MOHAMMED V UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Literature and Human

Sciences
Rabat- Department of English Cultural
Studies Stream
Spring 2020
By

ELOUAHIDI MOUNIA
Under the supervision of Professor:
GRAIOUID SAID

Music is an art that touches both the mind

And the soul

Seminar: Spaces of Diversity and Inclusion: Culture,

Identity and the Arts
 A Paper submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirement for the Degree of Science in English
studies

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to thank Almighty Allah for giving me
opportunity, determination and strength to complete my thesis. His
continuous grace and mercy was with me throughout my life and ever more
during the tenure of my research. I wish to express my deepest
appreciation, gratitude and genuine gratefulness to the people that have
supported, inspired and helped me during the process of composing this
dissertation.

Now, I would like to thank and express my deep and sincere gratitude to my
supervisor, Professor GRIOUID Said, for his continuous support, guidance
and encouragement. In addition to being an excellent supervisor, he is a
man of principles and has immense knowledge of research in general and
his subject in particular. I appreciate all his contributions of time, support
and ideas. I am especially appreciative and tremendously grateful to my
interviewees who have been kind enough to share their experiences with
me, and who willingly helped me find the answers to my questions.

My heartfelt thanks go to my mother and father, for providing me with the

great comfort and assistance I needed even though they struggled a lot. I
appreciate my sisters who in a way or another shared their support, be it
morally, financially or physically. Furthermore, I also want to extend my
deepest thanks and gratitude towards my two best friends Ibtissame and
Siham, who were there for me when I lacked motivation and will to continue
on this academic journey.

ABSTRACT

Since a long time ago the art of music was only regarded as a sweet melody
to the ear, a simple combination of sounds that eventually creates a musical
piece for people to hear and enjoy, however, time changed and the world
developed, music has become an industry a lot of people want to gain access
to. Music after all was not only a simple topic, it was discovered to be a
world of notes, numbers, shapes and sounds.

This research paper will be including a glimpse on the history of music and
how it was developed through generation, it will also include a
demonstration of how students use music education to their benefits, and
moreover, it will encompass a set of articles that develop the research paper
as well as act as evidence to the statement that declares the positive effects
on students methods of learning and level of thinking as well as other
issues.

In addition, this research will also contain a set of answers that were given
by a group of students who were willing to be interviewed, their statements
hopefully will be answers to the many questions of people who doubt that
music is nothing but an art and not some method that affects students in an
educational way.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

● Content

Acknowledgement
………………………………………………………...
Abstract………………………………………………………
…………………
Table of
contents………………………………………………………
……
● SECTION I
Introduction…………………………………………………
………………..
Literature Review and Narrative Research...............................
● SECTION II
Transitional
paragraph………………………………………………….
Narrative………………………………………………………
………………
● SECTION III
Conclusion
…………………………………………………………………
…
References
…………………………………………………………………
…
Interview
Guide…………………………………………………………
….
 INTRODUCTION

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the
imagination and life to everything.” This is one of Plato’s rare quotes about
music attribution to the human brain and soul. It is quite uncommon for a
philosopher to have a say about the art of music, and this claims-in a way or
another- a lot about music and how it affects the human mind especially
students who are interested in music as a subject and learn how to use a
musical instrument.

It all started in the 18th century when music began to spread, and schools
were built for students to learn how to play musical instruments. The world
then started to acknowledge the role of music in schools, however, back
then they weren’t aware of how practicing a music instrument can actually
impact on the student’s mind and the way it functions, it was only
considered as an interesting field that differs from a culture to another. Until
the late 20TH century or so, researches were made to observe and analyze
the difference between students who perform on musical instruments and
those who do not.

This research paper will dive more into the topic that raises the question of
whether music education has an impact on students' minds and the way
they perform in school towards other subjects or is it just a theory with
groundless proofs. In addition to what has been said, this research paper is
going to include articles that discuss as well as analyses music education
effects on students, it will also cover students’ experiences while studying
music among other subjects and how it influenced them or changed their
chain of thoughts or behavior on an academic level.
 Literature Review and Narrative

Research

“Narrative” can be manifested as a term that encompasses a set of styles

that in turn depend on written or spoken words as to describe a series of
events that occurred to some individuals. These methods usually focus on
the lives of individuals as they tell it through their own stories. (Clandinin &
Connelly, 2000, p. 20) define the word “ narrative” as "a way of
understanding and inquiring into experience through collaboration
between researcher and participants, over time, in a place or series of
places, and in social interaction with milieus”.

When discussing narrative in the research field, it is commonly described as

data in which the researcher extracts from his or her interviewees in order
to support his research arguments. Narrative is known to hold a quite
important role in many disciplines such as literature, history and so on, it
occurs in every which exists in all forms of human innovation; such as
poetry, dance, theatre, song, film, art and much more. Most of the time
narrative is established to subsume the “whole story” with its in-depth
elements.

