Eric Jensen, _Teaching With the Brain In Mind_ (1998)

In his ASCD book Teaching with the Brain in Mind, educator Eric Jensen reviews research on the arts.  He asserts that "...today's biology suggests that it's the arts that lay the foundation for later academic and career success.  A strong art foundation builds creativity, concentration, problem solving, self-efficacy, coordination, and values attention and self-discipline" (36).

Jensen reviews research on music, summarizing the key findings:

1. Music arouses emotional states by increasing or decreasing attentional transmitters.  I take issue however, with Jensen's citation of a study (Giles 1991) of 8th and 9th graders in Principal magazine, where "students' reading comprehension substantially improved with background music" (37).  In more recent findings since the early 90s--the era of the infamous Mozart Effect (Rauscher et al 1993)--research has disproved any beneficial effect, either in regard to IQ increases or academic performance/learning, via listening to music, even if it's classical and instrumental.  If anything, research has indicated that listening to music is a cognitively demanding activity which competes for the learners' attention, especially if the task is verbal, rather than spatial-mathematical.  The deleterious effects increase if the music is vocal, rather than instrumental, or is non-classical.
2. Music acts as a carrier, e.g. learning the alphabet via the Alphabet Song, as information: content and music are linked together.
3. Music can prime the brain's neural pathways, affecting the speed, sequence, and strength of neuronal firing. "Neural firing patterns are basically the same for music appreciation and abstract reasoning" (Rauscher, cited in Mandelblatt, 1993, 13).  "An increasing amount of research findings support the theory that the brain is specialized for the building blocks of music" (Weinberger 1995).  Also, the auditory cortex responds to pitch and tones, rather than raw sound frequencies, and individual brain cells process melodic contour (37). 

A few provocative findings from the studies reviewed by Jensen:

• High correlation between pitch discrimination and reading skills (Lamb and Gregory 1993)
• Musical dance training boosted scores on the Torrance Test of Creativity (Mohanty and Hejmadi 1992).
• Music activates procedural (body) memory and therefore is learning that lasts (Dowling 1993).
• Arts education facilitates language development, enhances creativity, boosts reading readiness, helps social development, and fosters positive attitudes towards school (Hanschumacher 1980, reviewing 36 studies).
• Art is not a right-brained activity, but a whole-brain activity.  Musicians process melodies in the left hemisphere, and PET scans of problem solvers show activations in not just the left frontal lobes, but areas used to store music, art, and movement (Kearney 1996).