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The Music Advantage: How Music Helps Your Child Develop, Learn, and Thrive
An expert in cognitive development and music education reveals the remarkable and surprising benefits that playing--or even appreciating--music offers to children.
The latest cognitive research has revealed something learning music and listening to music can grow and repair our brains at any age. Here, Dr. Anita Collins explains how music has the potential to positively benefit almost all aspects of a child's development, whether it's through formal education or mindful appreciation; simply clapping in time can assist a young child who is struggling with reading. It turns out that playing music is the cognitive equivalent of a full-body workout. Dr. Collins lays out the groundbreaking research that shows how playing an instrument can improve language abilities, social skills, concentration, impulse control, emotional development, working memory, and planning and strategy competence, from infancy through adolescence. She also provides real-life stories to show the difference that music learning can make, as well as practical strategies for parents and educators to encourage a love of music in their kids.
284 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2020
71 people are currently reading
319 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 18, 2022
I loved this book. I have often noticed as a piano teacher two different types of attitudes towards piano lessons: 1) Music is a fun, extra activity so that maybe if my child is creative or expressive, they will enjoy it. Otherwise, we will try for a year and then let it go. 2) Music is an essential part of an educational curriculum and its not optional for the same reason any other required subject isn't optional. We will do it for several years because it is good, and we will budget a reasonable amount of time each week for practicing just like its homework from school.
The outcomes of these two approaches are very predictable. I think the strength of this book is that it makes a strong case for viewpoint 2) on the basis of research and extensive anecdotal experience. The case is this: music education doesn't just correlate with success in other areas but actually helps to cause it. What is obvious and apparent is that musical ability strongly correlates with success in other areas, so that itself is interesting. But going a step further, Anita Collins makes a good case that there are a range of cognitive and non-cognitive skills that are enhanced by music education. Seeing music as viewpoint 1) therefore misses the fact that everyone can and would benefit from music education in ways that both include the inherent pleasure of making music and additional cognitive and non-cognitive developments as well.
The outcomes of these two approaches are very predictable. I think the strength of this book is that it makes a strong case for viewpoint 2) on the basis of research and extensive anecdotal experience. The case is this: music education doesn't just correlate with success in other areas but actually helps to cause it. What is obvious and apparent is that musical ability strongly correlates with success in other areas, so that itself is interesting. But going a step further, Anita Collins makes a good case that there are a range of cognitive and non-cognitive skills that are enhanced by music education. Seeing music as viewpoint 1) therefore misses the fact that everyone can and would benefit from music education in ways that both include the inherent pleasure of making music and additional cognitive and non-cognitive developments as well.
March 23, 2025
A good read that's full of cited research without being full of "eduspeak" and too much jargon. I appreciated that Dr. Collins presented information, but made it clear that nothing she found was a "silver bullet" or a "fix all" for education.
As a music educator, I really appreciated this book. There were things that I already knew that it reinforced, but it also gave me additional perspectives on music education that I sometimes lose in the day to day shuffle of teaching. X
As a music educator, I really appreciated this book. There were things that I already knew that it reinforced, but it also gave me additional perspectives on music education that I sometimes lose in the day to day shuffle of teaching. X
October 25, 2020
A well written, easy to understand book which talks about the many flow on effects of learning a musical instrument through different stages of development. A must read!
March 7, 2023
Book summary
1. Music creates the most brain activity
2. Adults have musical trains, take less brain activity to complete tasks, and do it with better accuracy to compare with people who do not have music training.
3. Our hearing is the main instrument to collect info and generate sense, more than the eye. It works nonstop.
4. Children have the ability to connect their motion to a beat likely to do better in reading.
5. Parents are the first model and first teacher for a child.
6. Infants and toddlers learn through conversations with parents talking to them. They perceive speech as singing. Parents should sing for the child often => expand their attention span => they learn more from it.
7. Singing songs help a child to feel safe, feel the connection bond, and they start to build trust upon that bonding connection.
8. Ways to help toddlers be ready for school:
- Sing songs for them often => build connection, build trust and love, develop cognitive neural.
- Let them listen to songs from different language
- Switch activities often to help them expand their attention span. The longer the attention span they have, the more they can learn and do well at school.
9. Learning to keep the beat lead to greater brain synchronization, higher focus level, and better disciplinary => enhancing the learning experience.
The inflections in Asian languages help stimulate more brain activities in infants and toddlers than in countries that do not have many inflections in their languages (like English). Asian kids tend to have better focus and discipline and do well in musical subjects.
- Social groups help your child learn to control and create peer pressure to get them to keep going and not give up.
- Adult professional musicians have their brains wired very differently and are highly effective.
- The ability to delay gratification and "wait until your turn" is the skill children needed to develop their overall intelligence.
Learning music helps children to develop inhibitory control, patience, discipline, focus, attention, and planning.
