Music and IQ

Music instruction improves academic performance

Study after study proves that music instruction can be exceptionally beneficial to young children.  The scientific evidence is abundant and compelling; there are strong connections between music instruction and higher test scores, grade point averages, success in college. Music training helps develop the child’s cognitive and communication skills, fine-tunes the workings of the brain and forms solid work habits through practice. 

According to the study by Frances Rauscher of the University of California, Irvine, (1997) links between neurons in the brain are strengthened with music lessons. Just fifteen minutes a week of piano instruction dramatically improved the kind of intelligence needed to understand higher levels of math and science. Test results showed a 46% improvement in the spatial IQs for the young musicians compared to only 6% for non-musicians.  

Dr. Frank Wilson’s study (1989) involving instrumental music instruction and the brain reveal that learning to play an instrument refines the development of the brain and the entire neurological system. Areas that music instruction affects most are language development, reading, mathematics, and science.  

Researcher Gordon Shaw (1993) found that piano instruction enhances the brain’s ability for spatial-temporal reasoning. This translates into a student’s heightened ability to understand fractions, geometric puzzles, math problems, and math puzzles. 

The children who study piano do not only develop mental skills. They also earn better organizational and stress coping skills and a sense of pride, accomplishment and competition quite early in life.  They will be exposed at a young age to enriching, fine classical music that they might not otherwise hear. 

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