I really agree that the kind of self discipline and teamwork skills from music can really set people up to succeed. But then, into my mind comes a picture of a kid in high school who's really engrossed, for example, in his guitar, but he's got no social skills, and he is isolated, and appears actually very unhappy. So how does that work? Music can't overcome problems, or is music actually causing the problem in that situation? >> It can cause the problem, you're absolutely right. And so, my answer to that would be that it's not necessarily about what we're teaching, but it's how we're teaching. So it's not necessarily about the curriculum that we might use. For example, if you look at the percentage of students who are electing music in North American schools where the emphasis is on performance ensembles. As compare to say, England, and Australia, and other countries, where it's a much broader approach. In Australia we talk about this composition model where children invent their own notation. They invent their own music, and they learn to perform it. It's very very different type of content of instruction, and the percentage of children who electing music as the same in both systems. So it's not about what we teach, but how we teach. And so for me when a teacher really connects with the child, and that musically experience for that child is deeply meaningful, that means something to them. They can see where they're going with this, they can see that it has meaning in their lives, and they're obviously enjoying it. That's when they get hooked on music. In fact, that's how they get hooked on any subject, and because of that they thrive. So it's how we teach, it's the connections, the deeply meaningful connections that teachers can have with children that really change lives. >> So to be really clear, what you're saying is music doesn't come in to the brain because you've practiced a certain number of hours, fixed things up, improved the whole situation. And therefore result in positive academic outcomes. What you're saying is that if people engage in music and have a meaningful experience of music, that sets them up to be able to participate in other ways, in team activities, as well as in learning experiences. >> Well I think it's a lot like a domino effect. We sort of have an influence in one factor and then it starts to influence other factors. Another way of thinking with this is the stars start to align. To learn really effectively a child needs to be interested. I mentioned they need to be intellectually curious, and emotionally engaged with what they're learning. So if you can set up environments where that takes place, where they can express themselves, they can feel free to express themselves without being intimated or feel like they're being judged. And then they can share that with others, I think they're connections, they're the seeds that then start to sort of get a child to think very carefully and deeply about music. And they start to want to get better, they want to sort of learn more and more. So it's not just about teaching them content, but engaging them with opportunities and in an environment, an emotionally satisfying environment, where they can thrive and they can start to think about how music might be used in their lives. Look, I do lots of interviews with children who are incredibly engaged in music. And I can remember one study I did with children in Chicago. I found the 50 most highly engaged students I could find in the whole state of Illinois, and these are passionate children who do lots and lots of practice. But when I talk to them, they weren't talking about the practice and the daily grind of having to do that. They are talking about what it meant to them to go to the concert band or the orchestra on Saturday afternoon and play with their friends. How they could talk to their friends, they were the people that they connected best with, they were their best friends. They were talking about other things like how that had changed their whole perception of what music was, and what they might do in their future. Now, we're talking about how learning music was actually influencing their results in other subjects because they were more motivated. And in fact that's where I got those early seeds. And early thoughts to do a more bigger study, with 27,000 students would actually virtually prove that fact. So it was those things, it was how they were using music in their lives, in their daily lives, that sort of, it was from their perspective very deeply meaningful for them. It wasn't some curriculum or some test, or some other measure, it was a measure that they were giving themselves. That's what I made so profoundly important for him. >> Can you tell me a little bit more about that study, about what motivation really means, just to flesh that out for us. >> There's many theories of motivation. One of the ones that I like is by Eccles and Wigfield they talk about a person's expectations, and the person's valuing. So, we tend to do things in our lives where we expect to be good at. And we ignore things that we don't think that we're going to be would be very good at. So what we expect is generally what we do and how we succeeded. If we expect to be good at something then we generally do well at that subject or at that activity. The other one is valuing. Well, if we value something then we'll choose to do it over and over again. And when we're given a choice we'll choose to do that rather than that, so expectations and valuing sort of predict many many things. So in the study for example, we asked children how interested are they in mathematics, music, English, or their native tongue, science, etc., and how important is the subject for them. And we'll say how important is music, mathematics etc, we get these rating scales. We also get, so the four dimensions that we look at, the interest, the enjoyment, the usefulness of the subject long term and the importance of the subject. We asked some other questions about how their parent's might view the importance or usefulness of those subjects and how their teacher might view those subjects. And we can get these really interesting fascinating and insights in terms of what they believe and what they think others might