The old and the new

According to musician and brain researcher Anita Collins the simple act of listening to music activates many different parts of our brain, like "fireworks" as she says. It also has a huge impact in our brain development if exposed to children until their 7th year. 

That being said, it should be mandatory for every school to have music education on it's curriculum. But how to keep the student's interest on that subject all the way through high school?

Francis Xavier, one of the founders of the Motorik record label, suggests that it should star with practice, to get the students involved on the activity. Professor Lucy Green, from the University of London, goes even further when she says that the repertoire should meet student's taste using popular music. But one of Australia's most famous conductor, Richard Gill, advises that we shouldn't stick with the popular music but take that as a starting point and expend it to other kinds of music. He also suggests that music education should start with singing, (just like the Steiner schools and the Orff method do). 

Meanwhile, there is a music training center called Liveschool that teaches music through technology using Ableton Live. Adam Maggs, founder of this school, says that it is possible, and more attractive to some people, to learn music using technology to manipulate sounds.

As you see, there are many different ways to approach music education but, as I said on the last article, the key is to balance everything. We can't forget the acoustic instruments and traditions, specially the one instrument that we are born with - our voice, and we also can't run away from technological achievements. If we could find a way to combine those methods the students would be much more interested in learning music.