The Effect of Learning Music on the Brain

For decades, developed countries have been seeking to include music learning in their academic programs. For example, in South Korea, Korean students are required to be able to play musical instruments to be accepted in any major at the university.

When talking about music and the brain, there is so much that comes to mind. Music was a vital component of Georgi Lozanov's equation to accelerate the learning process. The results of a study that discussed the effect of listening to Mozart's classical music on the results of IQ tests in some university students has been popularized in what is known as the "Mozart effect". Psychiatric patients and epilepsy patients also show a significant and remarkable improvement in their health condition after being subjected to music therapy, based on the results provided by their psychiatrists.

You may be wondering about the truth of the effect of music on the learning process, its impact on language learning in particular, the psychological impact it leaves on learners, whether listening to Mozart’s music raises the general IQ or not, whether there is a relationship between language learning and learning music, how the brain is affected by music, and how it reacts to listening to music. In this article, we will present some facts about learning music and language and the way the brain interacts with them. 

Music and the human sense of rhythm:

Music is a science that investigates the properties of sound in its various physical aspects. It has been said that it is the language of melodies and harmonious sounds. Music organizes sounds and the relationship between them through rhythms and time signatures.

Every art has its own language, and music is the closest of these arts to the spoken language. Both are sound phenomena, and just as language has rules for structure and grammar, music also has its own elements, which are:

1. Rhythm: The pattern of music in time. Rhythm is the repetition of a beat or group of beats regularly, and in a manner that the ear can expect. The rhythm does not add anything new to the melody, but rather it is a temporal organization of the melody, so that during this movement emphasis and de-emphasis alternate.
2. Melody: Melody to music is like a sentence to language. It consists of a group of tones ending in an effective expression. A melody is a group of successive sounds, organized as decided by the composer, and listened to as a single entity. It is a specific sequence of tones in an appropriate manner that satisfies the ear, and it depends on the relationship between the sounds in terms of pitches, the distances between a note and the next, as well as the duration of each note. All these differences are what gives each melody its distinct taste and color.
3. Harmony: The product of two or more sounds at the same time. The sound character in music is characterized by three elements:

• Genre: The difference in the source of the sound, as the sound of the violin is different from the sound of the Qanun.
• Sound intensity: Its strength and softness.
• Pitch: How high or low the tone is.

4. Timber: It is the nature of the sound source.

The average listener interacts with the music by listening to the final texture of this art, which they may or may not enjoy, while the expert listener is able to distinguish the four components of music, as they immerse themselves in listening to music, and have the ability to criticize what they are listening to through their prior knowledge and understanding of what they hear. Being able to taste music like that is a science that must be learned.

The psychological impact of music on learners:

There is no doubt that music has a psychological effect on a person, whether they are knowledgeable or ignorant of the components of the musical piece they hear. Researchers attribute this effect to the human’s so-called rhythmic sense, which helps them adjust their rhythm to the rhythm of nature around them. There are fast rhythms such as breathing and heartbeat, slow ones such as sleep and wakefulness, dual rhythms in nature such as day and night, and quadruple rhythms such as the succession of seasons during the year.

The rhythmic movement is nothing but a repetition of other movements that parallel it inside the human body or in the nature around it. Based on this, the researchers concluded the organic or natural origin of the music.

A recent study indicated that a person’s relationship with music can start from the first days of their life, through the response of their rhythmic sense to the mother’s songs and lullabies, and the melodies and songs that they are sung to be lured to sleep or eat, or to calm them and occupy them when they cry. Scientists have also proven that this relationship can start even before birth, as the fetus during pregnancy listens to the rhythm of its mother’s heartbeat, making its relationship with music a very early one. Scientists also found indications that a fetus in the third trimester of pregnancy could recognize its mother’s voice and language and could remember patterns of words and rhymes she was saying.

Does this mean that fetuses are able to distinguish speech from music in these early stages of development? Yes, as some studies have indicated that exposing fetuses to music increases brain activity, as children’s brains have an innate ability to detect musical notes.

However, these studies warn at the same time against exposing fetuses or infants to loud sounds and intense noises, especially for long periods, as it has been proven that they have a harmful effect on brain development. In addition, it was found that mothers who read to their fetuses in loud voices with intonation contributed to the activation of their auditory learning, by recognizing and preferring the mother’s voice. Astonishingly, this influence extends to their emotional and social development.

These studies do not provide an explanation for the psychological impact of music on the brain and vital indicators, such as breathing, pressure, and heart rate in fetuses, but they encourage mothers to read and talk to their infants before and after birth, and to ensure that the music they listen to for fetuses and infants is calm music, so that the auditory system is not damaged and the infant is not frightened.

