Running Head: TUNING INTO MEMORIES 1

Tuning into Memories: Music as an Aid in Education and Therapy

Victoria Jorgensen

Southern Utah University

TUNING INTO MEMORIES 2

Abstract

Music and memory have a strong correlation, which can benefit many aspects in learning and

developing skills. Music can be used for education and therapy. Educationally, acquiring

language can be more efficient if music is used as a tool. Music can be implemented into class

settings to intrigue students and help the brain make connections. Music is not only beneficial

for traditional education, but for therapy as well. Music therapy is used to aid people of all ages

with learning disabilities. It can help people with mental handicaps discover new memories.

Similarly, music therapy can be used to recover memory in cases of Alzheimer’s and stroke,

because the music triggers old memories. If the importance of music in regards to memory is

realized and implemented into therapy and education, learning will be more efficient.

Keywords: music, memory, education, therapy

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Music and Memory

Music is something that universally effects people. It is unavoidable to the hearing ear.

Music can be deeply soothing or loud and crazy, but it creates a unique connection to memory.

This connection does not merely remind of experience, but it can be (and oftentimes is) an

instrument of learning and healing. It can help memories to be made, and thus help people learn

in school studies or acquire a new language. It can also bring back lost memories and skills to

people who have memory disorders. In either case, music and memory are directly related. If

approached in the right way, music can not only be a nice melody but can influence life for the

better.

Music and Education

Sometimes music is thought to be an unimportant subject to study. Math, science,

language, and history seem more important. It is cut from school curriculums, yet if used in the

right way, it can benefit learning the core subjects immensely.

Music and Acquiring Language

It seems as though music can help in learning languages. Language acquisition is

absolutely necessary. People study languages to learn how to communicate with those around

them, to understand culture, to expand their knowledge, or even just to pass a class. Someone

who is learning the language to assimilate into a new area may feel the need to learn the

language faster and more intently than someone who is just learning a language for enjoyment,

but either way music could be used to help the process along.

Music helped me memorize information in my language classes throughout middle

school and high school. Making songs with information embedded within them was one of the

only ways I could learn. I still remember those songs. For example, in my French 2 class we

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were required to learn the Pledge of Allegiance to America in French. It was an odd assignment,

but I was able to tackle the complicated task by making a catchy tune that the pledge fit to. I was

also able to learn Greek and Latin roots by setting them to tunes and rhythms. I began

wondering if I was the only one using songs as a tool of memorization, or if the general public

could benefit from this tool as well.

Schon et al. (2008) suggests most people naturally pick up language easier when music is

used as a method of teaching. In this study, twenty-six native French speakers listened to seven

minutes of continuous speech in different languages. They listened to two recordings of the

same words. The difference between the two recordings was one recording was melodic, and the

other was monotone. The language was more easily picked up when the continuous speech was

put to music than when it was monotone. This suggests that learning music to help remember

words in new languages could be helpful to many people, not just myself.

Music is thought to have helped memorization because music gives an emotional appeal

which sparks interest in the brain. The change in pitch helps to distinguish syllables. If syllables

are able to be distinguished, learning a language becomes easier. It has also been proven that

nerves that serve in the brain for language are the same ones that are used in music. Human

minds thrive off of connections. The tune and rhythm of the song are committed to the brain, as

well as the sound of the word. This means that if the rhythm is thought about, the tune and the

word will most likely be remembered. The more connections to remind the brain of the words in

the new language, the easier it will be to remember. This may seem like a paradox, but it is

easier to learn the music and the language at the same time, even though it is more information

than just the language alone.

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Music and Learning in Classrooms

Because music builds extra connections in the brain, it can help in classroom settings as

well. The left brain is used in learning letters, which is the same part of the brain that is used

when playing or listening to music. The more connections the brain has for one piece of

information, the easier it is to be remembered. Because learning symbols and listening to music

use the same parts of the brain, the brain has an extra connection to remember the information

that was learned. Dryer (2011) notes that four and five year olds who had high scores on pitch

discrimination were found to have higher reading scores than those children who were not able

to discriminate pitch easily.

Recognizing letters leads to reading, which is a building block for everything else in

education. If these students get a head start on reading through music they will excel and be able

to expand their knowledge instead of spending so much time learning the basics. Music can help

elementary school students with reading and writing. These scores can carry on past childhood.

