[DawnsMinstrel]

Hi Affair,

I think your question involves issues that are deeper than one might first think. It's interesting to me how easy it is for us to question whether a child should be forced to learn music, while it doesn't occur to us nearly so easily to ask if they should be forced to learn mathematics, or their language for example. Why is it obvious that they should be made to go to school to learn these things while music is viewed as being optional? Given the universality of music in human cultures it seems to me that we have to ask if music really should be viewed this way.

It's been known for a while from research in cognitive neuroscience that early study of music helps children develop their spatial reasoning skills and that these in turn give them a crucial advantage in mathematics. I'm a physicist by training and in physics departments the world over it's harder to find a colleague who doesn't play an instrument or sing than it is to find one who does.

Just a few days ago a study came out that has shown that music and language are interconnected. That is to say that the same neurological equipment we use to engage in music overlaps the equipment we use to engage in speech and that people who've suffered ischemic strokes have been able to relearn speech by being taught to sing what they want to say.

So if we're going to ask if children should be forced to learn music, it seems to me that this question may turn out to be as important as asking whether we should be forcing our children to learn anything at all. I'm not saying I've got the answer either. I just think it's trickier than it seems.

-Tim