Today, there is strong evidence of the positive impact of music on the mental health of learners, as it increases their academic achievement, helps them build positive relationships with their colleagues and teachers, and extends its impact to greatly increase creativity and production among students. It also has a clear effect in making the learner a calm person and a good listener.

Mental health has many definitions, including the ability to give and love without waiting for something in return, and it is interpreted as a balance between instincts, private desires, self, and conscience, and it is also defined as the ability to oscillate between doubt and certainty. The World Health Organization has defined it as “not merely the absence of mental disorders, but rather a state of well-being in which each individual is able to realize their own potential, adapt to normal situations of stress, work in a productive and beneficial manner, and contribute to their community.”

Judy Herr (J. Herr) says: “Music has the ability to develop a child’s feelings towards others, and it allows them to learn language and arithmetic skills, provides them with an inner feeling of joy while playing, eating and sleeping, and gives them the ability to express themselves and interact with the feelings of others. When children sing and listen to music, they learn new words and sounds.”

The truth behind the Mozart Effect on General Intelligence (IQ):

In 1993, Rauscher and his colleagues published the results of a study in adults stating that listening to “Mozart’s Sonata (K448)” for ten minutes significantly improved spatio-temporal thinking skills compared to two groups that did the same test, one without listening to music, while the other listened to relaxation instructions designed to lower blood pressure. However, the study showed that this effect did not enhance the general intelligence (IQ) of the test sample individuals, and its effect did not extend for more than 10 to 15 minutes. It is worth noting that this effect is not limited to Mozart’s music alone, but rather depends on certain characteristics, such as the average strength of certain tones and the long-term high frequency of this particular sonata (K448), which is found in some pieces by Bach and the Greek-American musician “Yanni”.

In other subsequent experiments, scientists tried to detect this effect in a group of children between the ages of 3-4 years, where the children received lessons in playing the keyboard for a musical instrument for 6 months, after which they succeeded in performing simple melodies of Beethoven and Mozart. Then they underwent tests of spatio-temporal reasoning, which showed an improvement in results by 30% compared to two groups of children, one of whom did not receive any special training, while the other received computer lessons.

This effect remained unchanged for 24 hours after the end of the lessons, and these higher results were explained by the fact that children’s brains are more flexible than those of adults.

Other studies emerged indicating that music has a positive role in developing the basic skills necessary for learning among students, such as language, speaking and writing. These studies confirmed that children who are trained to play a musical instrument have more vocabulary, as well as more advanced skills in reading compared to their peers who do not practice playing any instrument or do any other non-musical activities.

A pilot study of 6-year-olds practicing organ playing or singing for 36 weeks showed that these children had higher IQ and standardized educational test scores during that period compared to children who practiced other activities unrelated to music, and the group that learned to sing showed the most improvement.

In a 1996 study, the College Entrance Examination Service found that students who sang or played an instrument scored 51 points more on the verbal portion of the SAT and 39 points more on the math portion of the test.

Later, in an attempt to explain these results, positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) scans showed that listening to music activates large areas of the brain, and it was found that the components of music – such as rhythm, melodies, timbre, tone and harmony – are processed in the brain is in many different regions. It was also found that the areas responsible for temporal and spatial thinking skills intersect with areas of the brain responsible for processing music. The magnetic resonance images showed that the density of neural connections – and thus brain neural activity – increases in musical instrument players compared to those who do not play any instrument.

The effect of background music on learning:

Background music is the music that is played in the background while studying. In other words, it’s a kind of music that the learners listen to exclusively, when reading a text.

The Baroque music in Lozanov’s experiment was played in the background while the students were engaged in learning the vocabulary of the French language, and these sounds – as the students commented – contributed to their relaxation and comfort, which contributed to raising attention to the learning process. Later, many experiments followed suit to investigate the effect of background music on improving learning by measuring remembering and comprehension.

Some of these studies suggested that music, especially quiet and classical music, usually gives a general feeling of calmness, which helps students overcome stress and anxiety that are the number one enemy of learning. One study indicated that having a calm background music improves focus on the task at hand, by providing motivation to stay and listen, and improving students’ moods. It also found that students’ ability to recall information improved in some cases by creating a positive mood for them. One study also concluded that music is an element to attract students to school, and help them understand, perceive, and memorize other study materials. It also works to accustom the student to memorizing, remembering, and analyzing, and it is linked to other capabilities, such as the linguistic ability.

