There have been many studies on music and its relation to brain function. In one I was reading earlier, it says that, "In one study, researchers found that musical training at a young age may strengthen the brain, especially regions that influence language skills and executive function."* I personally think that is very very true. My family is very musical and I've had music around me since birth, my mom plays the piano and so does my older sister, my dad listens to really good music (I credit him for my love of classic rock). Consequently my older sister and I seem to have an easier time with learning other languages. Even though my grades in Spanish II and III were less than stellar (I blame that on an incompetent teacher who hated me and was later fired for unsavoury things) I retained a lot. I was able to conjugate quite easily when others were struggling with it. It also helped in choir, my teacher liked to have us sing in MANY different languages some really weird (Estonian) but I always found it not really that hard to pick up the sounds or words. Don't get me wrong though, it doesn't only help with languages, it is also proven that it helps with focus and memory function. It heightens it and makes it easier for the person.
This makes me wonder why music education in school isn't more important to school boards. When there are budget cuts, music is always the first to go which is so sad to me. It was either my senior year or the year after I left the Orchestra program got cut down in size and instead of three orchestra classes, freshman, advanced and concort, there was only advanced and concert. Meaning all the freshman went in with the advanced kids. When I was a senior I was taking Music Theory I but, for reason I can only assume were money problems, they decided to make Music Theory I and II one class. That was rough for both classes because the II kids were bored and the I kids were very very lost with rushed teaching. Nothing against the teacher though because he was a very cool guy and tried his best to accommodate all of us.
Music in schools is also how I got through some of the hardest periods of my life. One of my worst years in my short 22 year history happened when I was in high school, I was 17 and my grandfather died. Now, I'm sure I have mentioned before how close I was to him, he always support me in all things but especially music. He went to every single concert or play I was ever apart of, even the severely painful ones (Once on This Island as preformed by Graham Park Middle School). He always encouraged me to continue on with music and with singing and that will forever stick with me. He died on a Saturday and that next week I had 8 performances with the choir I was in, I only made it to I think 3. With that, I would like to say thank you to Ms. B who understood and didn't penalize me for not going to these performances. After he died I found it really hard to sing but, some of my biggest support getting me through this time was my fellow choir students. I hadn't really realized till then how much I cared about my fellow choir member or needed like minded people until I was in crisis mode. Having that support system is important and I would encourage any of y'all with kids or even people still in school, find something like this. You never know when something hard is going to come up and when you are surrounded by friends, it helps a lot.
Whether I am happy or sad I always know I will have one thing in my life to keep me going, music. Whether it be Mozart, eminem, one direction (usually it's One direction), or Miranda Lambert, I know I will always have music that speaks to me and knows exactly how I'm feeling. Knowing these songs exist, the ones that describe my life perfectly, help me know I'm not the only one going through the problems. That is actually a lot more helpful than you would think. I have a friend who once told me, I don't understand why music is important, it's just a bunch of noise. Now, although he sounds like an 80 year old man, he is my age and he completely baffled me. Maybe because I was brought up around music and 99% of my friends are musical I had a skewed view of the world. I did not know people like him existed, people who couldn't see the beauty of music at all. Those people need to be fixed and shown the light haha.Anyways, I will step of my musical soap box in a second, just let me say one more thing. Music is healing and should be in every one's lives. Music has been from the beginning of time and whether or not you enjoy the music of today or not, you should still keep it in your lives.
Until next time
<3
Rachel
