Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Impacts of music on society
Impacts of music on society
Impacts of music on society
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Impacts of music on society
Music Education: Vital or Nonessential?
“Music education opens doors that help children pass from school into the world around them a world of work, culture, intellectual activity, and human involvement. The future of our nation depends on providing our children with a complete education that includes music.” Former US president Gerald Ford, said this in regards to musical education. He and many other people believe in having an education in music at some point in a student’s life. According to the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) says that Bill Clinton is a saxophone player (The Most Musical United States Presidents par 25) With music, there are two sides of the musical education of secondary school students. There are many
…show more content…
In 2007, there was a meeting held at Boston University called Tanglewood II. At this meeting, they looked at forty years of music education. In elementary school, most, if not all, students must take a music class. These classes are mostly about different types of music and about different types of instruments and what they do and how they sound. There might also be choir, band, and orchestra as clubs in elementary school. In middle and high school, music classes such as, band, orchestra, and choir, are offered as electives, as well as theater, when there are musicals. Music classes are a major part of many students …show more content…
According to a study in 2009, children who had taken music lessons for a short amount of time had brains that “…grew larger in the areas that control fine motor skills and hearing,” (Lipman 3). Because their brains grew, they could know more and they could have a better education because of the larger parts to the brain. Having a music class in high school is very time consuming. In secondary education, many students who participate in music classes must travel to music festival and concerts in other places that are not near to the school. The average student has three and a half hours of homework in a day, or about 17 hours a week (Kline 1). Add the time it takes to eat, sleep, be at school, and the countless other things a student must complete in a day, and that leaves little time for pleasure, which is important as well as the basic to do
The field of music education is one with which I have become rapidly familiar. This statement is not to be confused with me claiming that I have an intimate knowledge of the subject matter. In my student teaching semester, I found myself immersed in a great number of ideologies toward the profession, many of which were in conflict. In regard to music education, my greatest quandary at this juncture of my career is choosing from the myriad of philosophies which relate to the field. In relation to the information I have gathered from those in the profession at the public school level, I have a disproportionately large amount of information from professionals who teach at the collegiate level and theorists who benefit music education by performing studies. If I were to perform research about the field of music education, my goal would be to gather information from these three sets of professionals which would bring my knowledge base about each to an equitable level.
Richard Colwell, Carol Richardson. The New Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning: A Project of the Music Educators National Conference. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Music plays a major role in life for most people. It can soothe and excite, encourage sleep and encourage dancing, we can sing to it and ponder it. There are so many different uses of music and so many mediums through which to play it such as Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Beyond that, more songs every day there are new songs being written. Statistics show that ninety-five percent of all Americans think that music is a core part of a balanced and well-rounded education. The same study showed that ninety-three percent of Americans thought music belonged in the public schooling system, and seventy-nine percent even suggested that music education should be mandatory for all students. Still, studies show that a staggering twenty percent of high school students choose
In one school district, administrators needed to make a budget cut of about $150,000. Immediately, they turned to their music programs and cut them, firing five music teachers in the process. They did not realize that there were over 2,000 students involved in the music programs. All of these students were then placed in other classes, increasing the class sizes and forcing the school to add 29 more classrooms and teachers. They ended up spending $192,000 total, instead of cutting the original $150,000 (Dorita, Coen, & Miller, 1994). It has been over two decades and many schools and administration still do not understand or see the importance of music in schools. Music education not only benefits student’s academics, but also helps student’s social life and improves brain function as well.
middle of paper ... ... Music was not taught in the high school I was in. To satisfy my interest in learning about music and how to play musical instruments, I had to find a source of education other than school; a great depiction in agreement with Graff’s claim that students are being limited by not considering their interests when creating curricula (Graff 197). In conclusion, education is broader than just falling into what the contemporary school system has to offer. Both Gatto and Graff proved this by explaining how conforming students to certain perspectives of education limits their potential in other educational branches that interest the students.
Motivation is one of the key elements in all teaching. To motivate is to provide the student with an incentive for learning the material being studied. In music teaching, this incentive for learning should be found in a joyful learning experience that can be achieved by using the appropriate teaching material combined with the proper teaching method. In Kodály's teaching method there is a balanced combination of these two elements that is applicable from the very beginning of music studies to the most advanced professional level. For example, for young children, the desire to learn to play on their instruments the authentic native folk songs they know, understand, and sing combined with the application of a child development approach is a powerful motivator; it is also one of the basic principle tenets of the Kodály Method. Listening or playing to complex music from early childhood may improve a child's ability to learn, memorize, think logically, and be more creative generally. Such is the belief engendered by the cutting edge of today's educational research. Much of today's published educational research centers around the development of a child's neurological capacity to learn. For example, in Owensboro, Kentucky, all children in Daviess County's elementary schools received piano lessons in the year 1997-98. The idea was to develop the mind, not strictly to make music. Everything in those schools - from learning to play chess, to being regularly exposed to the visual and performing arts, to learning the ABC's in Spanish as well as English - was calculated to increase neuron connections following the basic idea of the Graduation 2010 project. During the next 12 years, a research team at Western Kentucky University will follow up on this research in the hope that this project with a common sense approach will have a major impact on the students' achievement and capacity to learn. In Hungary, similar research was done between the years of 1969-1973 focusing on the effect of the Kodály Method in teaching elementary school children. Among the research findings, it was determined that additional music education resulted in a combination of high creativity with emotional sensitivity, greater thoroughness or exactness in the children's school work, and inner control in the children's personality. Furthermore, the research demonstrated that the Kodály musical training not only increased the students' level of creativity but increased it to the level where it surpassed the level predicted by measures intelligence.