On the other hand, the study stated that music has a positive impact on the mental health of learners, which leads to an increase in students’ academic achievement, improvement of students’ relationships with their colleagues and teachers, and an increase in creative production. Moreover, the study indicated that the characteristics of the learner, such as their musical experience or familiarity with the music presented in the background is what can affect their learning. Some studies also indicated that background music has a positive effect on mood, as positive moods are associated with better learning outcomes, as opposed to boredom or negative moods that impede learning.

It should be noted that the effect and mechanism by which background music improves learning outcomes is not yet clear to researchers, and studies are still in their early stages in this regard.

Cautions about background music:

Results from studies looking at the relationship between background music and learning outcomes are varied. Perhaps the reason behind the difference in the results of these studies is the characteristics of the music used in each study (such as rhythm and pitch), which had an impact on learning. The comparative study conducted by the scientist Thomson et al. indicated that fast soft music has a positive effect, while the loud sounds and slow soft or loud music hindered the learning process. In addition, music accompanied by words disturbs learners more than instrumental music

However, these studies pointed out some warnings to consider when dealing with background music while studying. They found that students who listen to music with words while completing reading or writing tasks tend to be less proficient and to understand  less information, especially in tasks related to recalling lists, commands, and root-link information (cause and effect). They also found that loud or disturbed music has a harmful effect on mood, comprehension, and reading, as a result of the deterioration of the students' ability to focus, as the words and loud sounds of music interfere with learning, distracting the brain and weakening its ability to focus, while it is busy analyzing data from background music at the same time.

The study also noted that students who use music to help them memorize sometimes need to listen to music during the test in order to reap the benefits of this method of study. These students may find it more difficult to remember information in the silent test environment. Other studies have also noted that the effect of background music depends on the type of task the learners are working on. For example, if the task requires creativity or mental rotation, listening to one’s favorite music can increase performance, but if the task requires the learner to repeat the information correctly, quietness is the safest solution.

Music and language, an ancient relationship:

There has always been a very strong and ancient relationship between music and language. From a scientific point of view and based on a set of facts, both language and music are sound phenomena, and both are received through the ear, which in turn transmits the sound vibrations arising from the waves of language and music to the brain, which is the common organ between them, responsible for processing the information transmitted through those vibrations. From a historical point of view, the Greek historian and geographer Strabo believes that speech and singing were the same thing in ancient times, and he imagines that the various sounds that the first humans made were the first form of speech, and the rhythm of these sounds was the first form of music. In other words, the link was so strong that the two could not be separated.

Then came many scholars who researched this subject. Darwin was one of them, and he stated two centuries ago in his book “The Genesis of Man” that music and language were in the distant past the same thing, then music and language began to separate and develop from this linguistic-musical ancestor, each in a completely different way.”

This musical language, which is a primitive form of communicative and expressive sounds and gestures, is similar to the way infants communicate with us today. After a long history of separation between the tonal systems in music and the verbal systems of spoken language, these gestures or primitive sounds have become today the basis of all languages ​​and music we know.

Darwin tells us in his book that the need to express emotions and connection between humans to strengthen the social bonds of the group contributed to the development of this musical language through high and low, fast and slow sounds, each with its own suggestion, as in cases of joy, crying, and screaming. Long after that, a development emerged in the language that preserved this inherited relationship between music and language, which is poetry. The oldest mythological and religious texts were poetic, and people used to chant and sing them. Then came the time of defining art in the era of the Greeks and Romans, and music was separated from the rest of the arts as an independent art form that has its own characteristics and distinguishing features from the rest of the arts. Musical instruments appeared with singing to help the human voice show the aesthetics of the sung word, and the link between language and music remained forever.

The effect of music on the brain:

“Nothing stimulates as many areas of the brain as music,” said Donald Hodges, professor of music education and director of the Institute for Music Research at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro.

Studies that investigate the effect of music on the brain are studying the effect of musical intelligence on learning, and its effect on other mental abilities. The American psychologist “Gardner Howard” spoke in his well-known theory “Multiple Intelligences”, calling for the necessity of recognizing and nurturing the different types of human intelligence in order to have a better opportunity to deal with the challenges the world is facing. In his book “The Frame of Mind”, he states that there are 8 types of human intelligence, which are verbal intelligence, logical intelligence, social intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, physical intelligence, musical intelligence, spatial intelligence, and natural intelligence.

