Music education brings tremendous benefits to young people. As a form of communication that enables us to express what cannot be articulated in language, music has played a role through the ages in life events, religion, and cultural arts that attests to its unique ability to convey the human experience.
Points To Ponder
- Arts participants volunteer more. Literary readers and arts participants volunteer at more than twice the rate of those who do not read literature or participate in the arts. For example, half of all performing arts attendees volunteer or do charity work, compared with less than 20% of non-attendees. Those who read literature such as short stories, poems, or novels are almost three times as likely to volunteer as non-readers.
- Arts fans are sports fans. Contrary to popular belief, the people who go to theater and concerts are also comfortable showing team spirit at the sports stadium or neighborhood soccer field. People who attend performing arts attend sporting events at twice the rate of non-attendees, and arts participants are also more likely than non-arts participants to play sports.
- Arts participants enjoy the great outdoors. Literary readers and arts participants engage in outdoor activities, such as camping, hiking, or canoeing, at double the rate of non-arts participants. They also exercise at nearly twice the rate of non-readers and non-participants.
- Young adults are less involved in civic life. Over a 20-year period, young adults are reading less literature, attending fewer arts performances, and even listening to less jazz and classical radio. Young adults also are less involved in sports and exercise, and volunteer rates were flat. Over a similar 20-year timeframe, obesity among young adults grew by roughly 10 percentage points (source: National Center for Health Statistics, Health United States, 2004).
- Music education is a core academic subject at national and state levels.
- Music students learn to organize thoughts and sound, make choices, identify patterns, appreciate silence, hear, and notice.
- 84% of Americans believe that music is an important part of life and 70% agree that the state should mandate music in the schools (Gallup, 1997).
- Students who are consistently involved in instrumental music over the middle and high school years show "significantly higher levels of mathematics proficiency by grade 12," and this difference - regardless of students' socio-economic status - becomes even more significant over time.1
- Students with coursework or experience in music performance and music appreciation had higher SAT scores - an average of 57 points higher on the verbal and 41 points higher on the math.2
- At-risk children participating in an arts program that included music, movement, dramatics, and art experienced significant increases in overall self-concept.3
1. Catterall, James S., Richard Chapleau, and John Iwanaga. Involvement in the Arts and Human Development: General Involvement and Intensive Involvement in Music Theater Arts. Los Angeles: The Imagination Project at UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, 1999.
2. College-Bound Seniors National Report: Profile of SAT Program Test Takers. Princeton, NJ: The College Entrance Examination Board, 2001.
3. Barry, N. H. Project Arise: Meeting the needs of disadvantaged students through the arts. Auburn University, 1992.