- We should shift the idea that music should be fun and easy to learning music is challenging, but in return, the brain development and the self-control skills, the patience that the student will adopt is worthwhile.
10. Why reading a word is a process of reading music.
- The inflections in Asian languages help stimulate more brain activities in infants and toddlers than country has not so much inflections in their language (like English). Asian kids tend to have better focus, disciplinary, and do well in Music subject.
- Social groups help your child learn to control and create peer pressure to get them keep going and not giving up.
- Adult professional musicians have the brain wired very differently and highly effective.
- The ability to delay gratification and "wait until your turn" is the skill children needed to develope their overall intelligent.
- Learning music help children to develop inhibitory control, patience, discipline, focus, attention, planning.
- We should shift the idea that music should be fun and easy to learning music is challenging, but in return, the brain development and the self-control skills, the patience that the student will adopt is worthwile.
-Characteristic, genres, and living environment play an important factor in a child's brain development. Each child's brain is very individual. Learning music may improve reading skill on one child and may not improve the reading skill of others.
11. How music stretches each child's attention span.
- Practice listening skills to espand attention. The ears capture the most information because our ears never turn off from recieving information.
- Musicians perform better on tasks that require attention.
- Learning and playing an instrument result in higher attention skills.
- Attention level is both nature and nurture. Some people are born with higher level of attention, and others train themselves to increase it.
12. Get comforwith discomfort: How music teaches your child to love frustration.
- Build in the process of learning an instrument is a small but measurable process of trials, failures, frustrations, and difficulties.
- The satisfaction of playing a passge of music correct is higher because it follows after a few minutes of trials, failures, difficulties, and frustrations that come before it.
- The 5 mins of frustrations teach you a lesson that if you stick with it, eventually you will get it right.
- Use frustrations as a tool to learn to be patient. Get comfortable with being discomfort.
- Tips: Give students different levels of assignments, both easy and challenging. That way, they can enjoy the sense of accomplishment when they complete the easy ones and are motivated to try for the harder one.
13. How music helps brain wiring.
- The first 7 years of life is the best time for the brain wiring (the way the brain forms connections and develop) to occur.
- Learning music engages multiple paths at once => create neural elasticity.
- More practice time does not guarantee a better result. We always seek the efficiency route.
- "If you want to get something done, give it to a busy and efficient person."
- Good learners make good teachers. People who naturally perform well on stage or naturally has musical talent may not be able to teach well as they may not need to break down the process to be able to explain it to students.1
- Musicly trained student have greater level resillient and persistant. They also appreiate diversity and seek for it.
- Persistant is the ability to stick to the activity even though it is challenging and results in a series of failures up front.
- Resillient is the ability to recover from difficulties.
- Think of discomfort as an opportunity to learn.
- Tips: Introducing the "micro dosing of discomfort"
16. How music bring out leadership in children.
- Learning to playing in orchestra, students get to learn:
~ How to leadfrom the front
~ How to follow another leader
~ How to lead in many different ways, includings the not so obvious ways.
~ How to contribute as a productive member in a team.
17. How music super charge your child's memory
- You see it, you forget. You hear it, you remember. You do it, you understand.
- Musicians have better memory creation, storage, and retriver.
- Music can heal memory heal after damage and trauma.
PART IV: ALMOST A GROWN UP - 12 YEARS TO ADULT.
18. How music help students with balance.
- In mprovisation research, musician brains become karma, use less consicuous thoughts to access social interactions and empathy.
- Learn music improve decision making skills, problem solving skills, more mindful, and easy to adapt to the new situations.
19. Seeking out the new: How music teach student to create and innovate.
- Music students are more open to try new things, adept greatly to changes. They havea a higher level of consciousness (Self-discipline, archievement orientation, organization, openess to new experience, and intellectually curious...)
- Knowing the rules in music before breaking the rules (innovative)
- Not just teach the students the music they like, but also it is teacher's responsibility to introduce students to new type of music that they may eventually like.
20. Using music to enhance study and manage stress
- Suggest music to listen to while studying: music without lyric, classical music, happy music.
- Each person has a different type of music help them focus while working on other task, depend on their musical background and what kind of task they are completing. The music helps you focus better may not be helpful for other and vice versa.
21. Music learning is the gift that keeps on gifting.
- Music improves cognitive and non-cognitive skills more than twice as much as sport, theater, and dance.
- Adolescences with music training has better cognitive skills and school grade, more conscious, open, and ambitious.
- Music allows us to understand and communicate without words, to share feelings, empathy, kind, and productive.
- Meaningful music learning has more to give to every child, not just the talented, interested, and financially able ones.
- Children dont just deserve music education, they need it.
1. Music creates the most brain activity
2. Adults have musical trains, take less brain activity to complete tasks, and do it with better accuracy to compare with people who do not have music training.
