Study after study has proven that music education dramatically increases early brain development and improves students' overall academic performance. The following is a sample of the research that is currently available:

Enhances Higher Brain Function

      Music lessons have been shown to improve a child's performance in school. A research team exploring the link between music intelligence reports that music training-specifically piano instruction-is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children's abstract reasoning skills which are necessary for learning math and science. This experiment included three groups of preschoolers:

	one group received private piano/keyboard lessons and singing lessons
	a second group received private computer lessons
	a third group received no training

         After six months of keyboard lessons, those children who received piano/keyboard training performed 34% higher on tests measuring spatial-temporal ability than the others. These findings indicate that music uniquely enhances higher brain functions required for mathematics, chess, science and engineering.

-From Neurological Research Feb 28, 1997; Frances Rauscher, Ph.D, Gordon Shaw, Ph.D, University of California, Irvine.

Improves Reading and Math Performance

       A research team studying first graders from two Rhode Island elementary schools found that students who participated in an "enriched, sequential, skill building music program" dramatically increased their reading and math performance.

-From Nature May 23rd, 1996; Gardiner, Fox, Jeffery and Knowles

Raises IQ Scores

        Mozart's Piano Sonata K448 was found to significantly increase spatial scores of college students on IQ tests when the Sonata was listened to for 10 minutes, dubbed "The Mozart Effect."

-From Nature Copyright 1993, Drs. Reusher and Shaw, University of California, Irvine.