Re: What is the current position on the impact of music on learning?

Hello, and welcome to MadSci! Since you are a graduate student, the answer to 
your message was slightly delayed, because research was undertaken to answer 
your question as precisely as possible.

Music has a great impact on learning, particularly because music is the 
underlying basis for understanding human speech. The sounds of human speech are 
actually musical sounds, based on rates and musical tones/pitches. Some 
languages are highly tone-dependent, such as the Asian languages, and even the 
languages that do not depend as much on tones still have about half of the 
information carried in the spoken language based on rates and pitches. 

In recent research that I have undertaken, we had a prelingually profoundly 
bilaterally deaf individual who had only heard the sounds of the French 
language before becoming almost completely deaf, and who has been unable to 
hear speech sounds for more than 40 years. When his hearing ability was 
restored with a cochlear implant, he could hear all speech sounds again, and he 
had the rates of speech, but he never has had the tones of speech. As a result, 
on computerized auditory training, he could only recognize about half of the 
phonemes of speech accurately without having the knowledge of the musical tones 
and pitches of the English language he was hearing for the first time in his 
life.

The sibilant "hissing" high-frequency phonemes, and he unvoiced consonants in 
human speech, such as /s/, /p/, /t/, /th/ etc. are all basically based on 
humans copying "bird whistles" or "birdsong". If a person doesn't have 
knowledge of music, or rates, rhythms, beats, tones and pitches, the person 
isn't going to be able to pronounce human speech clearly or completely, and a 
lot of their speech will not be clear to other people.

Additionally, since reading is auditory and not "visual," because one remembers 
the sounds of language while they are looking at the written character "codes" 
for spoken language, it is also essential to know music for understanding 
written information, as well as for spoken information.

Music, because it is based on mathematical relationships, is also extremely 
beneficial for learning logical and orderly thinking patterns, which are then 
utilized for learning mathematics and science. Children who learn to read and 
understand music, and who learn music theory, and those who learn to play 
musical instruments, commonly do learn better, especially in mathematics and 
science classes.

Music is also a "universal language" that can be heard and understood by the 
vast majority of human beings, and provides a link to socialization for human 
beings, even when their languages, races, social classes, and cultures are 
different. 

You can get more specific research information on this subject by logging in to 
http://www.neuroscion.com and 
registering as a user. The system has a Medline search capability and you can 
use keywords to access research information for your topic.

In regard to your comment about targeted learning, if you have not yet 
contacted Scientific Learning in Oakland, California, or if you have not yet 
seen the results of their research and programs, then you can see their 
research data posted on their 
website at http://www.scientificlearning.com.   We hope that this information 
has been helpful to you and we welcome all future questions from you that you 
wish to send to the MadSci network.  Best wishes on your research and on your 
future professional activities.