University of Munster Research: Exposure to Music Is Instrumental to the Brain

Building upon the pioneering work of Dr. Frances Rauscher, psychologist at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, a recent study at the University of Munster in Germany revealed that practicing the piano in early childhood expands the mind, literally altering the anatomy of the brain.

In the study, conducted by Drs. Christo Pantev, Larry Roberts and Almut Engelien, researchers examined images of the auditory brain regions of 20 trained musicians and 13 non-musicians, all of whom were in their 20’s. The musicians had played instruments for 15 to 21 years and now practiced 10 to 40 hours a week. When piano notes were played to both groups, the response to the piano sounds was 25 percent higher in the musician group. But when the same frequencies were heard as beeps rather than as piano notes, the two groups’ brains looked the same. The study also concluded that the younger the musicians were when they began their musical training, the larger their areas of brain activity. The increased response to piano tones was the same in those who played piano, woodwinds or stringed instruments, although most of the musicians said they had received early piano training.

According to Dr. Rauscher, musical training, specifically piano instruction appears to dramatically enhance a child’s abstract thinking skills and spatial-temporal ability – skills necessary for mathematics and science – even more than computer instruction does. The combination of these scientific findings, plus ongoing research into the field, continues to point to one conclusion: music has an obvious impact on the brain and should be supported and encouraged in early childhood education.