Music lessons do NOT help children’s other areas of study like reading and maths, research suggests 

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Music lessons do NOT help children’s other areas of study like reading and maths, research suggests

  • Music lessons do not help children improve cognitive skills for reading or maths
  • Findings come from a review of 54 scientific studies involving 7,000 children 
  • But lessons can improve general intelligence, memory and sound perception

By Victoria Allen Science Correspondent For The Daily Mail

Published: | Updated:

This will strike a wrong note with parents who splurge on piano or violin lessons for their children.

New research suggests that music lessons do not help children improve their other cognitive skills such as reading and maths.

A review of 54 scientific studies involving 7,000 children says learning an instrument provides no boost in other areas of study.

Dr Giovanni Sala, who led the research at Fujita Health University in Japan, said: ‘Our study shows that the common idea that “music makes children smarter” is incorrect.

New research suggests that music lessons do not help children improve their other cognitive skills such as reading and maths (stock photo)

‘This means that teaching music with the sole intent of enhancing a child’s cognitive or academic skills may be pointless.

‘While the brain can be trained in such a way that if you play music, you get better at music, these benefits do not generalise in such a way that if you learn music, you also get better at maths.’

The analysis looked at children with an average age of six who had completed an average of 53 music lessons. It compared them with others who had taken no music lessons, or had learned a skill such as dancing or sports.

It has been suggested that music lessons improve general intelligence and memory from the effort involved in learning compositions, or that they improve sound perception, which is good for reading.

A review of 54 scientific studies involving 7,000 children says learning an instrument provides no boost in other areas of study (stock photo)

A review of 54 scientific studies involving 7,000 children says learning an instrument provides no boost in other areas of study (stock photo)

But the analysis, published in the journal Memory & Cognition, found no link with improved academic achievement, including maths and literacy. This was most evident in ‘high-quality’ studies comparing musical children with those learning other skills.

Other studies which did not make clear comparisons or did not randomly put children into music and non-music groups, found more of a link, but overall this was ruled out.

However, the authors of the analysis note that too few studies have been done to reach a definitive conclusion, and more research is needed.

Professor Fernand Gobet, a co-author of the study from the London School of Economics and Political Science, said: ‘Music training may nonetheless be beneficial for children, for example by improving social skills or self-esteem.

‘Certain elements of music instruction, such as arithmetical music notation, could be used to facilitate learning in other disciplines.’

Could slow tunes help us lose weight? 

The battle to lose weight could be made easier by listening to relaxing music at mealtimes.

Slow music encourages us to eat slower, a study has found. In two experiments, researchers recruited almost 300 people to eat chocolate in silence or listening to fast or slow music.

Participants took approximately five seconds longer to eat a piece of chocolate when played slow instead of fast music, and at least 10 seconds longer than when they ate it in silence.

Experts say slow songs may make us chew in time with the music so we feel full and stop eating sooner. The researchers, writing in the journal Appetite, say this may help combat obesity.