar school or even junior high. Like being trusted to cross the street alone, or to work the VCR, musicianship was believed to require a certain amount of maturity. New research has shown that nothing could be further from the truth: Musicality begins to "sink in" at a very early age–almost at birth, by some accounts, perhaps even before language–and even if a child doesn’t play well, that child’s brain makes tremendous developmental strides as a result of musical instruction. Virtuosity isn’t the point. Participation is.
Just over a year ago Newsweek, in its February 19, 1996, cover story, broke the news to a lot of people that music education at an early age increases a child’s learning ability. Much of Newsweek’s focus was on research done by psychologist Dr. Frances Rauscher of the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh and physicist Dr. Gordon Shaw of the University of California at Irvine. Almost a year to the date, Neurological Research, in its February 1997 issue, published new findings by Rauscher and Shaw, taken from follow-up studies they performed with preschoolers over a two-year period. Setting out to compare the significance of musical and non-musical training on intellectual development, they worked with three groups of children. One group received private piano/keyboard lessons and singing lessons; a second group received private computer lessons; and a third group received no training. The startling conclusion was that the children who received piano/keyboard training performed a whopping 34% higher on tests measuring spatial/temporal ability than the others. These findings indicate that music uniquely enhances higher brain functions required for mathematics, chess, science, and engineering.
These studies’ results are indeed compelling. But they also point to a major challenge awaiting us: Kids need exposure to music, and their interest in participating has to be nurtured early in order to develop and sustain in them a desire to play music. Only then can the effects of enhanced learning abilities be fully realized. Without a doubt, further research must be done to pin down more exactly what goes on when music and brain meet. But there’s also no time like now to act upon what we already know: that it’s never too soon to start children learning music–and improving their intellectual abilities. And so the following profiles cover what’s going on in the lab with some of the top brain researchers, and on the TV and in music stores, with Shari Lewis and the upcoming PBS/NAMM series entitled The Charlie Horse Music Pizza.
Researcher Gordon Shaw didn’t initially set out to find a relationship between music and learning. Actually, Shaw says he got into the music business totally by accident: "It goes back to the work I did with [researcher] Xiaodan Leng. We published a series of articles in 1990 and 1991 after working on a structured model of the brain for some years. You start from some structure in the brain and you get these patterns of firing groups in neurons that are very organized. Xiao mapped them onto music to better recognize the pattern, and they started sounding like recognizable styles of music. We had been working on a model of what we thought might represent how we think. That led us to the relationship between music and higher brain functions."
Shaw realized what this connection might mean–that music taps into the internal structure of the brain and nurtures its ability to see patterns develop in space and time. "We predicted that it was specifically the spatial/temporal reasoning that would be enhanced," he elaborates. "And that’s how it turned out. It doesn’t prove the model, but it’s very supportive."
In 1993, Shaw, Frances Rauscher, and Katherine Ky did a pilot study on preschool children given musical training, and found a significant improvement in spatial reasoning ability. Then, in another experiment, they found that after listening to Mozart’s Piano Sonata K448, college students experienced a significant (although temporary) gain in their spatial reasoning skills. "Fran came to the lab to do the behavioral experiments with the little kids," Shaw recalls, "but we knew that was going to take several years, and we didn’t have the funding to do it all at once. We said, ‘Well, if the music training for the little kids can give us the long-term enhancement we were looking for, maybe even listening to music for adults can give us some effect.’ And indeed it did. We chose Mozart because we felt if anyone was tapping into the natural inherent structure of the brain, it might be Mozart."
They tried other types of music and audio material, including relaxation tapes and recorded short stories, as well as very repetitive music by Philip Glass. "That was the control for ‘repetitive and melody,’ Shaw notes. "We also used another kind of music that was categorized as ‘repetitive and beat/rhythm.’" Nothing had quite the effect of structured music like Mozart’s sonata. In April 1997, Shaw and Rauscher will be releasing material that looks at the neuro-physiological effect of Mozart’s music. Shaw says it gives the first hint of what’s going on in the brain when you listen to Mozart: "You see the carryover for some minutes into the task where you’re doing the reasoning."
Follow-ups over the next few years after the pilot study with preschoolers demonstrated that the gain in spatial reasoning didn’t occur in children without musical training. They also found that preschoolers given musical training–in particular, keyboard lessons–showed significant improvements in their spatial-temporal reasoning skills above those in their peer group who received computer training or no training.
Music-making nurtures the intellect and produces long-term improvements. "It has been clearly documented that young students have difficulty understanding the concepts of proportion [heavily used in math and science] and that no successful program has been developed to teach these concepts in the school system," states Dr. Rauscher. And Dr. Shaw adds, "The high proportion of children who evidenced dramatic improvement in spatial-temporal reasoning as a result of music training should be of great interest to scientists and educators."
In the studies that involved giving children keyboard lessons, Eric Wright, director of the Irvine Conservatory of Music, developed his own teaching system. While you might think that captivating a child’s attention would be difficult (ask any parent about this!), Shaw says that the lessons seemed to produce a positive side-effect: "Some of the preschool teachers noted, even after a few weeks, that the kids’ attention span for other things besides the music was increasing."
Could there be a downward or upward age limit for a person to benefit from learning to play music? It’s too soon to tell. However, Shaw notes that there are two kinds of effects to be studied: "One is the short-term effect, for which I don’t think there’s a limit. The other is the long-term effect. There it might be that the brain is developing most rapidly when you’re young. Obviously, we can learn to play an instrument at any age, but whether the carryover into the reasoning occurs, that we don’t know."
