The benefits of music education

Did you know that Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer and Stephen Hawkins, all famous scientists, were also musicians? Surprised? Perhaps we should not be, since many years of scientific studies appear to show that those with a strong music education will excel in many professions. Are these studies definitive, or do they misrepresent the role of music in educational achievement? And if there is a link between music training and later educational achievement, what relevance does this have to the value of music in its role as an artistic endeavour?

Some free resources from Music Magic!

Here are some free music resources from our Music Magic products that you might find useful. Each consists of single A4 sheets that can be printed. These can help support your class music programme. The Music Magic product range teaches rhythm and music notation thoroughly.

Rhythmic values.

A page for writing rhythms.

Music notation.

A page of manuscript paper.

Treble and bass clef manuscript paper.

Muscepts YouTube channel

We now have a YouTube channel with several videos explaining key musical concepts. You might find them useful for your students as an introduction to rhythm, pitch, and music notation. These videos are provided on a separate videos page, or you can access our YouTube channel directly.

There are also worksheets that are relevant to each video, and these are available on request. Contact me at to get these worksheets.

Links to other music resources!

Here are some links to music resources that you might find useful. If you have a link to a resource that you think should be featured here, then please let us know

The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum.

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has some fine resources for music in schools.

Interesting Interactive Web-Sites

These interactive web resources have been especially selected because of their high quality and fun way of engaging students while developing and enriching their understanding of music. Naturally all these sites promote our philosophy at Muscepts which is: students learn musical literacy best when engaged with their learning through aural awareness, practical application and theoretical understanding. To learn this well students require high quality teaching and teachers require excellent resources.

www.exploratorium.edu/music.

This innovative and fun website does a great job of exploring what music really is, covering the difference between music and noise and how music moves us.

www.nyphilkids.org

This site is extremely informative and educational about many aspects of music.

ababasoft.com/music/drums01.htm

The Drums Online game provides a full virtual drum kit for students to have fun practicing and creating rhythms.

www.thevirtualpiano.com

Many students do not have access to a keyboard or piano. Why not have some fun practicing on this virtual piano/keyboard?

Fascinating Research

A savvy 16 year old school student, David Merrill from Sulfolk, Virginia did a piece of research analysing reactions from mice to Hard Rock Music, Mozart and no music at all. Visit this website to learn about this fascinating experiment. Can you predict the results? Visit www.edu-cyberpg.com/Music/Mice_and_Music_Experiment_Mo.html to find out what the mice thought!