VBS   Contact   Legal    Mission     Drum craft    Harp Craft  History   Music   Site Map Children usually learn how to read in three stages: visually recognizing words; learning the correspondences between visual parts of words (graphemes) and their spoken sounds (phonemes); and achieving visual recognition of words. Children "sound out" syllables and words while they are in the second stage and discard this step when they reach stage three. It seems that music facilitates reading by improving the second phonemic stage. Pitch change of verbal word components is thought to be the most important factor in conveying word information. Researchers have found that good pitch discrimination related to music training benefits children learning to read. In another study, four- and five-year-olds were tested on the effects of music on both learning and creativity. The subjects learned the names of their body parts by various means and were assessed on creativity through the Torrence Test of Creative Thinking, involving picture construction and picture completion. There were four groups in the study: · Control group, which received no training; · Group that received verbal instructions in the names and uses of body parts; · Group that received verbal instructions plus acted out movements; and · Music/dance group in which verbal instructions were given by song and acting out movements were done in the form of a dance. After 20 days of training, all experimental groups exhibited higher test scores than the control group. However, the music/dance group showed the greatest improvement in both learning about body parts and tests of creativity. Does the brain need exercise like the rest of our body? Research has shown that brain synapses grow stronger through use and are weakened through disuse. Learning and performing music actually exercise the brain by strengthening the synapses between brain cells. Brain scans taken during musical performances show that virtually the entire cerebral cortex is active while musicians are playing. Other studies have implied the effect of regular piano instruction on improvement in cognitive domains such as mathematics and reading. Is music intuitive? Jeanne Bamberger from MIT thinks so and has a new book out entitled Developing Musical Intuitions: A Project-Based Introduction to Making and Understanding Music. Bamberger calls musical intuition "what everyone knows how to do when they know how to make sense of the music all around them." She says musical intuitions are not innate, but learned and specific to the particular musical culture. She aims to demonstrate how nearly all students, even those with no prior musical training, can reconstruct a tune they have heard using structural elements called "tuneblocks" (motifs, figures, phrases, and melodies) as the units of work. Using a computer software program, students compose their own melodies by arranging and rearranging tuneblocks in a sequence until it sounds right to their intuitive sense. They learn to create a structural framework for their musical intuitions and add descriptive details like pitch, rhythm, harmony, and form. The goal is to help students become active and engaged music makers. The parts of the brain involved with emotion seem to light up with activity when a person hears music. Researchers have located specific areas of mental activity linked to emotional responses to music. Different parts of the brain involved with emotions are activated depending on whether the music you listen to is pleasant or dissonant. The brain also seems to respond directly to harmony. Many of us can relate a uniquely personal life experience and the emotions attached to it with a particular piece of music that was heard at the precise moment. Upon an accidental hearing of the same piece of music again later in our lives, many of us are able to recall that initial event with uncanny clarity and re-experience the original state. Researchers doubt that a normal brain is immune to music's ability to tap the deep well of human emotion. Music seems to be both a human need and at the same time to function as the satisfaction of that need. Try an experiment on yourself. Live for a week without music -- no radio in the car as you drive to and from work, no singing in the shower, no CDs to relax to at home after work, etc. See how long you can last before you want or need to hear some music. Take note of what kind of music you want to listen to when you do -- what emotional state are you trying to achieve? Try this experiment with a friend and compare notes. It appears that the interaction of two factors -- how much we like a piece and the magnitude of its arousal potential -- affect our emotional response to the music. Tempo and articulation of a piece transfer the emotional content of music. A feeling of happiness in listeners is evoked by fast, staccato music. Sadness in listeners is evoked by slow, legato music. Anger is felt through music that was fast and legato. And fear is experienced through slow, staccato music. How does music magically effect these changes in our minds and our bodies? When we hear a particular piece of music why can we involuntarily recall vivid memories of a past event with crystal clarity, including when, where and who we were with, as well as the emotional state we were in at the time? How does music connect us to our emotional life? In many cultures, the hypnotic, rhythmic beat of the drum carries dancers away into a pulsing world that makes the very atoms of their bodies vibrate. In the American South, slaves invented the blues by releasing the emotional burdens of their life through song. Expressing words of sorrow ironically seemed to relieve the singer's mind of his or her sadness while it simultaneously lifted the spirit. Is this evidence of the power of music?