The Cognitive Benefits of Music Education: How Music Strengthens the Brain

Updated 10/24/2025

Save The Music believes in the benefits of music in schools. Music has the potential to help students succeed in school, build self-confidence, and create leaders and well-rounded young people. Learning through music can improve a student’s academic performance, increase attendance, and improve test scores overall.

In Save The Music’s recent case study in Newark, New Jersey, schools with quality music education programs had a decrease in students being chronically absent from school. The value of a music program can mean that more students come to school more often, participate more in school activities, and look forward to something during the school day – music class.

Beyond improved attendance and academic achievement, music education helps students grow emotionally, socially, and creatively.

 

How Music Education Helps Students Thrive

We see that students who participate in a school music program have more social-emotional skills like grit, perseverance, and teamwork. Music can prove to be an important part of the school day, helping students express themselves and manage stress – key social benefits of music education.

Music education and social-emotional learning (SEL) intersect when students practice self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making (SEL core competencies).

In the classroom, this practice builds:

• A stronger sense of identity.
• A community of belonging.
• Student agency and choice.
  

Find more SEL resources here.

Embedded into the four major music education processes – create, present, respond, connect – students have the potential to become impactful leaders, creators, independent thinkers, and empowered young people.

Music shows something about who we are as people. Our identities can be communicated through what we play, create, and the music we share with others. We can illuminate our cultures through music and continue a legacy passed down by our families. With music education in schools, teachers can encourage students to use their voices, expressing themselves through music.

In West Virginia, Save The Music found that 83% of music teachers believed that their students who participate in music have increased their overall engagement in school, attend school more often, and perform higher in other academic subjects. Additionally, active music programs in schools gave a sense of pride to the whole community. Music education has become a key thread in the fabric of the people who live in school districts with quality music education in schools.

The importance of music in school also extends to social and emotional benefits, that each child develops the skills to conquer challenges of life situations in the music classroom and beyond.

The academic, social, and emotional advantages of music education are clear – but its impact goes even deeper.

Let’s explore how music shapes cognitive development and strengthens the brain.

THE BENEFITS OF MUSIC EDUCATION TO THE BRAIN:

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

There are positive outcomes and cognitive benefits of learning music. It has been shown to increase cognitive competence and development in students who participate in music in school. Playing music throughout life can also lead to a lower risk of developing dementia and increased brain resilience. Playing music activates many senses in the brain that increase thinking skills, including social and emotional awareness, and improve interpersonal communication. Reading music can improve general reading comprehension skills overall. Music sparks the brain and many parts of the brain are activated.

Practicing music is like a cross-fit workout for the brain! When we play and listen to music, it’s processed in many different areas of our brain. The extent of the brain’s involvement was scarcely imagined until the early 1990s, when functional brain imaging became possible. The major computation centers include (Source: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel Levitin).

“Playing music is the brain’s equivalent of a full-body workout.”

 

As neuroscientist Anita Collins explains, playing an instrument activates multiple parts of the brain simultaneously.

“While listening to music engages the brain in some pretty interesting activities, playing music is the brain’s equivalent of a full-body workout. The neuroscientists saw multiple areas of the brain light up simultaneously processing different information in intricate, interrelated, and astonishingly fast sequences. Playing a musical instrument engages practically every area of the brain at once, especially the visual, auditory, and motor cortices. As with any other workout, disciplined structured practice in playing music strengthens those brain functions allowing us to apply that strength to other activities.” (Anita Collins, How Playing An Instrument Benefits Your Brain, July 2014)

 

Playing music connects different parts of the brain, increasing efficient decision-making

skills and more spontaneous creativity.

 

A study by Swedish scientists showed a strong link between piano playing – particularly improvisation – and cognitive skills.

“Piano playing makes their minds efficient in every way. Studies show that when jazz pianists play, their brains have an extremely efficient connection between the different parts of the frontal lobe compared to non-musicians. That’s a big deal — the frontal lobe is responsible for integrating a ton of information into decision-making. It plays a major role in problem solving, language, spontaneity, decision-making and social behavior. Pianists, then, tend to integrate all of the brain’s information into more efficient decision-making processes. Because of this high-speed connection, they can breeze through slower, methodical thinking and tap into quicker and more spontaneous creativity.” (Jordan Taylor Sloan, Science Shows How Piano Players’ Brains are Actually Different From Everybody Elses’, June 2014)

Read more in this post by Music Education Advisory Board member, Gabriella Musacchia, called “Music and Learning: Does music make you smarter?”

