In an interesting online article on sciencedaily.com, researchers at the University of British Columbia found that students who take music courses, and in particular, play a musical instrument, score significantly better in math, science, and English exams than their non-musical peers. The results from the 112,000 student sample was published in the Journal of Educational Psychology.
The study results showed that musical students performed almost one academic year better than the non-musical students in the three basic courses of study. Researchers state that learning to read music and play an instrument is very demanding and that the skills learned in becoming fluent in music are transferable to others courses of study in high school.
The researchers state that these findings should give educators second thoughts on cutting music curriculums when budgets become tight. It appears that music studies allow individuals to become more well-rounded students. Fascinating study and results!