Page 8 of 51, showing 20 records out of 1018 total, starting on record 141, ending on 160

Music Helped Me Escape Poverty

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“Simply, music education kept me in school and was a means of escaping poverty.”-Lucinda S., Wyoming

Music Is a Lifelong Joy

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“In addition to my university teaching of music education students, I lead a band of retirees who have either returned to making music after 40+ years or have started from scratch. They are wonderful examples of how school music brought them joy and that they are delighted to return to it.”-Anonymous, Iowa

My Autistic Nephew Learns Basic Concepts through Music

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“All children learn through different means and music is one of the ways that I have seen the benefits. I have an autistic nephew who learns all of his basic concepts through the use of music. Please ensure that music and other arts are included in our curriculum.”-Stephanie M., Kentucky

My Former Students Say Music Made the Difference for Them

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“I spent 29 wonderful years working with children ranging in age from kindergarten through 8th grade. Nothing touches me more than to re-connect with my students and find out that I was able to make a difference in their lives through music. For many, it became a part of their lives, and sometimes became their career as well. This is why music, as well as the other arts, is such an important part of a child's education.”-Catherine C., Ohio

You Can’t Have Quality Music Programs without Qualified Music Teachers

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“Recently, our county schools have cut all funding for General Music Teachers grade Pre-K-5. We lost jobs, but most importantly we are placing music education in the hands of homeroom teachers who otherwise have no training to teach the state standards or the national standards of MENC. Please work with your nation to provide the future education that is so vital for Americans in this time; our system cannot reflect any longer the 19th century industrial model for ‘core’ classes.”-Joshua G., Florida

Many Reasons to Teach Music

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“Music allows creativity to flourish, encourages discipline, and establishes the skills of problem solving and team work. If it is not enough to teach it because we wish our students to appreciate beauty, music should be taught because students who receive music education are more prepared to succeed in the world at large.”-Aaron G., Ohio

The Arts Represent Humanity’s Highest Achievements

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“The arts represent humanity's highest achievements--I believe all children should have access to the arts. Through the arts, we understand ourselves and others, through history and across cultures. Please support music education as a basic part of a comprehensive K-12 education.”-Judy B., Illinois

Music Helps Struggling Students

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“Music gives people a way to express themselves when words fail. It is also something that reaches many different types of students. Often the students that struggle the most in other school subjects can succeed in music, which allows them to feel valued and raises their confidence and feelings of self worth. It is vital that ALL students have equal access to music education.”-Schuyler G., Wisconsin

School Music Introduced Me to New Cultures, Friends

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“My access to a great music program made my high school experience extremely rewarding. Being involved in band and choir gave me opportunities to travel, learn about different places and cultures, and also help me meet the best friends I've ever had.”-Eva M., Missouri

School Music Helped Me Succeed in the IT Field

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“Music and the arts have been shown to help children succeed in other subjects such as mathematics. As an Information Technology professional I credit my years of public school music (in junior high and high school) as the reason I have been able to be an effective Network Infrastructure designer. We do a great disservice to our children by not giving music and the arts the same attention as the other subjects.”-Thomas L., Florida

Being in Band Made All the Difference

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“Being in Band in high school made all the difference in my life. The director held us to a very high standard, which has always stayed with me. Because of the level of commitment to the Band program, I learned to manage my time to get homework, chores, and family matters completed.”-Caprecia S., Kentucky

Teaching from the Heart

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“A music teacher teaches from the heart. Music teachers learn what they must know to enhance their students’ understanding of music. Only a passionate music teacher can inspire students to become lifelong lovers and supporters of music and the arts.”-Sandy S., Talkeetna, Alaska

Music Goes Deeper than Words

Added: Jun 22, 2010 - View

“Music hooks deep into emotions and memories in ways that words do not…At the University of Wisconsin, scholar Craig Werner and Vietnam vet Doug Bradley have found that music is a highway into veterans’ memories of the war…“'What music does is reach down into parts of our brain, it opens networks and pathways that you can’t get to via language,' [said Werner]."

Learning an Instrument Organizes Brain's Motor Cortex

Added: Jun 21, 2010 - View

“Learning to play a fingered instrument such as the piano organises the motor cortex, forging links between particular groups of brain cells and fingers. At Aldeburgh euro-scientist Eckart Altenmüller and pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard will explore how the brain adapts to the extraordinary demands of coordination between the left and the right hand. The left hemisphere of the brain controls the right half of the body and vice versa, and in right-handed people the motor region of the left brain is more dominant and literally bigger. But two-handed training introduces more balance: the control centres of the left hand are anatomically enlarged.”

Musicians and Grey Matter

Added: Jun 21, 2010 - View

“Musicians do… seem better at handling pitch – hearing the relationships between the notes. They have denser ‘grey matter’ in a part of the brain called the superior temporal gyrus, involved in pitch processing. The grey matter is also boosted, literally, in brain regions involved in motor skills and visual perception. Some of these differences between musicians and non-musicians could conceivably be innate, but much if not all comes from practice: the differences are greater for professional than for amateur musicians.”

Cartography of a Musician’s Brain

Added: Jun 21, 2010 - View

“One remarkable recent discovery is that musicians literally have a ‘map of musical space’ imprinted on their brains. Many people liken music listening to being taken on a journey, but for musicians that trip has a particular cartography. They recognise that certain chords are closely related to others, for example a major key and its so-called relative minor, an association exploited in the Beatles’ All My Loving.“Music theorists have proposed maps of this ‘harmonic space’ in which related keys lie relatively close together. In 2002, US-based neuroscientist Petr Janata used MRI scanning to show that different areas of the prefrontal cortex of a musician’s brain light up when they hear different chords, in basically the same spatial arrangement as the theoretical maps. This part of the brain adjoins areas that deal with purely cognitive processing (such as pitch recognition), emotions and memory, suggesting that the harmonic map is used to integrate all these functions.”

Children on the Autism Spectrum in Music Class

Added: Jun 21, 2010 - View

“Those on the autism spectrum are often stronger visual learners than auditory learners. It’s not merely a preference; just as a blind child needs tactile information, the autistic child has a tremendous need for visual information.“Fortunately, music teachers naturally provide visual information as they teach by using charts, books, papers, and musical instruments. Teaching with rhythm notation and beat icons makes rhythm a visual event, thus making learning easier for children with special needs.”

Music: A Sound Investment

Added: Jun 21, 2010 - View

“What we do as music educators is far beyond a sound investment. The more we encourage, inspire and support our students through music the better. Our student populations are so diverse…the small investments in our students can later pay off in ways much greater than we can imagine…“We make an even greater investment when we make an effort to include the music of various cultures in our teaching. If we are inclusive of various cultures now, our students will be more open to people with differences. The impact could be worldwide. Talk about a sound investment!”

Plato on Music

Added: Jun 21, 2010 - View

“Music is to the mind as air is to the body.”

Making Music Is Freedom

Added: Jun 21, 2010 - View

“Making fundamental choices that affect your life is one of the nicest things about being an adult. In music, this means freedom to play what you want on the instrument you want to play.”