MY LITTLE MUSICAL MATHEMATICIAN: COMBINING MUSIC AND MATH IN SCHOOLS
Imagine sitting in your third grade classroom and next up on the agenda is math. You prepare to take out your workbook and multiplication tables, but for some reason, your teacher decides to hand out maracas and sheet music to every student. With a confused look on your face, you pick up the bead-filled percussion instrument and try to figure out when the numbers are going to start showing up. Unbeknownst to you, you are about to embark on an engaging mathematical adventure that will make math fun and easier to grasp.
As musicians, sometimes we can get tunnel vision when it comes to reading and playing music. We receive the sheet music, identify the time and key signatures, peruse to notes and then get to playing. We fail to realize how much elementary math we use on a daily basis while reading and playing music, but this didn’t go unnoticed by a group of San Francisco State University researchers, who went on to found a program called Academic Music. The program sought to teach third graders about fractions through music.
The program focused on relating time signatures and rhythmic patterns to fractions.
Students would be introduced to the time signature 4/4 as four notes in the measure. So a whole note would be the full four out of four in a single note, having two notes would mean that both notes are equal to half (2/4) and having four notes would mean that each note was equal to a quarter (1/4). The same mindset applies to the 2/4 time signature, which would then introduce the more complicated concept of eighth notes, where 1/8 + 1/8 = 2/8, which can then be simplified to 1/4, which then puts it in clear context with the time signature. While students are learning this, they would also be keeping count with the beat by either clamping or using a percussion instrument such as a maraca. Students would then take this understanding into addition and subtraction of fractions using musical notes.
The researchers used this program to statistically analyze if incorporating music into teaching math significantly improved the children’s math learning and abilities. Statistical tests showed that students responded better to the music-infused instruction than not. In other words, students who were weaker in their fraction understanding benefitting immensely from the Academic Music program, reflecting a similar fraction understanding as their higher-achieving peers at the end of the program.
Adding music to math would accomplish two major goals and based on the research and feasibility of the concept, I would highly recommend that most, if not all, elementary schools take it up. Firstly, as shown through statistical analysis, music essentially made math fun to learn, making it easier to grasp. And let’s face it, if anything can make math fun then we ought to keep it. Secondly, it would encourage more schools to keep their music programs, as sadly, music programs tend to be the first programs to be cut once schools experience budget cuts. Music programs are very much under appreciated and this is just one of the many reasons why music education at an early age is important.