"All of this kind of research has just started," Shaw says. "It’s a growing thing, and it’s going to take three or four years to really convince everyone it’s for real. The people who believe it already, like it. You have to do more and more experiments. You want to know how long the effect of playing music lasts"
Where is the research by Shaw, Rauscher, and others leading? It’s early in the game, but Shaw suggests, "Music is going to be shown even more to enhance certain higher brain functions, but also we’ll be able to use music to study how the brain works, and in turn once you know that more, you’ll be able to optimize it. I think it’s the tip of the iceberg right now."
While so many people (particularly in the media) are enthralled by the Internet’s potential, the power of TV is a proven commodity. And through this medium, Shari Lewis has been a pioneer and a mainstay, winning 12 Emmy awards and countless other accolades. Everyone knows Shari and her puppet friends, Lamb Chop, Hush Puppy, and Charlie Horse. For 30 years they’ve entertained and engrossed kids and parents all over the world.
She’s best known for stage and TV work, and has a tremendous background in acting and dancing. Many people aren’t aware, though, that a big part of Shari’s education came through music. She started on piano, and as a teen she attended the High School of Music and Art in New York where she studied violin, theory, orchestration, and conducting. A serious musician, Ms. Lewis is a symphony conductor who has performed and conducted with more than 100 orchestras including the National Symphonies of the United States (at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.), Canada (in Ottawa), and Japan (in Osaka).
In early 1996, several organizations mentioned to NAMM that Shari Lewis was working on a series that had potential as a cooperative effort. NAMM’s Market Development committee met in April 1996, shortly after NAMM had outfitted the acclaimed PBS show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood with a music store. Director of Market Development Bob Morrison recalls, "We thought it would be great if there were also a way to work with a kids’ program that focuses on music-making elements and then have some sort of a tie-back to NAMM-member stores. So that’s where the discussion started. Soon we received information about Charlie Horse, and then we were contacted directly by KCET in Los Angeles, the station producing the show."
After careful scrutiny by both sides, NAMM and KCET agreed that a cooperative venture would be mutually beneficial. Morrison says, "KCET quickly realized we had some resources and assets to bring to the table that would be vitally important to the show, and we recognized that we were dealing with first-class people who were going to put out a first-rate program that, in the long run, would help bring music to a new generation of children."
An innovative half-hour children’s series devoted to musicmaking, education, and appreciation, The Charlie Horse Music Pizza is being funded by NAMM, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and PBS. Produced by 8 Candles Productions, Inc., in association with KCET, the daily series is scheduled to premiere this fall with 40 half-hour episodes (NAMM has agreed to a three-year commitment). The shows will run the gamut of instrumental and vocal music, exposing children to musical instruments, musical concepts, and many styles. It’s all about introducing musicmaking and music education to young children in a way that is meaningful to them–and a way that is meaningful to young children is being taught through stories. "And I’m convinced that there’s no better storyteller available out there than Shari Lewis," Morrison enthusiastically states.
Geared toward children between the ages of two and eight, the musical comedy show will be available to 89% of all households in the United States. It will center around Music Pizza, a pizza parlor on the beach that’s the local hangout for neighborhood children. Shari, the owner/operator, is assisted by her lovable character Charlie Horse, as well as a pair of new characters: a delivery boy named Take Out–who also happens to be a drum-playing, skateboarding orangutan–and a raccoon, Fingers, who plays the saxophone. Rounding out the cast will be Lamb Chop and Hush Puppy. The series will also feature musically skilled guest stars from the worlds of entertainment and sports.
"All of us at NAMM are excited about this new show because it represents the first time there has been a daily, nationally televised series focusing on music education and music making," says NAMM’s President/CEO, Larry R. Linkin. "With Shari’s talent and expertise, the credibility of a PBS show, and a well designed outreach campaign, NAMM members will have the ability to reach more children with music in a unique and meaningful way."
NAMM’s involvement is more than just monetary. NAMM has developed the "Charlie Horse Music Pizza Experience," a local community outreach campaign designed for music products retailers. It formalizes a program introducing preschool, Head Start, and early elementary school children to musical instruments. Participating retailers will receive an "Experience Kit" that includes the show’s poster, musical instrument posters, and parents’ brochures about music and children by Dr. Frances Rauscher. This kit will also offer brochures on selecting a musical instrument, as well as a program guide book and artwork disks. A videotape designed to introduce musical instruments to children and sample "Music Making" coloring books will also be included. Bob Morrison says, "We’re working with Shari right now to create the actual cornerstone of the experience, the videotape, where Shari and the characters tell a story to the children to walk them through the different families of instruments. And as they get to each family of instrument, the local retailer can stop the tape and the facilitator can, at that point, pull out an instrument from that family and demonstrate it for the kids. They can see, hear, touch, and feel it and get a better understanding of what that instrument is–much more so than just seeing it on television."
Morris sums up, "The idea is to show kids that they can be involved in making music themselves. They can develop that lifelong passion for music that we in this industry have. It’s great for a local retailer to be able to provide that in their community, and it’s a win-win for everybody involved. You’re not going to sell anything to a three- or four- or five-year-old. That’s not the point. You’re going to give them something: the gift of music. And that seed you plant, over time, will grow and flower, and blossom again and again."
For information in how you can participate in the Charlie Horse Music Pizza Experience, contact NAMM.