Music & Wellbeing


Canterbury Christ Church University - Sidney de Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health Research Project Outcomes




Music Builds Bridges in the Brain


ScienceNOW Daily News, April 16, 2008


Harvard Medical School and Boston College researchers have found that taking music lessons can strengthen connections between the two hemispheres of the brain in children, but only if

they practice diligently.


For the children who practiced at least 2.5 hours a week, a region of the corpus callosum that connects movement-planning regions on the two sides of the brain grew about 25% relative to the size of the brain.


With every child, the researchers found that the size increase in the corpus callosum predicted the improvement on a nonmusical test that required the children to tap out sequences on a computer keyboard.


"Creativity has become the most universally endangered species in the Twenty First Century. Never has the need for creativity been so compelling and never has genuine creativity been in such short supply. From boy bands to barbeque sauces the problem is the same – instead of experiencing the refreshing spray of authentic originals we risk drowning in a sea of superficiality and imitations. We have built a broadband culture but not the creative content to supply it. Our ability to communicate the potentially creative far outstrips actual creative input. In the absence of creativity life becomes predictable, repetitious and boring. We live in a world of echoes and shadows like the inhabitants of Plato’s cave." Watts Wacker and Ryan Matthews


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