MindChamps CEO David Chiem on the power of music on young children

The role of music in education

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But what does music have to do with achieving a scientific breakthrough that changes our understanding of physics and the universe? The human brain is certainly capable of making this kind of interdisciplinary connection, but is it something available only to a genius like Einstein or can it be nurtured?



I wanted to explore these questions to investigate the potential Einstein had hinted existed in music education.



As with so many areas of education, the study of music has always been approached with a silo mindset. To overcome this problem, 15 years ago we brought on board Dr Larry Scripp, one of the world’s leading authorities on music in education, as MindChamps Dean of Music. Professor Scripp has spent a lifetime investigating these and other questions at both Harvard and the renowned New England Conservatory in Boston.



For young children, effective learning is about more than just content — it is immersive, social and hands-on. Children learn through play. They learn to connect by connecting. These were the principles we built on.



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A concrete focus on the fundamental concepts that music shares with other disciplines

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Our breakthrough was to move music from somewhere out on the periphery to being the central focus of an integrative learning model — replacing the drilling of abstract symbols and rote routines with a concrete focus on the fundamental concepts that music shares with other disciplines.

This approach has enabled us to make breakthroughs in the way we teach musical literacy to very young children. With an understanding of how music functions in the brain and how it affects brain development — which key concepts it shares with other disciplines and how young children actually make sense of the world — you can use the power of music to enhance the way their brains function.

Our research team at MindChamps AIR (Applied Integration Research) has demonstrated significant improvements in scores on internationally-recognised measures of language literacy (TOPEL) and numeracy (TEMA), as well as results in musical literacy that were a remarkable 1.5 standard deviations higher than similar students who did not receive the same instruction.

We are also developing methods to quantify the positive effects we are observing in the areas of social/emotional development and analogous thinking.

Einstein talked about musical intuition, but he also shared this: “I know that the most joy in my life has come to me from my violin.” His music was nurtured, not forced. He played his entire life because it gave him joy.

That is the key. We can talk about the science — measure the growth of neural networks or the educational outcomes — but in the end, our most important role, if we are to tap into the power of music’s universality, is to find a way to make musical literacy both integrative and fun.

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