Music is good for soul, learning

Music has long been known to be good for the soul. But is it good for the brain?

Frank Laguardia teaches music at three elementary schools in the Conejo Valley. He also teaches instructors at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks and the University of Phoenix in Southern California how to use music in education. He believes music helps learning.

“In early civilizations, people considered music an integral part of the learning process,” Laguardia said. “Most of the time, kids are using the left side of their brain in school. The stuff that they do like math and English and science is all left-side-of-the-brain stuff. But it’s the right side of the brain that’s the imaginative side—the side that you use to paint pictures, compose music and even listen to music—and what happens is, if you can use both sides of your brain, that just makes you an overall more rounded person.”

According to many teachers, kids often have difficulty concentrating on schoolwork, especially in an age of instant gratification with the Internet, cellphones and fast food.

“If you listen to Baroque music—in particular Johann Sebastian Bach—the fact that he uses several different melodies at the same time forces your brain to want to follow each melody,” Laguardia said. “For some reason, the brain always wants to latch onto the melody of a song. Most songs of today, let’s say, “Who Let the Dogs Out?” have one melody and they’re pretty easy to follow. But when you have a song from Johann Sebastian Bach with five different melodies at the same time, your brain is really trying to follow each one and it really makes you better at concentrating and it makes you more analytical.”

Music students have better concentration compared to others, according to Laguardia. His students, he said, are affected by music in other ways, too.

“I do a lesson where we listen to three different songs and have (the students) create a music storyboard afterward,” Laguardia said. “The kids listen to each song for about a minute with their eyes closed, and then they get to draw in a little box what they think the music sounds like. If the music sounds happy, they draw something happy; if the music sounds sad, they draw something sad.”

When Laguardia assigned this lesson to third-graders two years ago, it affected a little girl who, for about three weeks prior, hadn’t spoken at all in class. The girl’s grandma had died and she shut down socially. The music lesson allowed the young girl to tap into her emotions and to open up about her issues, Laguardia said.

Laguardia teaches elementary school students how to read music notes, he introduces new music and composers to them, and he teaches them how to listen to and appreciate different types of music. He’s allowed 30 minutes a week to teach music lessons in his elementary school classes. It’s not that much time, he said, but he hopes his work with teachers at the University of Phoenix and his work with soon-to-be teachers at Cal Lutheran might encourage them to use music as part of their everyday lessons.

Laguardia’s work with teachers most benefits those schools that don’t have the funding for music specialists to come in and teach music. Westlake, Meadows and Ladera elementary schools in the Conejo Valley are fortunate to have the funding to bring Laguardia in to teach. Schools without funding for music have to rely on their teachers to use it.

Other obstacles stand in the way of music studies, Laguardia added. Most elementary schools must focus on test scores, he said. So teachers might be hesitant to spend time on music because they feel the necessity of preparing their kids for the tests. That’s why Laguardia tries to teach instructors to use music as part of their everyday lessons.

“I try to give them practical ways to incorporate music into their classrooms,” Laguardia said. Laguardia has been teaching music in elementary schools for about nine years. He’s been teaching at the University of Phoenix for three years and began working with young teachers at Cal Lutheran this year.

A professional musician, Laguardia plays the trumpet in several music ensembles and orchestras in the San Fernando Valley. And he’s the chorus coordinator for the Arts Council of the Conejo Valley. Laguardia received a degree in music from Cal State Northridge.