Prior to diving into some of my kind interviewees’ experiences with

learning music, firstly I must tackle the subtractive case by providing a set
of articles which can be manifested as supportive statements to this
research paper and an interpretation of why music is crucial in a student’s
life and education.
A study has shown that “music engages many areas distributed throughout
the brain, including those that are usually involved in other kinds of
cognition. The active areas vary with the person's individual experiences
and musical training. The ear has the fewest sensory cells of any sensory
organ--3,500 inner hair cells occupy the ear versus 100 million
photoreceptors in the eye. Yet our mental response to music is remarkably
adaptable” which entails that music as a matter of fact does affect the brain
cells in a way that enhances the student’s or the person’s brain capacity.
Another study “in fact, musicians have significantly more grey matter in
several brain regions (Schlaug et al 2005), and the effects of music lessons
seem to increase with the intensity of training. “And that entails the more
the student took music lessons the more he is to become more efficient and
creative.

In this research it claims that “for instance, in one study, people who played
musical instruments as children showed more robust brainstem responses
to sound than did non-musicians (Skoe and Kraus 2012).” And the
brainstem is obviously located in the brain and that where music is known
to affect. For non-musicians music is just an art and an intriguing sound, as
for musicians it’s a way of life, it is a whole other world. For example, in one
study, “non-musicians were assigned to perform a 5-finger exercise on the
piano for two hours a day. Within five days, subjects showed evidence of
re-wiring. The size of the area associated with finger movements had
become larger and more active (Pascual-Leone 2001).”

On a social level, when performing music in groups be it adults or children,

a study has shown that “making music in a group has been suggested to
increase communication, coordination, cooperation and even empathy
between in-group members (Koelsch, 2010). Therefore, it could easily be
conceived how musical training could have a positive impact on the
well-being and social development of children and adults.” Students tend to
require the abilities mentioned in the former quote in order to function in
an adequate way while studying other subjects; it also helps them improve
team work and participating inside class.
Additionally, it has already been pointed out that whilst studying music it
affects other school materials as “A number of researchers and music
education advocates have argued that studying music enhances academic
achievement, such as William Earhart, former president of the Music
Educators National Conference, who claimed that "Music enhances
knowledge in the areas of mathematics, science, geography, history, foreign
language, physical education, and vocational training."

In addition, there was a study that was conducted in the United States that
entails “Using intensive music curriculum as an intervention paired
alongside regular classroom activities, research shows that students
involved with the music curriculum show increases in reading
comprehension, word knowledge, vocabulary recall, and word decoding”.
What a number of people don’t realise is that music is actually beneficial for
students who have issues with other school subjects, therefore, music
increases their performance at school and decreases their lack of
concentration during a class course.

To summarise, music is a way of life that not many people acknowledge, it

brings life to our lives, and lets our minds flourish, it helps us improve
ourselves and it what we do. For many years it is considered a language
across the world, it started with a flute as an instrument of entertainment,
now to be a classical advanced art and one of the most important subjects
that is taught in schools and facilities. Nowadays, non-musicians are trying
to explore this field and see what makes it utterly fascinating and
mesmerising to the ear.

 
 Transitional paragraph

Narrative is a vast space that is widespread. It can be located in language be

it written, spoken, or fixed. It can be found in moving images, videos, texts,
motions, and many more. Narrative held a crucial role for ages and it still
does; it is present in every generation, society, and place. Narrative is
established to tell stories of humankind, it is there to witness history,
therefore it is everywhere and without it, and people cannot share their
stories with others. Narrative is the key to communication, it is what makes
people raise awareness of others’ stories, be it entreating, informing, or
acknowledging.

Being a researcher, the narrative is an invaluable opportunity to dive into

my interviewee's personal experiences as storytellers, this method will help
me understand and study their cases regarding their behaviors, actions,
information, and so on. As for interviewing, it is considered the most famous
method at assembling data in a qualitative research paper; it focuses on the
participants’ experiences on a close level. The narrative brings into focus
stories as lived experiences that are unremembered and the fashion of
encountering them.
 NARRATIVE

Most of the interviewees I encountered started learning music between

nine and fourteen years old. All of them chose an instrument that suited
their preference such as saxophone, clarinet, and guitar. They all were
inspired by someone close to them, for example, one of the interviewees
stated that a family friend presented him to the field of music claiming that
for some reason he saw potential in him. Another interviewee declared that
her brother was why she wanted to be involved in the music industry as she
saw the change in his behavior and his studies tendency. The interviewees
say that they didn’t settle immediately for the instruments mentioned in the
former, some had to choose between the piano and the clarinet, while
others found it tough to choose between violin and guitar.