believe. But essentially that study, where we look at valuing and expectations, tells us that music learning tend to be more motivated in other areas of learning. And I can only attribute that to they fact that they're actively engaged in music. They're learning musical instruments or their voice, they're doing something formal. That is a big part of their lives. It seems to have a profound impact. >> And when you talk about associated with. For those people who are listening that don't know about research design what you're saying is the answers on one question are connected to the answers on another question. And that's how you're able to reach conclusions? >> And we can compare music learners with non music learners. We can sort of do the whole sample. We can start to collect say the academic subjects say for example. Two or three of those. Because actually the results for the academic subjects were very, very consistent. They were very close to each other, but music sort of stood out. Then we can make comparisons. We do statistical techniques because we've got very big samples and you can be very, very confident about the results given the of the sample. It's so consistent. And the other thing I'd say is that we did this in nine different countries. We're talking about countries like America, Australia, Hong Kong, China, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, very, very different cultures. Norway was another one, completely different cultures. But yet the results were quite consistent across each of those countries. >> My last question for you Gary, before we finish. Is that many people debate the relative merits of listening to music while your studying, or having silences while your studying? And I don't know if you are aware of any of the research or findings that suggests whether or not if it's more helpful to be listening or not listening? >> I've just published a second edition of The Child as a Musician, which is a handbook of musical development. And there's a wonderful chapter by one of my colleagues, Glenn Schellenberg in Canada, and he surveys all of that literature. And we've all heard of the Mozart effect, for example. You listen to Mozart and you'll be smarter. Well that effect has been tested and it's been replicated and we do see effects. But we see effects for maybe about 20 minutes, and we see effects in certain types of intelligence. So you can't say that there's this long term impact. So we have to be very careful, the jury is still out on this. But, and if we look at the studies as well, what we find is that when you're listening to music, it just relaxes you. So you're more receptive to take in more information. So yes, I would say that having the right type of music on in the background that's not distracting you, but it's relaxing you, yes, you will be more in tune with what you're learning. And you'll be more receptive to what you're learning. You'll actually take in more knowledge, when you're studying, for example. So, yes, I'd certainly advocate that. I think that would be better than perhaps just studying in silence. But, for any learner, I don't think there's a perfect solution that you do that all the time. You do it when you feel like you want to do it. So you choose the moments when you want to put one some nice music in the background, because you're in the right mood to study, and you want to achieve a certain objective with your study for that session. Other times you may not want to play music, and that's fine too. So there's no perfect template or single template. For any of this its very very individual, and I guess it comes back again to, what do you feel like doing? And what type of music do you feel like playing, that's the only important thing. >> I love that you can tell us by stone of review of all the different scientific studies that have been done and your conclusion from reading through that and Shallenberg's conclusions based on that. Is that you need to work it out for yourself individually because it maybe helpful for a range of different reasons. So then, what about if you're playing really loud, strong music. Is there anyway that, that could be helpful? >> Well, in certain situations perhaps. I mean, if you're at a dance or you're sort of, you know, sharing a drink with friends etc, yes, absolutely. We all do that. But, in terms of, you talking about study? >> I am. >> Yeah, well, I'm not sure that that would be a good idea, because you don't want to get your heart rate up too high. When you're agitated or stressed or a little anxious... Then you are less receptive to taking in information. So I don't think that whatever you're studying or working on would stick necessarily in that sort of situation. But again I think the jury's still out and I think it is individually dependent. Some people it might work but I think for the majority of people it probably wouldn't work. But that's just more personal opinion because I'm not sure that we've Really scientifically tested that as thoroughly as we need to. >> Well, I know, for example, that some people use music to cover the other noise that's all around them. So people who are working in shared office spaces or for young people at home, their parents are arguing or their siblings are making a lot of noise, Then they might use music to mask the other sounds, and that may need to be quite loud. So what you're saying is that we have to take those individual differences into account, that there's no one way of listening which is right. >> Absolutely. >> And perhaps, let's say that you liked really loud, heavy music, and you found that absolutely relaxing, and that brought your heart right down. Then that would work for you where as for somebody else it might take a different kind of music. >> Absolutely. >> Because that's what you're aiming to do. >> I mean I think it would just on the cusp of some amazing things that we'll learn in the next 10 years about the power of music, the power of music in people's lives, but also the power of music to shape our lives and to make us >> Enjoy life even more. It's real exciting. >> So thank you for sharing your knowledge here with us, Gary. It's been wonderful to hear how music doesn't operate in one way. Thank you very much. >> Thank you.
