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Numerous neurological, psychological, and transfer studies confirmed the role of learning music in cognitive development and education. However, exploring the long-term impacts of early musical abilities on academic achievement has gained relatively little attention thus far. In a seven-year longitudinal study, we examined the predictive role of musical abilities in future success in school. The sample consisted of 76 Hungarian students. The independent variables were mothers’ education and the tests administered to Grade-1 students, which included Raven’s Progressive Matrices and tests on word reading, mathematics, and musical abilities. The dependent variable was GPA in Grade 7. All tests demonstrated adequate reliability. In the regression model with the most significant predictive role, the independent variables explained 46% of GPA in Grade 7 when taken together. We established the long-term predictive role of musical abilities in later success in school. Rhythm perception and reproduction demonstrated the most significant explanatory power (11%) of variance for GPA. Mathematics and mothers’ education each explained 10% of the variance. The findings shed light on the positive impacts that early musical training may play in later academic achievement, even in the long run.

This book brings together the best and most current research on best practice for music learning, focusing squarely on the profession’s empirical and conceptual knowledge of how students gain competence in music at various ages and in different contexts. The collection of chapters, written by the foremost figures active in the field, addresses a range of best practices for approaching current and important areas in the field, including cognition and perception, music listening, vocal/choral learning, and the needs of special learners. The book’s companion volume, Strategies, provides the solid theoretical framework and extensive research upon which these practices stand. Focus is placed on the musical knowledge and musical skills needed to perform, create, understand, reflect on, enjoy, value, and respond to music. A key point of emphasis rests on the relationship between music learning and finding meaning in music, and as music technology plays an increasingly important role in learning today, chapters move beyond exclusively formal classroom instruction into other forms of systematic learning and informal instruction.

Background This study aims to evaluate the critical effect factors on musical creativity systematically. Uncovering the determinants of musical creativity is significant to promoting music education and creative development. Methods This study used structural equation modeling analysis to construct a conceptual framework containing ten explanatory variables based on the Componential Theory of Creativity. The data of 964 university students were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling for empirical testing. Results The empirical findings show that creative thinking and combinatorial thinking have the most significant impact on musical creativity; combinatorial thinking and musical improvisation ability play a key mediating role between expertise and musical creativity; Musical aesthetic ability and music use motivations, as external constructs, have a significant impact on intrinsic motivation and expertise. Conclusions This study reveals the combined influence of multiple cognitive and motivational factors on musical creativity, enriches the theoretical framework of musical creativity, and provides new perspectives and methods for music education practice, aiming to help educators cultivate students’ musical creativity more comprehensively and promote the innovative development of higher education.

The MENC Handbook of Research on Music Learning, Volume 2: Applications brings together the best and most current research on best practice for music learning, focusing squarely on the profession's empirical and conceptual knowledge of how students gain competence in music at various ages and in different contexts. The collection of chapters, written by the foremost figures active in the field, addresses a range of best practices for approaching current andimportant areas in the field, including cognition and perception, music listening, vocal/choral learning, and the needs of special learners. The book's companion volume, Strategies, provides the solid theoretical framework and extensive research upon which these practices stand.Throughout both volumes in this essential set, focus is placed on the musical knowledge and musical skills needed to perform, create, understand, reflect on, enjoy, value, and respond to music. A key point of emphasis rests on the relationship between music learning and finding meaning in music, and as music technology plays an increasingly important role in learning today, chapters move beyond exclusively formal classroom instruction into other forms of systematic learning and informalinstruction. Either individually or paired with its companion Volume 1: Strategies, this indispensable overview of this growing area of inquiry will appeal to students and scholars in Music Education, as well as front-line music educators in the classroom.

A native Amazonian society rated consonant and dissonant chords and vocal harmonies as equally pleasant, whereas Bolivian city- and town-dwellers preferred consonance, indicating that preference for consonance over dissonance is not universal and probably develops from exposure to particular types of polyphonic music. Cultural variation in music perception In Western cultures, some combinations of musical notes are perceived as pleasant, or consonant, and others as unpleasant, or dissonant. The aesthetic contrast between consonance and dissonance is commonly thought to be biologically determined and thus to be universally present in humans. Josh McDermott and colleagues put this idea to the test by conducting experiments in remote areas of the Bolivian Amazon rainforest, working with the Tsimane', an indigenous society that has remained relatively isolated from Western culture. They found that the Tsimane' rated consonant and dissonant chords and vocal harmonies as equally pleasant. By contrast, Bolivian city- and town-dwellers preferred consonance, albeit to a lesser degree than US residents. These findings suggest that the preference for consonance over dissonance is not universal, and probably develops from exposure to particular types of polyphonic music. Music is present in every culture, but the degree to which it is shaped by biology remains debated. One widely discussed phenomenon is that some combinations of notes are perceived by Westerners as pleasant, or consonant, whereas others are perceived as unpleasant, or dissonant 1 . The contrast between consonance and dissonance is central to Western music 2 , 3 , and its origins have fascinated scholars since the ancient Greeks 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 . Aesthetic responses to consonance are commonly assumed by scientists to have biological roots 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , and thus to be universally present in humans 15 , 16 . Ethnomusicologists 17 and composers 8 , in contrast, have argued that consonance is a creation of Western musical culture 6 . The issue has remained unresolved, partly because little is known about the extent of cross-cultural variation in consonance preferences 18 . Here we report experiments with the Tsimane’—a native Amazonian society with minimal exposure to Western culture—and comparison populations in Bolivia and the United States that varied in exposure to Western music. Participants rated the pleasantness of sounds. Despite exhibiting Western-like discrimination abilities and Western-like aesthetic responses to familiar sounds and acoustic roughness, the Tsimane’ rated consonant and dissonant chords and vocal harmonies as equally pleasant. By contrast, Bolivian city- and town-dwellers exhibited significant preferences for consonance, albeit to a lesser degree than US residents. The results indicate that consonance preferences can be absent in cultures sufficiently isolated from Western music, and are thus unlikely to reflect innate biases or exposure to harmonic natural sounds. The observed variation in preferences is presumably determined by exposure to musical harmony, suggesting that culture has a dominant role in shaping aesthetic responses to music.