Cameron Campbell 4/25/19 Chemistry Final Project: How Music Affects Cognitive Ability

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Cameron Campbell

4/25/19
Chemistry
Final Project: How Music Affects Cognitive Ability
Music is a huge part of our culture. Many of us listen to music on the radio, or on

our cell phones, and we even pay money to see musicians perform in concert. Although

music is such a beloved part of our culture and a lot of people listen to music, many do

not take or have the time to learn how to play musical instruments. This isn’t necessarily

a problem in our society, but since music classes are offered for free at almost all

elementary and high schools it should be very easy for a students to get musical training.

However, many people do not take advantage of this even though it is pretty common

knowledge that learning to play a musical instrument improves brain functions. So why

wouldn’t everyone want to learn how to play an instrument? I find it strange that our

society has such an obsession with health fads. We are willing to try so many different

diets, wear waist trainers, and take pills every morning in order to improve our physical

health. Schools are offering healthy, sugar free foods now to prevent child obesity. But

yet it seems that no one interested in improving the mental health of students. Mental

health is constantly being pushed aside in order to make room for physical health.

However, they should both be treated with equal importance. Because of the fact that

learning to play an instrument improves mental health by enhancing auditory

processing, memory, motor and thinking skills, and creativity, schools should be

encouraging students to take music classes.

The idea that musical training can have positive effects on cognitive abilities that

aren’t related to music has been a topic of interest for quite some time now. Research on

this idea initially started at the beginning of the 20th century. Assessments of IQ and

musical ability suggested the two were correlated, and it was thought that participation
Cameron Campbell
4/25/19
Chemistry
Final Project: How Music Affects Cognitive Ability
in musical training could help to improve IQ. Recently, research has shifted focus from

effects on musical training on IQ and instead now focuses more on the benefits that

music can provide to specific skills and tasks that an individual is doing. Musical

training has shown to lead to improvements in a wide variety of different skills as well,

including memory and spatial learning. In addition to those, language skills such as

literacy and verbal memorization have also been shown to strongly benefit from musical

training.

You don’t even need musical training to experience the benefits that music can

have on you mental health. Simply just listening to music can essentially do the same

thing. It has been proven that students that listen to music while working are able to

work at a faster pace and are more focussed while working. That being said it does

depend on the type of music you choose to listen to while working. Studies have shown

that instrumental styles of music such as; various classical styles, and jazz (without a

vocalist) have a better effect than music with lyrics such; hip hop, rnb, pop, and rock, as

well as jazz, and classical when lyrics are included. This is not because any of these styles

are inherently bad, but more so because if someone listens to a song with lyrics they are

more likely to focus on what the lyrics are saying than on the task they are performing.

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