Advocacy

Band is so much more than JUST an elective! Keep reading to learn more about the lasting positive impacts of a comprehensive music education on our students!

In schools in which principals and vice principals say the quality of their music education programs is excellent or very good, graduation rates are 90.9%, and attendance is at 93.8%.
87% of teachers and 79% of parents strongly believe music education has a positive impact on overall academic performance.
89% of teachers and 82% of parents rate music education highly as a source for greater student creativity, a 21st century skill that’s highly likely to help young people stand out in an increasingly competitive global economy.
Research reveals strong connections between rhythm skills and pre-reading abilities in toddlers.

Everyday listening skills are stronger in musically-trained children than in those without music training. Significantly, listening skills are closely tied to the ability to: perceive speech in a noisy background, pay attention, and keep sounds in memory.
In order to fully reap the cognitive benefits of a music class, kids have to be actively engaged in the music and participate in the class.
In a 2009 study in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers used an MRI to study the brains of 31 6-year-old children, before and after they took lessons on a musical instrument for 15 months. They found that the music students’ brains grew larger in the areas that control fine motor skills and hearing—and that students’ abilities in both those areas also improved. The corpus callosum, which connects the left and right sides of the brain, grew as well.
Music training leads to greater gains in auditory and motor function when begun in young childhood; by adolescence, the plasticity that characterizes childhood has begun to decline. Nevertheless, our results establish that music training impacts the auditory system even when it is begun in adolescence, suggesting that a modest amount of training begun later in life can affect neural function.

Children who study a musical instrument are more likely to excel in all of their studies, work better in teams, have advanced critical thinking skills, stay in school, and pursue further education.
Perseverance is developed and strengthened through music education and supports better study habits and self-esteem.
As they make music together, children learn to work as a team while they each contribute to the song in their own way. At the same time, music helps children learn that together they can make something larger than the sum of its parts.
More benefits of music for children include learning cooperation, sharing, compromise, creativity, and concentration—skills that become invaluable as they enter school, face new challenges, and begin to form new friendships and develop social skills.

Studies show that music can trigger the brain to release chemicals that distract the body from pain.
Musical training is thought to improve nervous system function by focusing attention on meaningful acoustic cues, and these improvements in auditory processing cascade to language and cognitive skills.
Children who receive musical instruction have more robust brainstem responses to sound as adults than peers who never participated in music lessons. These results suggest that neural changes accompanying musical training during childhood are retained in adulthood.
Cognitive and neural benefits of musical experience continue throughout the lifespan, from childhood through senior adulthood, and counteract some of the negative effects of aging, such as memory and hearing difficulties in older adults.

"Band is so worth doing and can really help your social life! (Also learning an instrument can benefit your brain!)"
"If you are passionate and love band, I would absolutely suggest continuing band into high school! It gives you another option if you want to try something else band related (like marching band) and you will already know a lot of people from middle school band."
"I would tell a school board member that band is an irreplaceable class and that it really should get more funding!"
"My favorite thing about music is that I really got to know a lot of people by collaborating with others to make beautiful music. This helped me a lot in my social life and helped me meet people I probably wouldn't have talked to."
"What I like about music is that it helps you with creativity and stimulates your brain. It also helps you collaborate with others and make new friends. I think you should continue band throughout middle school because it is so worth it when you get to eighth grade. In 8th grade you get plenty of new opportunities including winning trophies and plaques for your band. I think Murray kids should continue band into high school because Mr. Parker is an awesome teacher that can teach you lots of new things to help you try to perfect your instrument(s)."

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