Scientific research has recently discovered that music can assist stroke patients to recover speech, can help autistic children increase language skills and also assists children with dyslexia to use speech more accurately.
“CBS Sunday Morning” recently featured a story about Melody Gardot who had been in a terrible accident. While she was riding her bike, a Jeep crashed into her at an intersection. The accident fractured her pelvis, damaged her spine, and Gardot suffered a traumatic brain injury that affected her memory, her speech, and left her hypersensitive to light and sound. Her physician, Dr. Richard Jermyn, didn’t think she would recover when he first treated her.
Dr. Jermyn told her, “Your brain is like a computer. And your computer’s still intact. Your hardware, your memory, it’s there. You can’t access it. That’s what a brain injury does It takes your ability to access that away.”
Because Melody had played piano in college, Dr. Jermyn suggested that she return to music after other methods had failed. After years of music therapy, Melody Gardot is now a famous jazz singer. Her latest album has gone platinum in France; the album has sold more than half a million copies in Europe. Melody still has to wear sunglasses because of her sensitivity to light, walks with a cane, and suffers constant pain but music truly changed her life.
Scientists have used PET scans to determine that the synapses in the brains of accomplished musicians light up throughout the brain as opposed to other activities that merely use small areas at the time. It is not surprising, therefore, that music can truly help alleviate or improve certain disabilities.
Sometimes students say, “What good is music anyway?”
The answer is complicated and extensive. When students are learning songs, they also learn about many other subjects. For instance, the history of the world and its people is written in folk music where the everyday experiences of ordinary people are recorded as joys, sorrows, and just plain fun. Many songs mention cities and countries throughout the world so teach children about geography and extend the concepts of social studies.
The foundations of music are closely linked to mathematics. Every measure of music is based on a mathematical formula featuring beats that correspond to fractions of the whole.
Singing teaches children to become better readers because their eyes must move more quickly across the words to keep up with the tempo of the music.
Scientists have linked improved learning with the ability to play a musical instrument. When a small child learns to play the piano, he is using two hands that move in different patterns at the same time and that links both sides of his brain in a way that increases the number of synapses (or electrical impulses) connect the two spheres of memory and ability to learn.
One’s mood and emotional well being can easily be linked to the type and style of music to which one is listening. Even in Biblical times, David played the harp for King Saul who suffered periods of depression to help him overcome his sad feelings. Children who are becoming overly excited will calm down immediately when they hear the song, “What a Wonderful World.” Athletes at the Olympics use their favorite music to calm down or hype up as they train or face competition.
Music is the universal language. One can appreciate music from other cultures just as easily as from one’s own everyday experience.
When you listen to music this week, remember that it is not an extraneous experience but a life force that can make your world a better place.
