It is hard to conceptualise that our brain waves can be in sync or out of sync. Yet this concept of brain wave synchronisation is fascinating neuroscientists as they are finding that the more consistent the synchronisation, meaning the longer our brain waves can stay in sync, the more effectively we can learn. To explain […]

Do you use background music when you are completing a creative task? If you do, do you find that your creative output is better, more innovative or unexpected, or does the background music hinders these outputs? In this study, the researchers used four conditions, meaning four different options for background sounds. These were background music […]

What kind of benefit do we really get from learning music when we are children? This study found that people who learned for more than 10 years didn’t have any differences compared with the control group of non, or low activity, musicians in the areas of attention/processing speed, or episodic memory. Get your students talking […]

Listening or playing music is often used by teenagers to assist in their study or to celebrate afterwards. But does it help them perform better in the exam itself? This study found that stressful situations can be alleviated by music and other activities in preparation for a stressful event. It also found that listening to […]

Do you have similar musical tastes to your friends? How about your work colleagues? Do you think musical tastes tell us anything else about a person? This study thinks it might when it compared musical taste with political leaning. The big five personality domains they are referring to are: Openness to experience (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious) […]

We are just going to leave this here … Arthur (Brooks, leading US economists and social scientist) was once asked whether he’d learned anything as a serious musician that applied to his current work (as a faculty member of the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School and author of 2 New York Bestseller books on […]

We are sharing this again because it is just so good. Music-making and music sharing is such a vital and natural part of children’s play and this study shows that. “Science has shown that music’s effect on the brain is particularly strong, with studies demonstrating an improvement in IQ among students who receive music lessons. […]

“Adults who engage in synchronous movement to music later report liking each other better, remembering more about each other, trusting each other more, and are more likely to cooperate with each other compared to adults who engage in asynchronous movements.” This could be why music festivals seem to be going from strength to strength, we […]

Most people enjoy listening to music, but some people do not. For some music just does not do much, either emotionally or cognitively. Studies around how people experience music can help us understand the mechanisms behind the enjoyment of music. This study suggests that “Our model posits (puts forward) that hedonic (great word, it has […]

What would the following behaviours look like in a preschooler? 1 – Inhibitory control: the aspect of inhibitory control that involves resisting temptations and not acting impulsively or prematurely – we would suggest wanting to snatch a toy from another child or jumping on to ask a question before the teacher finished delivering the instructions. […]

Well of course it does! This is a great study, not just because it is about jazz learning and improvisation, but also because it is asking the very important question – is all music learning beneficial for brain development or only some types of music learning. Get your students talking about the affects of their […]

Have you ever been in a very noisy place, maybe at a restaurant for a dinner with 10 people and there are multiple conversations going on, not just at your table but at all the tables around you. I was at such an event the other day with people between the ages of 25 and […]