Press Room

Music, Arts and the Brain
by Valerie Rhomberg
netsearched by R.M.J. Rhomberg-Stevenson

Does listening to Mozart really make you smarter? In view of the current interest in brain development, we thought the Internet could help shed some light on how music and the arts impact on the healthy development of the brain. Some websites, loaded with information, are listed below. Unfortunately, our search uncovered no Canadian sites that address this topic yet.

www.artsusa.org/education
Americans for the Arts (Washington, DC).
This site links to numerous articles on arts in early childhood, such as Early Childhood Research Supports Arts Education. Several national US organizations have formed an Arts Education Partnership website at http://aep-arts.org, which links to other sites such as the Young Children and the Arts – Research site at www.wolftrap.org/institute/aep/research.html. This encompasses information compiled by the Arts Education Partnership Taskforce on Children's Learning and the Arts: Birth to age Eight and the task force report, Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections.

www.edu-cyberpg.com/Music/musicsmart.html
The Educational CyberPlayGround, run by the Diversity University Collaboratory, provides a wealth of information on arts/music in early child development, including elements such as research findings, auditory/brain plasticity and music; and more brain used when making music.

www.2-life.com/meyc/brain.htm
Music (Education) for Young Children — Music and the Brain. With the recent explosion of research and publicity regarding music and its effect on brain development, this site refers to further resources on the topics including: MuSICA - the Music and Science Information
Archive and the Mozart Effect Website.

www.geocities.com/Athens/2405/feature.html
Music In Schools on the Upbeat offers articles on the Importance of music education, and includes links to articles and research such as: Music Magic, connections between music, brain development and education, and music and the brain research.

http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/artsedge.html
ARTSEDGE is the National Arts & Education Information website, which includes a link to
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/nb/guests/Rauscher5.html where you will find an excerpt from Dr. Frances H. Rauscher's report findings, Music beats Computers at Enhancing ECD.

www.menc.org/index2.html
MENC: National Association for Music Education, Early Childhood Special Research Interest Group website. This links to http://menc.org/publication/articles/academic/hawaii.htm where an article is posted by Dr Arthur Harvey (University of Hawaii) entitled An Intelligence View of Music Education.

Additional Related Resource Pages

www.sc.edu/library/music/books.html
Books on music & early child development: this website holds a relatively comprehensive
bibliography of related research over the past 80 years.

www.tcams.org/tcams/readings.htm
Neuroscience Links: Timing, Concentration and Motor Skills contains a bibliography of related research over the past 40 years.

http://www.naea-reston.org/publications-list.html
The National Art Education Association's website lists numerous publications available on arts/music and early child development and education.

www.earlychildhoodnews.com/archive/art_index.htm#art
The website of the Early Childhood News newsletter, which list and link to various articles that have been published on art & music in early childhood. For example, http://earlychildhoodnews.com/archive/wired.htm links to an article by Cynthia Ensign Baney entitled Wired for Sound: The Essential Connection Between Music and Development.

Valerie Rhomberg is the ECE training coordinator and an ECE instructor with Canadian Mothercraft Society in Toronto, Ontario. You can reach her by e-mail at vrhomberg@titan.tcn.net.

R.M.J. Rhomberg/Stevenson is principal of WEBMINDER® research, marketing & design, and can be reached by fax at (416) 482-0450 or by email at bucker@tvo.org. © CCCF 2000