3. Our hearing is the main instrument to collect info and generate sense, more than the eye. It works nonstop.
4. Children have the ability to connect their motion to a beat likely to do better in reading.
5. Parents are the first model and first teacher for a child.
6. Infants and toddlers learn through conversations with parents talking to them. They perceive speech as singing. Parents should sing for the child often => expand their attention span => they learn more from it.
7. Singing songs help a child to feel safe, feel the connection bond, and they start to build trust upon that bonding connection.
8. Ways to help toddlers be ready for school:
- Sing songs for them often => build connection, build trust and love, develop cognitive neural.
- Let them listen to songs from different language
- Switch activities often to help them expand their attention span. The longer the attention span they have, the more they can learn and do well at school.
9. Learning to keep the beat lead to greater brain synchronization, higher focus level, and better disciplinary => enhancing the learning experience.
The inflections in Asian languages help stimulate more brain activities in infants and toddlers than in countries that do not have many inflections in their languages (like English). Asian kids tend to have better focus and discipline and do well in musical subjects.
- Social groups help your child learn to control and create peer pressure to get them to keep going and not give up.
- Adult professional musicians have their brains wired very differently and are highly effective.
- The ability to delay gratification and "wait until your turn" is the skill children needed to develop their overall intelligence.
Learning music helps children to develop inhibitory control, patience, discipline, focus, attention, and planning.
- We should shift the idea that music should be fun and easy to learning music is challenging, but in return, the brain development and the self-control skills, the patience that the student will adopt is worthwhile.
10. Why reading a word is a process of reading music.
- The inflections in Asian languages help stimulate more brain activities in infants and toddlers than country has not so much inflections in their language (like English). Asian kids tend to have better focus, disciplinary, and do well in Music subject.
- Social groups help your child learn to control and create peer pressure to get them keep going and not giving up.
- Adult professional musicians have the brain wired very differently and highly effective.
- The ability to delay gratification and "wait until your turn" is the skill children needed to develope their overall intelligent.
- Learning music help children to develop inhibitory control, patience, discipline, focus, attention, planning.
- We should shift the idea that music should be fun and easy to learning music is challenging, but in return, the brain development and the self-control skills, the patience that the student will adopt is worthwile.
-Characteristic, genres, and living environment play an important factor in a child's brain development. Each child's brain is very individual. Learning music may improve reading skill on one child and may not improve the reading skill of others.
11. How music stretches each child's attention span.
- Practice listening skills to espand attention. The ears capture the most information because our ears never turn off from recieving information.
- Musicians perform better on tasks that require attention.
- Learning and playing an instrument result in higher attention skills.
- Attention level is both nature and nurture. Some people are born with higher level of attention, and others train themselves to increase it.
12. Get comforwith discomfort: How music teaches your child to love frustration.
- Build in the process of learning an instrument is a small but measurable process of trials, failures, frustrations, and difficulties.
- The satisfaction of playing a passge of music correct is higher because it follows after a few minutes of trials, failures, difficulties, and frustrations that come before it.
- The 5 mins of frustrations teach you a lesson that if you stick with it, eventually you will get it right.
- Use frustrations as a tool to learn to be patient. Get comfortable with being discomfort.
- Tips: Give students different levels of assignments, both easy and challenging. That way, they can enjoy the sense of accomplishment when they complete the easy ones and are motivated to try for the harder one.
13. How music helps brain wiring.
- The first 7 years of life is the best time for the brain wiring (the way the brain forms connections and develop) to occur.
- Learning music engages multiple paths at once => create neural elasticity.
- More practice time does not guarantee a better result. We always seek the efficiency route.
- "If you want to get something done, give it to a busy and efficient person."
- Good learners make good teachers. People who naturally perform well on stage or naturally has musical talent may not be able to teach well as they may not need to break down the process to be able to explain it to students.1
- Musicly trained student have greater level resillient and persistant. They also appreiate diversity and seek for it.
- Persistant is the ability to stick to the activity even though it is challenging and results in a series of failures up front.
- Resillient is the ability to recover from difficulties.
- Think of discomfort as an opportunity to learn.
- Tips: Introducing the "micro dosing of discomfort"
16. How music bring out leadership in children.
- Learning to playing in orchestra, students get to learn:
~ How to leadfrom the front
~ How to follow another leader
~ How to lead in many different ways, includings the not so obvious ways.
~ How to contribute as a productive member in a team.
17. How music super charge your child's memory
- You see it, you forget. You hear it, you remember. You do it, you understand.
- Musicians have better memory creation, storage, and retriver.
- Music can heal memory heal after damage and trauma.
PART IV: ALMOST A GROWN UP - 12 YEARS TO ADULT.
18. How music help students with balance.
- In mprovisation research, musician brains become karma, use less consicuous thoughts to access social interactions and empathy.
