Assignment 7 Article Review

1) Is it true that just listening to music makes you smart? What does research studies cited in this article indicate? What does the author suggest? What do you think? No, just listening to music is not proven to make you smart. However, the research studies cited indicate that "Music has the ability to facilitate language acquisition, reading readiness, and general intellectual development"; "to foster positive attitudes, and lower truancy in the middle and high school, and to enhance creativity, and to promote social development, personality adjustment, and self worth" (Hanshumaker, 1980). I think music for sure has the ability to promote social development. In basically every music piece, everyone has to worth together to compose a piece. Even a singer singing a solo piece needs to work with the band to compose music. Working together to form music and dance is very important in music. Social skills will absolutely develop.

2) The author suggests four types of findings to support the belief that music has strong biological roots? What are they?

1) If music had a strong biological component, then animals would have fundamental abilities in music--and this seems to be the case. Monkeys can think in terms of musical abstraction.

2) Biological behaviors are universal. Parents communicate to their babies through lullabies.

3) Biological behaviors are often reveled early in life, before cultural factors can influence and change behavior. Toddlers exhibit musical behaviors.

4) We might expect the human brain to be organized to process musical activity- and this is the case.

3) According to neuroscientists, synapses (the junction across which a nerve impulse passes to a neuron or other cell) grow stronger through use and become weakened. How does playing music help synapses grow stronger?

Playing music helps synapses grow stronger by use and weakened by disuse. Learning and performance articulate the brain--not merely by developing specific music skills, but also by strengthening the synapses between brain cells.

4) Does music help improve reading comprehension? What does the author say about it? What is your opiniOn. According to this article, yes music can help improve reading comprehension. Music is complex, so the children really have to understand what they are reading to grasp the musical concept. Therefore, the students are analyzing and improving their reading comprehension. In the article they did an experiment with first graders and after receiving instructions in musical listening, they have shown to have higher reading scores. I was curious when reading this article because I did not understand how listening to music would help reading comprehension.

5) The thing that I found interesting is the fact that brain scans taken during musical performances show that virtually the entire cerebral cortex is active while musicians are plays. That fact is just fascinating to me.