The Music Education Association says, “ They feel that the arts will play a major roll in the future success of the educational system (6). “ “By the late 1980’s, Congress mandated that the National Endowment of the Arts to report on the status of arts education (Ivey, 56). And it was proven that children who study the arts score higher on test, do better in school, and even scored higher on the College Boards SAT’s.
Music is a basic part of everyday life. What makes music unique is its ability to create an emotional response in a person. A music education program should develop the aesthetic experience of every student to its highest potential. Aesthetics is the study of the relationship of art to the human senses. Intelligence exists in several areas, which includes music. The concept of aesthetics allows us to see into ourselves, which in turn helps the development of the intelligences. Not only are these intelligences brought up greatly in music education, but they can be transferred to other areas as well, allowing students to grow more through their other subjects.
During an experiment, subjects were exposed to classical music and silence. Afterwards, subjects took a spatial IQ test. Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings, which measure brain wave activity, were made prior to and after the test. The results showed that the group which listened to Mozart had a major increase in brain activity (Lerch 5). Children who have had music training are shown to have better long-term memory and brain functions. A group of children, after being musically trained for one year, scored significantly better on a memory test that is correlated with literacy, verbal memory, visio-spatial processing, and mathematics (First Evidence 1). Learning to play music has the greatest effect on children. According to Lerch, a connection between listening to music and improved intelligence throughout maturity may be present. Musically trained children perform better on spatial tests than children trained in other things such as computers (Rauscher 1). These are some of the many reasons children should have music training. Dr. Fujioka, who studied the effects of music training said:
"A nation that allows music to be expendable is in danger of becoming expendable itself," said Richard Dreyfuss during the Grammy Awards broadcast on the 28th of February (National Coalition for music Education 14). This is a very interesting statement because it involves something that is related to everyone -- school curriculum. When school budgets have to be cut, the music classes are usually the first ones to be removed. Ironically, music is one of the most important areas of study because of its positive effects on students' creativity, learning and growth, and everyday life. Since music education has such an important impact on students' academic and personal growth, it should not be removed from students' learning curriculum.
It is obvious to take a look at the history of music education and see the impact it has made on our country, and even the world. The development of music in schools has molded many young students into fine musicians. Many music teachers have inspired young musical talents to dream big, and that is a beautiful thing.
In the 2014 study conducted by Zuk, Benjamin and Kenyon, it shows that “children with musical training did exhibit cognitive advantages over their non-musically-trained counterparts” (Is Music Really Good for the Brain? 3). How ever, this is not limited to children. “Adults with prior musical training performed better on tests of cognitive flexibility, working memory, and verbal fluency…” (Is Music Really Good for the Brain? 3).
The stereotypical “music lover” in high school is usually one of a few types of people: The person who desires to perform on their specific instrument (typically in a traditional orchestra), the person who wants to teach music in an institution, or the person who excels at marching band and wishes to follow more similar activities in college. I am none of these persons. For the entire span of my life, music has been my favorite escape from the habitual elements of life. I can vividly remember myself as a child jumping and dancing on the bed to Scar Tissue by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. It’s not difficult to recall the early days of piano lessons, learning how to hold my hands, and learning how to use the pedals.
Music is one of the specials in school that can be implemented in the classroom. In kindergarten through fifth grade, music can be used in the classroom to teach students the daily classroom curriculum. There are several ways that a teacher can implement music into their classroom lessons. Some of those ways are creating songs, or finding creative songs on YouTube or other music websites. As a future educator it is my job to use a variety of teaching methods, and one of those methods should be applying music in my lessons.
(Burns) As this information indicates, both the British government and many American public schools are significantly cutting the budget for music education, resulting in lower quality music education in schools. Aside from the obvious economic reasons for this, the public perception of music also has a profound effect on its funding. According to professor of music education John Kratus History shows that American music educators have been most successful and their positions most secure when they satisfied the prevailing musical desires of the public. Singing schools in the late nineteenth century and the band movement in the mid-twentieth century are unmistakable examples of music education fulfilling the changing societal needs.