Most teenagers today are well aware of their musical choices and have strong opinions of the kind of music they like and don’t like. Music itself is a creative art form, which is universal and found in all cultures around the world in one form or another. Can learning music help foster creativity in children and also in their academic life?

Researchers have long been studying the impact of music on brain cells and how it shapes learning. Many researchers validate the fact that music education from an early age helps develop cognitive abilities, memory, and language development. Creativity is something which is embedded in every aspect of our life. Apart from elementary math and science problems, even to understand engineering and other abstract ideas, it is important to think from different angles and apply the concept to find a solution. Can music help achieve that?

Does Music Help Foster Creativity?

The director of The Music Intelligence Lab at Georgia Tech, Parag Chordia, with support from the National Science Foundation*, is researching the neurological process behind creativity, and music is a key element behind that process according to him. He argues that subjects like math and science can become abstract quickly and to help people relate to it easily, reference points need to be created. Mathematical concepts can be designed around music he explains.

Music connections at different ages can work as teaching tools, typically enhancing retention as well. You may have seen many teenagers completing their homework or memorizing their notes swiftly with music playing in their ears. He further argues that creativity isn’t the realm of just a few people but it's something that is present in every person. There has to be a way to unlock that creativity in people and that is what he is trying to find out.

If you look at brain scans of professional musicians when they are improvising and when they are playing already composed music, a distinct difference is observed in both modes.

In the Journal of Consumer Research**, a study in 2012 revealed that background noise is an important component of an ideal work environment. It is also found that some level of ambient noise helps the creative process while only high levels of noise can harm creativity. This is reason enough to introduce ambient musical noise levels to children to foster creativity.

What does this all mean?

Children generally love to sing and dance. Enjoyment and laughter are critical to wellness and wellbeing. Introducing children to music from an early age can help develop these positive feelings in them and trigger the creativity process. Learning music and making your own musical notes is itself a creative process. Children who are well familiar with the process from an early stage can be set onto the creative path in later life which also helps them develop academically. Forte School of Music can help you help your child foster creativity in children. Our music programs for children start from as early as 6 months because that is the prime time of learning and enhancing a child's intellectual skills. For more information about our music classes, try a free lesson email or give us a call.

Nunzio Giunta

References:

* www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/musiccreativity.jsp

** www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665048#full_text_tab_contents

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