- Learn music improve decision making skills, problem solving skills, more mindful, and easy to adapt to the new situations.
19. Seeking out the new: How music teach student to create and innovate.
- Music students are more open to try new things, adept greatly to changes. They havea a higher level of consciousness (Self-discipline, archievement orientation, organization, openess to new experience, and intellectually curious...)
- Knowing the rules in music before breaking the rules (innovative)
- Not just teach the students the music they like, but also it is teacher's responsibility to introduce students to new type of music that they may eventually like.
20. Using music to enhance study and manage stress
- Suggest music to listen to while studying: music without lyric, classical music, happy music.
- Each person has a different type of music help them focus while working on other task, depend on their musical background and what kind of task they are completing. The music helps you focus better may not be helpful for other and vice versa.
21. Music learning is the gift that keeps on gifting.
- Music improves cognitive and non-cognitive skills more than twice as much as sport, theater, and dance.
- Adolescences with music training has better cognitive skills and school grade, more conscious, open, and ambitious.
- Music allows us to understand and communicate without words, to share feelings, empathy, kind, and productive.
- Meaningful music learning has more to give to every child, not just the talented, interested, and financially able ones.
- Children dont just deserve music education, they need it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 19, 2021
I was hoping to have some solid data presented that music study does impact other learning, but was bummed that all of the stories and studies still say it may be music but it could be other things too. I am a music teacher so have read quite a bit on this topic. I felt like there were not any real new revelations and have experienced many similar stories that the author shares. Maybe I would have waited for more conclusive studies before writing this book. 😀
March 18, 2023
One of the best non fiction journals I've read. Interesting and informative
November 28, 2025
This book blew my mind. Such wonderful and encouraging information. An easy read when it comes to an informational/research book.
July 31, 2023
Some interesting information, but could've been written much more succinctly.
Take home message:
"There are more studies currently in progress and new areas of research emerging, but right now, as I write, we have evidence that should make us stop and consider how we can evolve our education systems, values and beliefs to let every child have access to the benefits of music learning."
Take home message:
"There are more studies currently in progress and new areas of research emerging, but right now, as I write, we have evidence that should make us stop and consider how we can evolve our education systems, values and beliefs to let every child have access to the benefits of music learning."
April 1, 2021
This book is an introduction into general research on teaching music to children. Do not expect a full explanation, which the author mentions in the beginning. This is because the field is young, and the author is not a neuroscientist.
The book discusses how music helps with better attention, better reading skills, better leadership skills...you name it. Very easy to read, not full of research language. Relatable most of the time, even though I do not have kids myself.
The author does not offer a solution at the end. It is a general book that shares the main points of neuroscience research and sparks interest for topics that apply to music teaching. Most of examples were applicable to group teaching in traditional school settings, not for one on one piano lessons (which is more relevant to me). However, some concepts were indeed applicable to piano teachers.
I would like to learn how the author got into neuroscience and how she decided to invest time and effort in reading all these different studies. Good read, but take it with a grain of salt, something that the author makes clear in the beginning.
The book discusses how music helps with better attention, better reading skills, better leadership skills...you name it. Very easy to read, not full of research language. Relatable most of the time, even though I do not have kids myself.
The author does not offer a solution at the end. It is a general book that shares the main points of neuroscience research and sparks interest for topics that apply to music teaching. Most of examples were applicable to group teaching in traditional school settings, not for one on one piano lessons (which is more relevant to me). However, some concepts were indeed applicable to piano teachers.
I would like to learn how the author got into neuroscience and how she decided to invest time and effort in reading all these different studies. Good read, but take it with a grain of salt, something that the author makes clear in the beginning.
May 27, 2021
A US reprint of the 2020 book, Collins is a science writer who compiles research on how music improves a child's development in every aspect of life through adulthood. A great resource for music teachers and studios who want to convince parents and educators that music is integral to a child's high achievement in school and life. It may inspire you to play an instrument, dance, sing, or just listen to more beautiful music. Easy read in an hour.
July 23, 2023
Everyone should read this book! She takes real and recent scientific research and translates it for the layperson to use and awe at in their daily life. Humans are inherently musical and the benefits of musical learning (particularly in early childhood) cannot be overstated. Any parent, teacher, musician or human would benefit from reading this fascinating book!
May 29, 2024
Great book, explained the benefits of music for children from the time they are born until into adulthood. The book is written to be easily understandable for anyone and also provides many extra resources to be able to continue learning once you have finished the book.
May 3, 2021
2.5 stars
Read
June 22, 2021Sing to your baby. Keeping rhythm supersedes learning to read. Learning music fosters perseverance and focused attention. Don't cut the music program!
November 27, 2021
This reaffirms that what I do for a living is so crucial for brain development. Teach music so these beautiful humans have the brain capacity to do whatever their hearts desire.
March 19, 2022
A must read for parents and educators.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews