As the Seattle Times recently reported, school districts across our regionare proposing deep cuts to music and other arts programming. These cuts wouldbe foolhardy, andmountains of research exists to show why.
Study after study shows that students who participate in schoolmusic outperform their nonmusical counterparts in math, sciences and English.In one Canadian studyconducted by the University of British Columbia involving100,000 students, this was true even after researchers controlled for suchthings as gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status.
“Those who tookseveral years of instrumental music class had higher scores in math andscience in grade 10 and higher English scores in Grade 12exams and wereone year ahead of their peers,” according to the study, which wasthen used to to accurately predict the same outcome in a follow-up.
Countless others have reached similar conclusions, from institutionslike Johns Hopkins Medicine; the American Psychological Association; the Brainand Creativity Institute at University of Southern California; and theNational Institutes of Health.
Playing music is not easy. Musicians have to track from note tonote, passage to passage, keep track of form, physically control theirinstrument, maintain their rhythmic timing(pure math), and, in the case ofimprovising musicians, track functional harmony (chords) and createlogical musical phrases of their own in real time as chords change.The brain isdoing ahugeamount of computing when playing music!
As any music teacher will tell you, playing music is the best cognitive development “bang for your buck” there is. Music is a cognitive glue that connectsactivity from variousparts of the brain, it is a vitamin that kick-startshigher level thinking, it is an objective that players work together as a teamto achieve and it is a seed from which creativity isborn.
Music teachers aren’t in this just to train musicians; only a tinypercentage of students who participate in school music will pursue it incollege or as a career. No, music teachersare training the future biochemist whowill cure cancer, the tech genius who will invent an organic processor fasterthan anything we can imagine, the engineer who willdevise an efficient,compact way to create hydrogen to power automobiles, or the scientist whowill make nuclear fusion a viable energy source.
Cuts to these programs will have long-lasting impacts, even if theintent is to reinvest in music again when finances are better, because a solidmusic program takes adecade or more to develop. I know this from personalexperience as founder and director of a nonprofit after-school steelbandprogram here in our area. Whether in aschool or community-based, building a qualitymusic program takes time. There are currently award-winning music programs (likethose in my own district, Edmonds) on thechopping block, and anything thatgets cut now won’t be rebuilt anytime soon.
School boards cite lower enrollments as a primary justification for cuttingmusic programs. It is true that enrollment is down in music and other arts as aresult of COVID; it was nearlyimpossible to teach online, so class sizes dwindled.But instead of cuttingmusic, they should be putting forth an effort to promote music and get the kids back into the bandroom!
Now, the touchy-feely stuff: music is also important for the socialdevelopment and mental health of our children. Music was my best friend growingup, my therapy, and Iknow some kids right now in my own program who would saythe same thing. Attend your school board meetings and save music in theschools!
Gary Gibson is founder and Executive and Artistic Director of Steel Magic Northwest, a non-profit providing after-school steelband to youth in Edmonds and Kent, and adult community steelband in Edmonds.
