John L. Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Music strongly influences the mind on a number of levels. Music engages both verbal and auditory skills and can even involve visual skills. Recent research (2008) by Dr. Michael S. Gazzaniga of the University of California at Santa Barbara found that an interest in music leads to a high state of motivation that produces the sustained attention necessary to improve performance and the training of attention that leads to improvement in other domains such as math and writing.