Olson (2011) shows that adults who studied music at a young age score higher on cognitive tests.

This study done at Emery University in Atlanta, Georgia tested 70 healthy adults between the

ages of 60 and 83. They all had similar health and educational backgrounds. They were divided

into three groups: Those who had played an instrument for 10 or more years, those who had

played an instrument for one to nine years, and those who had no music experience. The

participants with music experience all started playing their instruments at the age, or before the

age, of ten. This means they started during their elementary school years. They were tested not

only on their music abilities but on their ability to process information.

The group who studied music for ten years or more scored the highest followed by those

who studied less than nine years, followed by those with no experience. It seems that music is

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one learning area that transfers to different aspects, because this study demonstrates a connection

between starting music at a young age and memory capacity. Half of the highest scoring group

in the study still played instruments at the time of testing. The other half stopped after ten years.

There was not a significant difference between the scores of the two groups. It can be assumed

that playing music contributes to better reading scores and better retention of memory in

elementary school years and later on as well.

Because adults who played instruments at a young age and stopped had the same scores

as those people who kept playing, it can be assumed that music will benefit a person if learned

early in life because music “literally rewires the brain,” (Olsen, 2011, p. 24). If this is the case,

music should be implemented into school systems from the start. Music programs cannot wait to

be started until high school or even middle school. Elementary school students need to be

exposed to the power of music in education, because they will retain the information better.

Also, if given the head start they will be able to continue to excel.

Not only will the music help students because it creates extra connections, but music will

help students commit many lessons into memory, because music is interesting. What I mean to

say is, sounds are always occurring in a schooling environment. It becomes easy to tune out the

mundane sounds. Yes, sometimes a lethargic student may actively choose not to listen, but

sometimes it is simply because there are too many distracting sounds that are more intriguing.

The sounds of learning are not always exciting. The teacher’s voice may get ignored or the

sound of a dull documentary. Dryer (2011) calls tuning out these ordinary sounds “habituation,”

(p. 4). Music is different than these “habitualized” noises. The wide range of pitch and rhythm

can help to capture students’ attention. It is easier to listen to a favorite song than the sound of

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markers on a whiteboard. If music took the place of these ordinary sounds, teaching would be

livelier and demand attention unlike other teaching styles.

Music can help students increase their knowledge, but finding a way to implement music

in the curriculum can be difficult. One of the best ways known to help students utilize music as a

tool for learning, especially in elementary school, is using new information as song lyrics to

familiar tunes. Because the tune is already known, the brain picks up the information faster than

if the information was being memorized by itself. This technique can be difficult if the teacher

does not have a musical background, but according to Dryer (2011) music enhances skills so

much that it should be involved in every classroom. Replacing lyrics will not be the best or

easiest option in every classroom. Replacing lyrics works better for some subjects more than

others. Reading and history classes require memorization and would benefit greatly from

inserting information into songs. Other subjects, like math, may need a different approach.

Garner (2004) gives an alternative to replacing lyrics. Musical computer programs can

be used in the classroom to teach math and science. Music programs have been tried and tested

to improve pattern detection, critical thinking, and visional and aural memory. Many programs

of this type are available. With so many options, the teacher could tailor the computer music

programs to what subject they want to teach. A couple of recommended programs are MusiCan

and Harmonic Music (Garner, 2004). These programs can’t work for all children, however.

Computer games can be complicated and some children have problems which inhibit them from

learning the way that other students do.

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Music Therapy

Children with mental retardation, a tremendous negative impact on the ability to learn, can

benefit from music in their education as well. Using music as a way of healing a disease or

overcoming a mental illness is sometimes referred to as music therapy.

Music and Discovering Skills

The skills mentally handicapped children learn during a normal day of class are different

than those skills children with no learning disabilities study. The children with higher IQs learn

how to read, write, and memorize during their first years at school. As previously discussed,

music can help this process. These same skills cannot be expected from the mentally

handicapped children of the same age simply because they do not have the ability to do those

skills at that point in their education. Keikha, Jenabadi, and Mirshekar (2012) predicted,

however, that the mentally handicapped children would be able to improve their ability to

remember utilizing music. This experiment was meant to observe if music therapy helped

children with disabilities remember how to do simple actions and remember certain skills.

The forty children in this experiment were between the ages of ten and fifteen with an IQ

of 65-75 from Zehedan, Iran. Twenty children were included in the control group and the

remaining children were given music therapy. Each child was given two independent tests. One

test focused on motor skills (motion memory) and the other focused on auditory memory (sound

memory). Before the experimental group had music therapy, all the children scored similarly on

the pre-test. This pre-test shows that both groups had relatively the same level of education and

skill. Neither group was predetermined to score higher. When the final tests were administered,

the children who had had music therapy scored higher.

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Music was especially effective at helping to improve motor skills. On the motor skills

test the children with music therapy scored 29.2 points better on average than the control. This

means the music vastly influenced the experimental group to remember certain movements. On

the memory recall test the experimental group also scored higher by 6.3 points on average. In

other words, the group who had music therapy had an easier time remembering how to say

words.

The music also seemed to improve social skills and self confidence. Developing

confidence and social skills will help the children learn even more. Many teaching methods

require social skills and personal interaction. If the teachers are able to teach in new ways, the

students have more ways to learn. Intra-personal skills and self-confidence improve emotional

health, and having exceptional emotional health is a factor in obtaining mental health.

Confidence helped these children because they were more willing to try new things. This

experiment demonstrates how music can not only help children in a traditional classroom setting

but can help students with a lower IQ in a more individualized situation as well. Music can help

these children with memory disabilities commit skills to memory. Self-confidence, social skills,

and retaining aural and verbal memory are skills that the children did not have before. In

essence, they discovered these skills through music learning.

Music and Recovering Skills

Not only can music enhance the memory of children with learning disabilities, but it can

help adults who have memory disabilities as well. Music has been used as supplement to

medical treatment for a long time. Before World War Two it was used to help adults improve

their hearing and speech disorders (Keikha et al. 2012). Adults do not need to necessarily

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discover skills; they already had those skills at one point. They need to rediscover the skills that

they possessed.

One case where skills may need to be recovered is after a stroke occurs. A stroke is a

sudden blockage or rupture of a blood vessel, which oftentimes results in a loss of speech or

movement. Sarkamo et al. (2010) did a study focusing on music, memory, and stroke. Sixty

patients from the Department of Neurology of Helsinki University Central Hospital suffering

from stroke were tested to see if they could benefit from music therapy. They were divided into

three groups of 20. One group was given CD players to play music for at least an hour every

day, one group was given a CD player to play audio books for at least an hour each day, and the

last group did not listen to music or audio books. The patients all had a stroke around the same

time, and they had similar educational backgrounds. The participants had no drug or alcohol

problems, no hearing deficits, and were under the age of seventy-five. Because their

backgrounds were so similar, it can be inferred that participants would have scored about equally

on the test if not given music or audio books. Story recall and word list recall were tested.

The result was that music and audio book listening enhanced audio sensory memory

more than the control group. It can be inferred that listening to audio books and music stimulates

the brain more than not listening to anything. This stimulation caused memories to come back.

The patients who listened to music scored even higher than those who listened to audio books.

The higher scores may be because music has an emotional appeal or because music has more

connections to the brain than regular speech. More experiments could be done to determine

exactly why these results happened. Interestingly, even six months after the trial, the patients

who listened to music or audio books had increased memory. This provides a little evidence to

suggest that the memory recovered through music is lasting. The people who listened to it in the

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experiment were more likely to listen to it afterwards, making an even greater increase in their

memory recall.

The knowledge that music can help stroke patients is important because, although some

factors may influence someone’s chances to have a stroke, anyone could have one. Music

therapy, if researched more, could be an inexpensive, highly effective way to help stroke patients

remember skills they had forgotten.

Alzheimer’s disease is similar to a stroke in that a loss of memory occurs; however, there

is not a blood clot in the brain. The illness in the brain makes it difficult to remember things.

Unlike a stroke, people with Alzheimer’s generally retain motor skills. They just have less

autobiographic memory. Autobiographical memory is long term memory that is based off of

self-experiences. There are two kinds of Autobiographical memory. The first is semantic

memory. This focuses on facts and general knowledge. Episodic memory focuses more on the

specific place and feelings (El Haj, Postal, & Allain, 2012). When both of these types of

memories worsen, the result is dementia. Some patients with dementia look to music to help

them remember movements and life events (Keikha et al., 2012). Emotional memories are

thought to be easier to recall than memories without strong feelings attached. In this way, music

might be able to help Alzheimer’s patients more than stroke patients, because the memories

Alzheimer’s patients have lost are largely episodic.

El Haj et al. (2012) tested music therapy on 12 patients with Alzheimer’s and 12 people

without. They were between the ages of 67 and 87. They all had between six to 14 years of

formal education. The people with Alzheimer’s disease scored between 20-24 on the MMSE

(Mini-Mental State Examination) test scale, while the people with no memory disorder scored

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25-30. This MMSE score shows the significant loss of memory that the Alzheimer’s patients

have compared to the people without memory loss.

This study tested autobiographical memory. In other words, it tested personal story

telling. Each person told a story three times in this experiment. The first time the participant did

not listen to any music before reciting a story, the second time the participant listened to the song

Four Seasons by Vivaldi, and the third time they listened to a song of their choice. Some of the

Alzheimer’s patients could not remember their favorite song, so their families picked their last

song for them. Each person was tested in a quiet familiar place. In all the tests they had to tell a

story with as much detail as possible. The stories were rated on the TEMPau scale. (This

specific scale tells the accuracy of the information and the details of the episodic and semantic

memory.)

The people without Alzheimer’s had very little change in their recall memory. This is

thought to have happened because they remembered the stories well without the music, and

therefore, had little room for improvement. In contrast, the people suffering from Alzheimer’s

scored higher with music than without. This means they remembered more details with

accuracy. While listening to the Four Seasons seemed to help memory recall a little, the patients

scored the highest on the TEMPau for story telling after listening to their own choice of music.

Presumably this happened because their own choice of music was linked with their emotions,

which contributes significantly to episodic memory. These results show that music sparks

autobiographical memory. In other words, it is evident that music can help Alzheimer’s patients

remember experiences from their lives.

Alzheimer’s is not completely curable. It is devastating to see people affected by a

disease where they do not remember people close to them or even things about themselves.

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Music therapy can help to relive a little of the memory blockade. It should be used. More

studies should be done so more information can be learned about how music can be used to help

Alzheimer’s more effectively.

The connection between music and memory should be used in education and therapy.

Music can be used when learning a language because the pitch helps distinguish between

syllables. It can help children learn in classroom settings. This can be done in various ways

including setting information to familiar tunes and using computer programs. Adding music in

the classroom can improve their test scores not only now but also in the future, because the skills

will carry over into later years. Music can be used to discover motor and aural skills. Mentally

handicapped people can learn and remember their skills through music. Music can also

influence people to rediscover skills and memories they already had. Stroke and Alzheimer’s

patients rediscover their memories this way. Educating through music and music therapy should

be used whenever possible.

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References

Dyer, J. L. (2011). Musical thought: Using music to enhance literacy instruction. Illinois Reading

Council Journal, 39(4), 3-9.

El Haj, M., Postal, V., & Allain, P. (2012). Music enhances autobiographical memory in mild

Alzheimer's disease. Educational Gerontology, 38(1), 30-41.

doi:10.1080/03601277.2010.515897

Garner, R. (2004). Skills for a song. Technology & Learning, 24(9), 14.

Keikha, A., Jenabadi, H., & Mirshekar, H. (2012). The effects of music on increasing motor

skills and auditory memory in mental retarded children aged 15-10 with 65-75IQ (Case

Study). Modern Applied Science, 6(4), 106-111. doi:10.5539/mas.v6n4p106

Olson, C. (2011). Playing today may help remembering tomorrow. Teaching Music, 19(3), 24.

Särkämö, T., Pihko, E., Laitinen, S., Forsblom, A., Soinila, S., Mikkonen, M., & Tervaniemi, M.

(2010). Music and speech listening enhance the recovery of early sensory processing

after stroke. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22(12), 2716-2727.

Schön, D., Boyer, M., Moreno, S., Besson, M., Peretz, I., & Kolinsky, R. (2008). Songs as an aid

for language acquisition. Cognition, 106(2), 975-983.

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