Music studies

* Researchers Adrian Hille and Jürgen Schupp, of the German Institute for Economic Research, find that “adolescents with music training have better cognitive skills and school grades and are more conscientious, open and ambitious. These effects do not differ by socio-economic status. Music improves cognitive and non-cognitive skills more than twice as much as sports, theater or dance.”

The abstract of their study:

http://www.psmag.com/blogs/news-blog/evidence-music-lessons-boost-kids-emotional-intellectual-development-70862/

* A study by a Boston research team, Marie Forgeard, Ellen Winner, Andrea Norton and Gottfried Schlaug, finds that children who receive at least three years of musical-instrument training excel in “auditory discrimination abilities and fine motor skills” and “vocabulary and nonverbal reasoning skills.”

Their full article:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003566

(Note that these studies address the effects of hands-on musical training, not the “Mozart effect,” i.e., that merely listening to classical music allegedly makes children smarter.)

* Mary Beth Cooper surveys other studies showing, among other things, that “classical music fans have high self-esteem, are creative, introvert[ed] and at ease,” while “opera fans have high self-esteem, are creative and gentle;” and that drivers listening to music they don’t like or don’t know are safer than those who drive to familiar music or no music:

http://blog.bufferapp.com/music-and-the-brain

(via http://www.myauditions.com/news/index.php)