New Music Education > Participatory Partnerships > Contemporary Approach > Modern Methodology > Contemporary Music > Technology In The Classroom > Turnkey Technology Package > Why It Works > Benefits of Music Education > Benefits of New Music Education

"Empowering children to participate in the creative process."

-Robert McBride, Performance Today, National Public Radio

Considering the passion for contemporary popular music among so many young people, embracing it for educational purposes is long overdue.

Ever witness a young person inhale a CD moments after it is released, memorizing its contents in no time at all? While young people’s musical fluency is often invisible to others, it is remarkable, unprecedented, and important.

It is remarkable because it indicates a high level of cognitive prowess. For example, if a kid who is failing in school can memorize a popular CD minutes after receiving it, he is not failing for lack of brain power. While the nature of the material may obscure the fact that he was able to absorb it so quickly, it is precisely his interest in the material that unleashed that power.

It is unprecedented because kids have never before been inundated with so much music. It is everywhere, from downloaded MP3s to borrowed PS2s, from coveted CDs, to the din of MTV. Regardless of how one feels about popular culture, the fact is, kids' lives are saturated with music.

It is important because it has encoded a musical fluency into the heads of many young people today that holds enormous pedagogical potential. Just as if a child were saturated with French, children have learned a sophisticated musical language simply by being around it all the time. And yet it is nowhere in school. It is as if children who speak fluent French must spend entire classes learning the declension of single verbs.

Incorporating contemporaneous music into the classroom has been an earmark of successful systems in the past, and should be an earmark of present systems as well. Because it stimulates learning, accelerates the curriculum, opens up the students to a world of less-familiar styles through common links, and boosts overall benefits, it is very much an earmark of New Music Education.   Learn more...