Early music training helps develop brain areas involved in language, reasoning, and mathematics. It also helps students develop in areas of problem solving, critical thinking, and creative synergy. Students listening skills are improved through music education, and those who study music generally have higher grade point averages than those who don’t.
Common sense tells us that music has social benefits. Playing music, children can experience a greater sense of well being and self-esteem. They also learn the value of teamwork and have a healthy outlet for their creativity and self-expression.
Our hearts know that music is the universal language that needs no translation because it speaks directly to the deepest part of our being. As well as enhancing a student’s cognitive, social, motor and creative development, music has the power to affect a human being at the deepest level.
In 1865, during the Civil War in Atlanta, Georgia, General Sherman had his army ready and prepared for a battle. It was recorded that while they waited, a young man began to sing American songs, beloved songs that were familiar to both sides. The music was soothing and nostalgic and it floated across the field for the soldiers on both sides to hear. The hearts of everyone were touched, and the battle that was supposed to be did not occur that day. The music had so deeply moved their souls that no one felt like fighting.
Albert Einstein is recognized as one of the smartest men who have ever lived. A little known fact about Einstein is that when he was young he did extremely poorly in school. His grade school teachers told his parents to take him out of school because he was "too stupid to learn" and it would be a waste of resources for the school to invest time and energy in his education. The school suggested that his parents get Albert an easy, manual labor job as soon as they could. His mother did not think that Albert was "stupid". Instead of following the school's advice, Albert's parents bought him a violin. Albert became good at the violin. Music was the key that helped Albert Einstein become one of the smartest men who has ever lived. Einstein himself says that the reason he was so smart is because he played the violin. He loved the music of Mozart and Bach the most. A friend of Einstein, G.J. Withrow, said that the way Einstein figured out his problems and equations was by improvising on the violin.
Napoleon understood the enormous power of music. He summed it up by saying, "Give me control over he who shapes the music of a nation, and I care not who makes the laws".
Ludwig van Beethoven summed up the extraordinary power of music beautifully when he said, “Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.”
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Short Term Goals:
• To promote a child’s personal growth, creativity, well being and self-esteem through using music as the vehicle.
• To provide children with musical instruments, teachers,
and an opportunity to learn about and play music in a safe nurturing environment.
• To provide an environment whereby children can learn about and experience the benefits of teamwork.
• To benefit the community by providing children with a healthy and constructive activity
where they can directly experience the importance and value of every level of community.
Long Term Goals:
• To generate income to support the music programs by live performances, recordings, on-line and CD sales.
• To create the possibility for children to participate in student exchange programs,
travel to other parts of the world and learn about cultures different from their own.
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