The Power of Music

Nine years ago Musharaf ‘Mushy’ Asghar graced our screens in Channel 4’s Educating Yorkshire - a Year 13 student struggling immensely with a stammer that virtually left him mute. With an impending speaking exam to pass his English GCSE, his teacher Mr Burton, inspired by the film The King’s Speech where George VI overcomes his own stammer to lead his country through World War Two, guides Mushy to gain a C grade, which at the start of Mushy’s time at Thornhill Academy seemed insurmountable.

What brings Mushy Ashgar and George VI together is how they overcame their personal stammers through the power of music. They unquestionably prove to us the power that music can have on the brain. Music is powerful, it is emotive, it is an incredibly important part of children’s educational pathway and something we take great care to encourage at Sherborne Prep.

Since the middle of the 20th century, researchers and practitioners in music have increased their awareness of music and its relevance to young children, as well as the impact it can have on their further education. In the modern day, it is inspiring to see that

cognitive research has increased dramatically using new concepts and ideas in order to develop suggestions and analogies into experiential research. Although progress may be slow, there are many studies that have transformed thinking – the impact of music upon the brain and the positive cognitive effects. Can music really make you smarter? Music helps to contribute to a broad and balanced school curriculum, but does it positively influence academic gain in other subject areas?

First and foremost, music is principally a mental ability, allowing for it to have a direct result on improving mathematical skills through the use of spatial reasoning tasks. Following different patterns, understanding shapes, differentiating between ratios are skills that have to be overcome by both musicians and mathematicians. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics are an advocate for using different ways in which to promote maths learning through other types of thinking and use music as part of their curriculum focal point. In 2008 the Council began to draw together ways in which maths can be directly related to music; the similarity between counting numbers with how many beats were in a bar, how geometry and identifying of shapes and spatial relationships are similar to notation and the organisation of pitch, and finally how the measurement of objects directly to detecting tonality and changes of tempo. In addition to helping improve skills in mathematics, there have been several recent studies into the effects of teaching music on literacy skills in primary school aged children. Music and language are often closely associated with each other; with music being a way of expressing a storyline or in some instances, a feeling, it is the language using music that helps this come across.

As early as 1871, Darwin considered how the relationship between music and language might have been the origin of our communicative abilities. Between 2012-13, an independent research firm conducted an experimental study into the effectiveness of the ABC Music & Me on the school curriculum. They found it greatly enhanced the children’s engagement in the classroom, cooperation with others, and development of vocabulary, as well as coordination and importantly their attitude towards learning.

“Music helps to contribute to a broad and balanced school curriculum, but does it positively influence academic gain in other subject areas?”

Joe Arkwright, Music Teacher written for The Sherborne Times