“Gordon Edwin, the American musician, teacher, writer, editor, composer, and researcher in music education, is one of the most prominent figures who studied musical intelligence and its effect on the brain and other functions. In his “Windows of Opportunities” theory, he said:

“Children learn many skills with the growth and development of the brain and the body together, such as speaking, walking, sitting, controlling the muscles of the body, and more. Each skill requires a certain age at which the child can learn this skill, when their ability to learn it is at its best. During this period, a window is open, and the child’s brain is greatly prepared to learn the skills associated with it, and they have an enormous ability to implement them.”

In his theory, Gordon called these periods “windows of opportunity” and suggested that parents and educators should use them to increase “music aptitude”. (Decay of musical ability: a theory that when certain areas of the human brain responsible for certain activities are not activated, that person’s brain will lose part of its ability in that area, which will negatively affect their ability to perform these activities later, and this applies to the musical aptitude, which he considered a mental ability. In other words, the individual’s musical aptitude declines as a result of neglect and lack of activation of the places responsible for it in the brain, as activation occurs by exposing the person to musical experiences that support their aptitude), not only by stimulating this aptitude in children by exposing them to poor musical experiences, but also by teaching them the language of music and its elements, playing a musical instrument, and other skills. All of this stimulates other mental skills that intersect with the skills that increase musical aptitude because they are involved in the same area of ​​the brain.

For example, language fluency is one of these skills. When the musical aptitude is stimulated, language fluency begins to develop and increase as a result of the brain activity that takes place in that area of ​​the brain common to both aptitudes. Another mental activity that is stimulated when stimulating the musical aptitude is the human visual ability, which also shares with the musical ability the same region of the brain, and it becomes more activated with the increase of the brain activity of the entire region.

Gordon argues that the reason for this is that both music and language are phonological phenomena that a child depends on listening and observing to learn, as the child uses language to communicate and sing, and learns how to use the vocabulary they learned, realizing the importance of its consistency and their ability to read it, learning by this to read and write.

What raises the child’s linguistic aptitude compared to the musical aptitude is the fact that the child’s linguistic environment is richer than their musical environment, as their family, relatives, and friends who surround them use speech more than singing to communicate with them.

Gordon’s interpretation was confirmed by late studies that indicated that musical training physically develops the left part of the brain responsible for the grammatical and structural processing of language. This is also confirmed by the practicing musician and professor of clinical psychology in children at Yale school of medicine, Dr. Pruett Kyle, who says: “Over time, a child’s language development tends to stimulate parts of the brain that help with musical processes, and musical experience strengthens a child’s verbal competence.”

While Charles Limb, a physician and musician who researches the way musical creativity works in the brain, presented in one of his lectures the impact of cochlear implants on the lives of his patients, he showed a graph indicating the range of frequencies that the human ear can hear, and the distribution of the frequencies for language and music within this hearing range.

You will clearly see in the graph that the range of musical frequencies (shown in pink) is much wider than the range of frequencies used to hear language (shown in green).

Both phenomena share the sound frequencies received by the ear and processed by the brain. This may be another additional explanation for the fact that the areas of the brain that process music participate in the processing of language as well. To explain this, Dr. Limb says: “When you listen to a word, all that matters to you is that it is understood correctly, and you don’t care if its musicality sounds good or not. Language is very precise compared to music. If a piece of music is not good and it does not have a comfortable tone, what is the point of listening to it?” Music, according to Dr. Limb, is “the pinnacle of listening.” If you can hear music, you can hear anything.

Music has its own characteristics that do not apply to the audible word, as the brain deals with it in a completely different way. For example, you can hear and perceive tone, which is the basic building block of music. You can also distinguish the sounds of various musical instruments, and even if you are not familiar with their names, you can determine the quality of the sound and describe it as warm and comfortable or not.

Limb confirms what we have previously reviewed in this article, saying that the goal of any learning experience for the brain is to build more neural connections between brain cells, as each cell is capable of building up to ten thousand connections on its own. It is no wonder that students learning to play a musical instrument improve reading and language skills, as MRI images show increased brain activity when listening to soft music, compared to being exposed to verbal information only without any accompanying music.

Conclusion:

What distinguishes the Accelerated Learning philosophy is its use of a number of techniques based on studies of the brain and how it works in order to make use of it in accelerating the learning process and raising the efficiency of learners, by generating a state of mind for creativity and not only for learning.

Music can be introduced into the learning process in a thoughtful way that helps learners relax and creates a general positive mood towards the learning process, the place, and educational material. The appropriate music can also be introduced into the process of generating ideas, and solving difficult arithmetic and logical problems.

Finally, you have the option to experiment with how music can raise the efficiency of your performance or the performance of your learners, and you can do this by adding the element of music to learning-related tasks, especially tasks related to reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, then measuring the amazing impact and results that it leaves on the performance and mental state of learners.