Music Should Not Be Cut From Schools

It is everywhere: on the radio, in the office, on the streets, and even in elevators. Music is a frequent visitor to the lives of all human beings. As said by the Chinese philosopher, Confucius, “Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot live without” (Kalivretenos). Music is constantly involved in everyday life, but what if there was no music? Most people would notice if there was no music. There would be no music on the long car drive to work. No music in the background of movies. No concerts or the stars who perform. The only way to keep music alive is to teach it to the younger generations to carry on, and what better place to teach them than school. Music education should not be cut from schools. Music has proven its

Music does just that. Music can teach children vital skills needed later in life. Music teaches strength, perseverance and self-esteem, all of which are very important in the workplace. Many people know that success does not always come on the first try. Failure is usually going to happen. Being able to get back up and learn from that failure to help you succeed is great thing to be able to do. Music teaches just that. When given a difficult piece of music to sing or play, many students will not play all the notes correctly and it will not sound pristine. Children will practice and practice the music they were given and build upon what they already knew. After all of the perseverance and hard work, a student can look back and realize that they were able to achieve success from failure. From this success comes another important quality, self-esteem. After achieving a goal that was difficult or hard to reach, students feel confident in themselves and gain self-worth. In a workplace setting, success is not always imminent. Getting back up and knowing you can reach the goal or solve the problem is one of the most vital qualities to have in a

As a matter of fact, music actually improves many of the skills used in these other classes. Music education is proven to increase, reading, language and math skills. As expressed by Dr. Kyle Pruett, Clinical Professor at Yale School of Medicine, Language competence is a key factor to social encounters. Music strengthens the capacity to be verbally competent. Music helps students with the learning process of reading and language (Brown). Students learn words and ideas that would never be presented anywhere else. Nina Kraus, Hugh Knowles professor of neurobiology and physiology and director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern, is a leading investigator in a study on the link between music and reading skills. According to Kraus, in learning to read, the person learning must have an auditory representation of a sound to be linked to an image (letter). In one of her recent studies, Kraus measured the nervous system’s activity in response to sound. Whenever people hear sounds, neurons are fired and the activity can be measured. This measurement proves that musical training has a positive effect on the process used for auditory learning, memory, hearing and speech which inevitably means better learning language results. Kraus explained that “We’ve already discovered that the biological processes that underlie reading skills are the very processes that are