I was in several music classes when I was in school.  One of the most frustrating things for the teacher had to be chatty students in class.  If the whole point of your activity is to work with sound, distracting and noisy conversation is about the last thing you want.  Music educators, I’m sorry.  It looks like your profession actually helps kids communicate even better.

Research Reveals Better Sound Sensitivity With Music Training

A recent study as described in Science Daily has concluded that music education helps kids learn how to deal with noisy classrooms and picking up on subtleties in spoken language.  It helps the brain stem become more sensitive to sound stimuli.  The article goes into much more detail about this phenomenon, so I recommend reading it.  Just take a look at how the skills kids learn in music classes can connect with verbal communication:

• All that practice getting in tune with their neighbor and with various instrument sections across the room.

• Listening for and recreating rhythms, either in unison or in contrast with other rhythms.

• Understanding how everything coordinates together to make a sound much greater than the sum of the individual sounds.

Benefits of Music Education Are Abundant

So if you are a music educator, I guess you can’t win for losing.  All your attempts to teach kids to create beautiful music is also training them how to chat more effectively in an already noisy classroom.

Despite this, it’s always nice to uncover yet another benefit of kids participating long-term in music classes. Of course, there are so many other wonderful things about becoming a musician — improved school performance, confidence, and personal to name a few.