Dr. Sean Hutchins is the Director of Research for The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He founded the conservatory’s research centre, which focuses on experimental studies of music neuroscience and performance. An expert in the science of vocal perception and production, Hutchins shared his insights into the relationship between musical training and cognition.
Could you explain how understanding fundamental processes behind how people perceive and produce music can enhance music education, especially for young learners?
“For several decades now, researchers in neuroscience have found that the brains of trained musicians are different from those of non-musicians. Cognitive psychology has supported this, showing links between the brains of musicians and their improved cognitive performance, including on measurements of intelligence. Musicians clearly benefit from their training, but few studies have looked at the earliest roots of this benefit. My research focuses on the effects that music training can have in early childhood and applies it in a practical setting. This work has fed into the development of the Royal Conservatory’s Smart Start program, which is based on not only my own research, but also the decades of prior research in the field. The research at the RCM Research Centre continues to feed into the program, both to confirm its effectiveness and to help us understand the way that early childhood music education can have lasting impacts on the brain and cognitive development.”
You’ve studied the relationship between speech and singing extensively. What are some surprising ways that these two forms of expression intersect? How might this influence the way we teach music and language skills to children?
“Speech and singing are two very closely related phenomena, and, like speech, singing is culturally universal, found in every society around the world. Music and language overlap in several important ways. Both are forms of communication that function primarily through the medium of sound, though both have important written forms as well. What’s more, both language and music are highly structured, having a grammar or theory that can provide a framework for organization.
Because of this close connection between language and music, skills practiced in music can transfer over to the domain of language. Scientists believe that the precision required for both perceiving and producing music can serve as practice for the neural pathways that support hearing, and this practice in working with precise timings and tunings can make it easier for the ear to also work with the sounds of language. Just by practicing music, children are improving their language skills as well.”
As the Director of Research at The Royal Conservatory of Music’s Research Centre, you have spearheaded several experimental studies. Could you share one or two groundbreaking findings?
“The focus of our research for the past several years has been our Smart Start program. We have found that children who participate in Smart Start show both musical and cognitive benefits that go above and beyond what you would expect from normal development. These cognitive benefits are most evident when we examine children’s language abilities. We believe that the close connection between music and language can help skills practiced in music to transfer to language, and more broadly to general cognitive skills, such as attention, memory, and cognitive flexibility. Our Smart Start results also align well with other findings in the field of music cognition, which show that musicians generally outperform non-musicians in tests of cognitive abilities. Our own lab has shown that highly-trained musicians perform better than non-musicians in the same tests that the children in Smart Start improved on, indicating that these benefits gained from music training can last a lifetime.”
Your current work examines how musical training affects cognitive and linguistic abilities. What can parents and educators do to better utilize music as a tool for cognitive development in children?
“The reason music can help cognitive development in children is that music practice can also help to train more generalized, transferable skills, which can then apply to domains outside of music. One common idea about the benefits of music is that simply listening to certain types of music can raise intelligence- this is often popularized as the “Mozart Effect”. Scientific research on this topic has largely debunked this idea- just listening to music will not cause any lasting gains, for children or adults. On the contrary, the research shows that the benefits of music come largely from the work and effort expended in practicing.
For educators, this means that understanding the specific ways in which musical activities can target cognitive skills like attention, memory, and cognitive flexibility can help them improve their practice- recognizing the parts of music instruction that draw on these skills can help them re-orient their teaching to focus on these skills more directly (with the added bonus of better understanding some of the difficulties that their students might have along the way). For parents, the main takeaway is that the practice is the benefit. Understanding that the cognitive gains from music come largely from the effort put into it can help parents to better support and encourage their children, even if they struggle with their practice.”
What advice would you give to parents considering music education for their children? How can they support their child’s musical journey based on scientific principles?
“Research has shown that music education is one of the most effective ways we have of enhancing a child’s long term potential in any domain that they enter. Skills practiced through music can transfer to all different walks of life- this is one of the reasons that we see so many successful people who also happen to play an instrument, even if it’s not their primary career. What’s more, we know that music training is most effective when it’s started as early as possible, which is why we’ve designed the Smart Start program to start from the very youngest ages. For these young children, much of what they learn about music comes through their parents and care-providers, so it’s best not to think about your child’s music education as something that only happens in the class, but also in the home. Making sure you continue to practice these activities at home is an important part of making music education as beneficial as possible. Even as your children age, parental support is important to give children the structure they need to be able to go to lessons and practice on their own at home. At all ages, demonstrating that you care about their musical development is one of the most effective ways of supporting their continued growth and ensuring that they reap the benefits of music education.”