Together, this research underscores how playing music strengthens multiple brain functions and enhances creativity.

 

MUSIC EDUCATION FACTS

Research consistently shows that music education supports students academically, emotionally, and socially.

The following findings highlight the many benefits of music education and the numerous ways music programs strengthen learning, foster emotional development, and encourage lifelong creativity.

Source: NAMM Foundation’s “How Children Benefit From Music Education In Schools”

 

Academic Benefits of Music Education

 

• • Children who study music tend to have larger vocabularies and more advanced reading skills than their peers who do not participate in music lessons (Arete Music Academy. Accessed July 17th, 2014).

• • Regardless of socioeconomic status or school district, students (3rd graders) who participate in high-quality music programs score higher on reading and spelling tests (Hille, Katrin, et al. “Associations between music education, intelligence, and spelling ability in elementary school.” Adv Cogn Psychol 7, 2011: 1-6. Web. Accessed February 24th, 2015).

• • Schools that have music programs have an attendance rate of 93% compares to 84.9% in schools without music programs (The National Association for Music Education. “Music Makes the Grade.” The National Association for Music Education. Accessed February 24th, 2015).

• • Research at McGill University in Montreal, Canada showed that grade-school kids who took music lessons scored higher on tests of general and spatial cognitive development, the abilities that form the basis for performance in math and engineering (http://nisom.com/index.php/instruction/health-benefits).

• • Music and math are highly intertwined. By understanding beat, rhythm, and scales, children are learning how to divide, create fractions, and recognize patterns (Lynn Kleiner, founder of Music Rhapsody in Redondo Beach, CA).

 

Social and Emotional Benefits of Music Education

 

• • Taking music lessons offers a space where kids learn how to accept and give constructive criticism, according to research published in The Wall Street Journal in 2014 (Joanne Lipman, “A Musical Fix for American Schools,” The Wall Street Journal, October 10th, 2014).

• • Making music together, children learn to work as a team while they each contribute to the song in their own way. At the same time, music helps children learn that together they can make something larger than the sum of its parts (© 2015 Program for Early Parent Support (PEPS), a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization).
    

• • Kids who make music have been shown to get along better with classmates and have fewer discipline problems. More of them get into their preferred colleges, too (http://nisom.com/index.php/instruction/health-benefits).

• • Children with learning differences or dyslexia who struggle with focus could benefit greatly from music lessons (Arete Music Academy. “Statistical benefits of music in education.” Arete Music Academy. Accessed July 17th, 2014).

     

Developmental and Cognitive Advantages

 

• • Young children who take music lessons show different brain development and improved memory over the course of a year, compared to children who do not receive musical training (National Association for Music Education.” National Association for Music Education. Accessed July 17th, 2014).

• • A study of 8 to 11-year-olds found that, those who extra-curricular music classes, developed higher verbal IQ, and visual abilities, in comparison to those with no musical training (Foregeard et al., “Practicing a Musical Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning”, PLOS One, 2008).

• • Playing a musical instrument strengthens eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills, and kids who study an instrument learn a lot about discipline, dedication, and the rewards of hard work. (http://nisom.com/index.php/instruction/health-benefits).

• • Music training strengthens emotional and behavioral development as well, according to a new study, one of the largest to investigate the effects of playing an instrument on brain development (Amy Ellis Nutt, “Music lessons spur emotional and behavioral growth in children, a new study says,” The Washington Post, January 7th, 2015).

✓ For more research briefs and handy quotes to help make your case for supporting music education in schools, go to Save The Music’s Advocacy Tools.

Support the Future of Music Education

Thank you to our partners and friends in music education for their ongoing research and advocacy, which help us highlight the proven benefits of music education.

Music education offers lifelong advantages that shape confident, capable, and creative individuals. Discover how Save The Music helps bring these opportunities to every student — and how you can support the movement.