A Well-Tempered Mind: Using Music to Help Children Listen and Learn

by Peter Perret, Maya Angelou (Foreword), Janet Fox

A Well-Tempered Mind investigates the intriguing connection between music education and brain development in children. Peter Perret and Janet Fox use the details of an innovative music education program for elementary school students to explore this fascinating relationship. A Well-Tempered Mind describes how the students of Bolton Elementary in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a local quintet worked together and then explains the ongoing research that focuses on how music engages the brain’s cognitive capabilities, from memory and language to emotional processing. Music, A Well-Tempered Mind reveals, is a universal language that expands young minds in essential ways. 

“The authors put flesh on the feeling shared by all music teachers that the experience of music enhances thought and learning in unexpected directions, well beyond the simple act of enjoying the sound. … It’s exciting and necessary reading for all who are battling to ensure the place of music in the school curriculum."— Times Educational Supplement

Genres: Parenting, Music, Education, Self Help, Nonfiction, Psychology

270 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2004

Reviews

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really great insight into the unique benefits of using music as an educational tool for young kids. The book follows a quintet's journey to improve the literacy and arithmetic thinking of schoolchildren by conducting interactive music lessons in active listening, improvisation and simple notation, and I think it provided a really convincing argument for why music is an indispensable part of education. By drawing upon concepts that are innately intuitive to us (such as rhythm and tone), music teachers facilitate exercises in abstract reasoning and personal growth.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Music belongs in every classroom. This book proves that statement with statistics and reasons for including some form of music in yours.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well written account of one grade school's experience with bringing a woodwind quintet into the classrooms once a week for a year. At the end of the year the school had doubled the numbers of kids reading and doing math at grade level. Many other changes were made at the school that year including a new principal so it is hard to say how much of the gains could be attributed to the lessons with the quintet but the participants, including the teachers and new administration, felt strongly that the quintet's contribution was significant. With this caveat in mind, I continued to read about how the quintet interacted with their students, what kind of material they presented, and how they presented it. This part was interesting and is well salted with fascinating tidbits of from the latest in cognitive learning and neuroscience that give insight into how brains develop and learn and how they experience music. However, as the author discusses in the final chapter, this experiment has raised more questions than it has answered in how music affects young students' ability to learn. Some of the theories hold that the quintet's instruction helps kids listen better and learn to better distinguish phonemes but it's hard to say if this is because the lessons are music based or because the quintet brought five more adults into the classroom, thereby lowering the teacher to student ratio, or if some other quality of their instruction or content improved these areas. Or did the quintet do anything at all to contribute toward the improvement? The author also discusses the complexities involved with answering these questions.

After reading this book, I still think there is some merit to the idea that the arts can dramatically improve a child's learning ability and I think the book enhanced by belief and understanding of the idea. I'm comfortable with the questions that remain unanswered and feel that the experiences I have had with art based instruction for my child have been more than worth the cost and effort. Was I just looking for validation of these efforts? It's possible. However, I think the book was still worth my time. The experiment it chronicles is truly fascinating and I came away with more ideas on how to bring the arts into our daily routines. Also, it is worth at least one star just for the information on learning and brain science. All of this information is well cited too.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well written account of one of the Winston-Salem Symphony's educational outreach programs. They brought a wind quintet into elementary and middle school classes and found that students' reading scores improved. The authors cite current research on neurological development during childhood development, music making, and the process of learning to read. The authors also offer tips for teachers (music and non-music) and parents as to how they can use musical concepts to teach children to read, listen, and encourage their natural curiosity of the world. Easy enough for the musical/educational layperson to enjoy, but stimulating enough for the professional musician/educator to learn from.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

calling all dorks. this is the stuff i read about!

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once you read this book you will want all schools to incorporate music as much as possible. While some of the research is anecdotal, and there is much more research to be done in the field of music cognition, there is no doubt that more music in schools makes for a better learning environment, regardless of whether or not we have figured out exactly why that is.