Music and the Mind
It has been proven that exposure to music raises a person's intelligence level. This is especially true for young children. The earlier you start a child in music, the more advanced their spatial reasoning skills (mathematics and engineering). Georgia's Governor Zell Miller realized the importance of music in a child's development and was providing cassettes or compact discs of classical music to every newborn baby in Georgia. The January 14, 1998 edition of the Washington Post reported on Georgia Governor Zell Miller's proposal to "provide the parents of every Georgia newborn with a classical music recording in order to boost the infant's intelligence later in life." According to the article, Gov. Miller enlisted the expert knowledge of Atlanta Symphony conductor Yoel Levi to help select the pieces for the recordings, which would be distributed to the parents of the approximately 100,000 babies born each year in the southern state. The Governor hopes that the recordings would be "played often in [each] baby's presence." The $105,000 initiative is part of the state budget currently being debated in the Georgia legislature. The article continues with the Governor's paraphrasing of recent research revealing the benefits of
Early childhood music education is finding validation from another quarter: science. In ECC's spring 1996 issue, Frances H. Rauscher, Ph.D., says, "It is ironic and perhaps unfortunate that we may be forced to resort to science to show the value of music to education." She and Dr. Gordan Shaw have made much headway in explaining the importance of music in the development of young children. They gave piano or singing lessons to preschoolers for eight months. After this period, the researchers found the children "dramatically improved in spatial reasoning". Compared with children given no music lessons. This was shown in their ability to work mazes, draw geometric figures, and copy patterns of two-color blocks. The mechanism behind "the Mozart effect" remains murky, but Shaw suspects that when children exercise cortical neurons by listening to classical music, they are also strengthening circuits used for mathematics. Music trains the brain for higher forms of thinking and enhances reasoning skills. In the Intensive Care Unit, where harsh sounds of alarms and equipment pervade, the music has been shown to orchestrate a mood, especially after a busy period of activity. Staff and visitors automatically reduce their voices and equilibrium is restored. The babies benefit from an enriched atmosphere of music and sound and from periods of quality rest. Peter Fenwick, Consultant Neurologist at Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital, suggests that the limbic system (the area of the brain related to emotion) is also a key area for music. Scans show that a part of the cortex "lights up", effectively becoming more perfused with blood when someone is listening to music. It is known that the right hemisphere of the brain is used in appreciating music and Endorphin levels and ACTH increase giving a sense of relaxation and wellbeing.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1528
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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