Whenever I have music in my day, it is a better day – simple as that. We all benefit from music and use it to make our day easier, more fun and more meaningful. Listening to songs helps us stay calm while sitting in traffic on the 405, it makes cleaning up the kitchen more enjoyable and is part of our holiday rituals, regardless if we are religious, spiritual or not.

It is also clear that music is very important for a child’s development and in later life. We feel we all know this instinctively, but studies like the ones mentioned below are clear indicators that music is as important as reading, writing and math. Music helps our children learn to communicate better, it improves their learning, is a confidence-builder, a great creative outlet and, of course, immense fun!

1994 A study by Frances Rauscher, a leading Psychologist, found that after eight months of keyboard lessons, preschoolers demonstrated a 46% boost in their spatial reasoning IQ. This gain does not occur in those without music training.

1996 Students in two Rhode Island elementary schools given a sequential, skill-building music program showed a marked improvement in math skills. (Gardiner, Fox, Jeffry, and Knowles, as reported in Nature, May 23, 1996)

Preschoolers who took singing and keyboard lessons scored 80 per cent higher on object-assembly tests than students at the same preschool who did not have the music lessons (Rauscher & Shaw, as reported in Symphony Sep.-Oct. 1996).

1997 Students who studied piano performed 34 per cent better in spatial and temporal reasoning ability than students who spent the same amount of time learning to use computers (Rauscher, Shaw, as reported in Neurological Research, February 1997).

1998 Second graders who took piano lessons and played a math computer game performed significantly better on tests of fractions and proportional math than children who took English language instruction on the computer and played with the math software, and better than those who did not participate in either activity (Study published in the March issue of the Journal of Neurological Research).

2004 A California study found that 75% of Silicon Valley CEO’s had instrumental music education as a child.

2008 Hong Kong university of China discovered that not only does the regimen of learning to read and play music increase the rate of learning new vocabulary, but it results in a permanent increase in the learning rate. If the music learning process stops, the increased capacity is retained. If the challenging music program starts again, the rate of learning increases further.

2009 A MIT study determined that the cerebral cortex of a concert pianist is enlarged by 30% on average compared to people that are considered intellectuals, but who did not have instrumental music education.

The list goes on and on…

This is what some slightly more distinguished people than myself had to say about music and its effects:

“Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.”

“Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”

“Music is the pleasure of the human soul experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.”

“Music can name the un-nameable and communicate the unknowable.”

“Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.”

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”

in the immortal words of The Ramones: “Hey, Ho, let’s go!“