Piano teacher teaching piano lessons in the North Shore of Massachusetts serving

In 1996 the College Entrance Examination Board reported that students who had studied music, either lessons or appreciation, scored 60 points higher on the verbal portions of the Scholastic Aptitude Test and 42 points higher on the math portion than students who didn't study music.

Music is beneficial for all learners children -- and adults-- need to create, to express themselves and to feel proud of something they have accomplished. Piano lessons provide all this and more. Taking music lessons can be a joyful experience for students of any age or ability. Diligent music students learn how rewarding it is to achieve a goal -- correct practice really does make perfect!

Music Education Research Studies

Peter F. Oswald, M.D., professor of psychiatry at the University of California in San Francisco, has found that infants respond to the musical qualities of their parents' voices. A parent's song is a personal signature telling the child that it is safe to sleep and stabilizing the child's emotional connection to the parent. Young children use nursery songs to reduce the anxiety of separation from parents. Early shared musical activities enrich and support the bond between parent and child which can last a lifetime.

Dr. Jon-Roar Bjorkvold, professor of musicology at the University of Oslo, Norway, has closely examined the ways that children learn. Children have their own "child culture" full of song games which function as an essential part of their contact and communication with others and they often construct their understanding of the world around musical games. Music helps children define and clarify their own feelings. Solitary play is almost always accompanied by tunes, fragments of songs and rhythmic sounds.

Every human being has musical aptitude. Talent has more to do with achievement than with potential. All children have the ability to be musical, and this ability is greatly influenced by the timing and quality of their early experiences. Research indicates that regardless of the level of musical aptitude with which a child is born, he or she must have favorable early informal and formal experiences with music to maintain that level of potential. Edwin E. Gordon, Ph.D., Carl E. Seashore Professor of Research in music education at Temple University in Philadelphia found that properly timed and sequenced early experiences with music can raise the child's musical aptitude. Educators have come to realize that the preschool years are the optimal time for developing musical abilities.