What is interesting and fascinating is that they all agreed on the matter that
music as a matter of fact changed their behavior and the orientation of their
thinking and study. At first they were all curious of what all those musical
notes are and how to imply them on a musical instrument. One of my
interviewees denotes on how when he spent a great amount of time-months
to be precise-learning about music and playing on his clarinet he started to
notice his development on other subjects such as math, and as he told me
music is like math, it is like 1+1=2, which implies for him music is like
knowing numbers and what this number plus another equals. Another
participant claimed that while studying music, she gained more
concentration at other study materials and it was noticeable in school
materials. What is noteworthy is that they all share the notion of “the early
you started studying music the more it has an effect on you”.
The most important aspect in this research paper was if music really has an
effect on students’ thoughts and behaviours and surprisingly according to
my kind interviewees it does. Some were failing at their school subjects;
they had an unsuccessful time at maintaining their focus whilst attending a
class or a particular school subject, however, once they started attending
music classes and playing on musical instruments they developed an ability
to do more at their school as well as pay more attention to class; one of my
interviewees states that he wasn’t great at revising for a lesson before the
exams claiming that he had a hard time remembering all the information
until he spent a great amount of time at studying music and revising music
lessons that he observed a change at the decreasing of his remembering
issue; another participant says that he didn’t figure the reason his brain
functions better than before until a music teacher told them that “studying
music has the facility to activate more brain cells to work in an efficient
method”.

All the interviewees harmonize with the fact that exploring the music field
proved to be helpful and worthy of their time and patience. Music is an art
that took place in our lives for centuries and it still does, it is not to be
ignored or belittled, it proved to be very essential through generations or
we wouldn’t see thousands of people trying to master this art and spend
their time and money for the sake of learning how to play an instrument.
Music aims to advance the performance of human minds and the ability to
function better as well as to be motivated and more efficient at other
matters. What is more is that they all coincide with the fact that they
thought it impossible to memorise all the notes and perform them in front
of an audience or to perform with an orchestra, but that just how music
works it motivates you to overcome what we call stage fright, it also creates
a harmony between you and the other music performers thus in the end it
produces a melodic and nice to the ear musical piece.

All things considered, what my participants want to share with others who
think of signing up for music lessons or those who want to explore this art
that they go for it. There will be no regret on the behalf of learning music. It
is a field that allows you to think, create, and perform better that before in
school materials such as math or a subject that requires revising and
learning by heart. All in all, their piece of advice was to “give music a chance
and try to navigate more into this artistic field, for it is like hitting two birds
with one stone, you will get to learn how to play a musical instrument as
well as develop the way your brain works”.
 Conclusion
This research aims to dive into students who learn music as a school
subject, as well as its effects on their thinking and behaving at school. Each
one of those students plays on a particular instrument chosen by him or her,
and while they study music they also notice how it improves their direction
of studies, it has been proven that learning music does help students
advance in their school materials such as mathematics, science, learning
new languages and so on. What is more is that this has been proven by
many scientists and musicians across the world that have done experiments
and observed students who study music in schools.

This research helped me grasp the real meaning of narrative and how
important it is to be a storyteller, it made me realize that time and patience
are very important when writing for an academic purposes, moreover it
assisted me in understanding that without the help of others- instructor,
friends, family and interviewees- I wouldn’t have finished it during such a
difficult time. In addition to what’s said before, this research paper aided me
as a non-musician person appreciate more those who study and compose
music, for just by reading about it in articles and journals it proved to be
quite difficult, it also helped me raise awareness to the fact that it might not
be as early as it should be to start learning a musical instrument but one
might give it a try, even though it takes a lot of time, patience and
concentration.
 References

Clandinin, D. J. (2006). Narrative Inquiry: A Methodology for Studying

Lived Experience. Research Studies in Music Education, 27(1), 44–54.

Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1177/1321103X060270010301

Hodges, D. (2000). Implications of Music and Brain Research. Music

Educators Journal, 87(2), 17-22.

Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3399643

Skoe E and Kraus N. 2012. A little goes a long way: how the adult brain is
shaped by musical training in childhood. J Neurosci. 32(34):11507-1

Retrieved from:
https://www.parentingscience.com/music-and-intelligence.html

Koelsch S. (2010). Towards a neural basis of music-evoked emotions. Trends

Cogn. Sci. 14, 131–137 10.1016/j.tics.2010.01.002

Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3957486/#B83

Joanne Lipman. October 12, 2013. New York Times: "Multiple studies link
music study to academic achievement."

Retrieved from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_education#History_of_music_education_i
n_the_United_States

Morrison, Steven J (1994). "Music students and academic growth". Music

Educators Journal. 81 (2): 33-36. Doi:10.2307/3398812. JSTOR 3398812
 Retrieved from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_education#History_of_music_education_i
n_the_United_States

Register, D.; Darrow, A.A; Swedberd, O.; Standley, J. (2007). "The use of music to
enhance reading skills of second grade students and students with reading
disabilities". Journal of Music Therapy. 44 (1):
23–37. Doi:10.1093/jmt/44.1.23. PMID 17419662

Retrieved from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_education#History_of_music_education_i
n_the_United_States
 Interview Guide

❖ When and why did you choose to learn a musical

instrument?

❖ Who presented you to the field of music?

❖ Is the instrument you chose to play your was first

preference?

❖ Did you notice any changes regarding your studies after

exploring the music field and perform with one of its

instruments?

❖ Do you presume that studying music and playing a musical

instrument helps improve the brain's abilities?

❖ What kind of advice would you give to people interested in

the music domain?