Research Updates
Here at Bigger Better Brains we believe that through educating yourself, you can then educate and affect positive change in your community.
With all of the research in the field of neuromusical science, our BBB Research section serves as a content hub for you. We regularly share findings and break down the latest research to educate and inspire discussion. We hope you enjoy this page on our website and share BBB news with your colleagues, parents and students.
A school transformed itself by giving every student a violin
This is where the power of the story is. It is not simply that music learning has transformed a school and its students; it is HOW it has done it.
Could music help improve students’ ability to learn?
As students worldwide are having educational experiences that are a little or a lot different to their “normal”, teachers are looking for ways to maintain students’ engagement in a similar way to when they are attending “normal” school.
Music hits the mark to improve our memory
For almost a decade now we have understood that music listening activates the reward network in the brain.
Music learning enhances executive function in preschoolers
After 12 weeks of 35 minutes of active music learning every day, randomly chosen preschoolers in the experiment group had higher scores on all of these executive function measures.
Make your brain more efficient
How efficiently is your brain working today? Music learning trains the brain to use fewer brain resources when compared with non-musically trained people (and in this case those who are also bilingual).
When things get noisey do your ears shut down?
Our auditory processing system is possibly our largest information-gathering sense. It keeps us safe and it processes mountains of information without our knowledge. It also never turns off. But, sometimes it gets tired and a bit overwhelmed.
Background music ‘significantly impairs’ creativity
Do you use background music when you are completing a creative task? If you do, do you find that your creative output is better, more innovative or unexpected, or does the background music hinders these outputs?
The effect of preferred background music on sustained attention
When we have to do a task, many people often choose to put music on in the background rather than complete the task in silence. The researchers found that “background music increased the proportion of task-focus states by decreasing mind-wandering states but did not affect external distraction states.”
To put the music on, to not put music on, that is the question?
A lot of the headlines point to the connection between listening to music and lessening productivity. The important detail to notice is which particular type of activity the participants were less productive in..
Music learning improves grades in Maths, English and Science … but why?
An extensive study has been released which found that students who studied music in primary school and into high school were almost one year ahead of their non-musically trained peers in their Maths, Science and English performance.
A French horn playing economist: how did learning an instrument help him think big?
Arthur (Brooks, leading US economist and social scientist) was once asked whether he’d learned anything as a serious musician that applied to his current work…
