Music has an effect on us humans, on our mind, our emotions, our feeling and thinking. Listening to and making music enriches our lives, makes us happy. And music brings us together, promotes our social and communication skills. Where language ends, music begins.
Music does something to us: when we play an instrument, sing in a choir or band, dance and bounce, warble a tune while doing housework or gardening, or simply listen. This is when music becomes a bridge between emotion and cognition.
Recent studies have shown that the powerful effect of music on our well-being also transfers to our performance.
Therefore, it is high time to bring this knowledge into our schools. Learning with music should be given a much higher priority in the classroom. After all, it is well known that music stimulates the brain and that it even helps with learning. Most importantly, music makes you happy. Its positive effect should nevertheless be used much more intensively, and within the framework of general teaching. Many elementary school teachers make use of it. For example, they let the children paint to music, offer them moments of peace and quiet through appropriate slow or romantic pieces of music, or use movement exercises to music to loosen up the lessons after phases of great effort and concentration. Simple finger exercises accompanied by music are often enough to inspire the children.
Working with music also helps students with behavioral problems, giving them self-confidence and social skills. Restless, nervous children are usually more balanced and concentrated in their learning after musical activities. This is because music balances, stimulates, calms and relaxes.
And we should do everything we can to ensure that as many students as possible have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument. So we are well on the way to recognizing that music, with all its positive effects, is a proven healing and learning tool that can support numerous therapies and learning processes.