7 Skills Students Learn by Studying Music

A list of how music makes a difference in children’s lives.

  1. Comprehending. Learning to perceive and derive meaning from musical sounds - for example, to identify a musical theme - sharpens your child’s ability to comprehend abstractions.
  2. Solving Problems. The ability to understand a problem and reach an appropriate solution is one of the most important skills your child can learn. Learning the basics of musical language, such as harmony or interpreting a work through performance teaches this skill.
  3. Reasoning Logically. Applying particular lessons to other problems and solutions requires sound reasoning. When your child learns to analyze a musical work from a cultural, structural, or historical perspective, or to improvise within a certain musical style, both indicative and deductive reasoning grow stronger.
  4. Making Value Judgements. Learning to comprehend, consider, and evaluate in music can help your child make informed decisions in other aspects of life. Discriminating between great and lesser works or justifying musical choices can teach your child how to make and uphold value judgments.
  5. Using Symbols. The ability to use symbols distinguishes the human race among all forms of life. Learning to read, write, and interpret musical notation provides access to a non-verbal world of thought and strengthens the use of other symbol systems as well, such as mathematics or language.
  6. Conceptualizing. Your child learns to classify and generalize by learning to identify different types and styles of music, to recognize how different cultures use music for personal expression, and to recognize common elements in different works.
  7. Communicating. The greatest gift of music is its ability to cultivate our feelings and thoughts through non-verbal means. Being able to express these feelings and thoughts, and to respond to them in others, is part of every successful program of music study and indispensable in your child’s total development.

Courtesy of The Foundation for the Advancement of Education in Music.