AIRS 1st Annual Meeting: 2009

Title: WORLearning singing skills: Effects on broader skill learning
Authors: Martin Gardiner (Brown University)

Abstract

This talk will discuss our data published in the journal Nature (Gardiner et al, 1996), and also
data from more recent studies. We are finding superior performance in math and, in upper
elementary grades, also in language arts in elementary grade students who learn singing skills
by Kodaly method, as compared to peers without this singing training. We study this win-win
evidence that skill training, which opens up the benefits of music can at the same time help the
student develop skill learning more broadly as well. These cross-relationships between musical
and other skill learning, I propose, can most readily be explained as reflecting impact of the
singing and other musical skill training on development of brain capabilities for “mental
engagement” (Gardiner, 2008). Mental engagement concerns how the brain is used in support
of skill. Such cross- relationships between musical and other skill learning are not only of
practical interest to educators, supporting the importance of musical skill training, and in
particular singing training, within the school curriculum, but also can help us to better
understand brain functions related to musical skill and how brain engagement called upon by
music is related to brain engagement supporting skills of other kinds.