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About the Journal

Journal of Research in Music Education is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal comprising reports of original research related to music teaching and learning. The wide range of topics includes various aspects of music pedagogy, history, and philosophy, and addresses vocal, instrumental, and general music at all levels, from early childhood through adult. Published quarterly; digital edition included with NAfME membership. Print edition available for $50/year.

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• Guidelines for Contributors
• Code of Ethics (see below)
• JRME Editorial Committee
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Feedback or questions? Contact  Amy Bradley .

NAfME Research Publication/ Presentation Code of Ethics

This version of the Code of Ethics was adopted in May 2006. This material is based on the following sources: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed. (Washington, DC: APA, 2001); and Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (APA, 2000), found at www.apa.org/ethics .

• Multiple submissions. An author must not submit the same manuscript for simultaneous consideration by two or more journals. If a manuscript is rejected by one journal, an author may then submit it to another journal.
• Duplicate publication. An author must not submit a manuscript published in whole or in substantial part in another journal or published work. Exceptions may be made for previous publication (a) in a periodical with limited circulation or availability (e.g., a government agency report) or (b) in an abstracted form (e.g., a convention proceedings). Any prior publication should be noted and referenced in the manuscript, and the author must inform the editor of the existence of any similar manuscripts that have already been published or submitted for publication or that may be submitted for concurrent consideration to the journal or elsewhere.
• Piecemeal publication. Investigators who engage in systematic programs of research report their results from time to time as significant portions of their programs are completed. This is both legitimate and inevitable in research programs that are on very large scales or of several years’ duration. In contrast to this kind of publication, articles are received in which a single investigation has been broken up into separate manuscripts submitted seriatim. Authors are obligated to present work parsimoniously and as completely as possible. Data that can be meaningfully combined within a single publication should be presented together. Authors who wish to divide reports of studies into more than one article should inform the editor.
• Authorship. Authorship is reserved to those who make major contributions to the research. Credit is assigned to those who have contributed to a publication in proportion to their professional contributions. Major contributions of a professional character made by several individuals to a common project are recognized by joint authorship, with the individual who made the principal contribution listed first. Minor contributions of a professional character and extensive clerical or similar assistance may be acknowledged in endnotes or in an introductory statement. Acknowledgment through specific citations is made for unpublished as well as published material that has directly influenced the research or writing. Individuals who compile and edit material of others for publication publish the material in the name of the originating group, if appropriate, with their own names appearing as chairperson or editor. All contributors are to be acknowledged and named.
• Copyright. Once an article is accepted, an author transfers literary rights on the published article to the publishing organization (in this case, NAfME) so that the author and the association are protected from misuse of copyright material. An article will not be published until the author’s signed copyright transfer has been received by the national office of the publishing organization. Contributors are responsible for obtaining copyright clearance on illustrations, figures, or lengthy quotes that have been published elsewhere.
• Conference presentation.  Papers submitted for presentation via any format (e.g., posters, paper-reading sessions) should not have been presented at another major conference. If the data have been presented in whole or substantive part in any forum, in print, or at previous research sessions, a statement specifying particulars of the above must be included with the submission.
• Ethical conduct and institutional review compliance. Authors are expected to comply with APA ethical standards ( www.apa.org/ethics/code2002.html ) and institutional and federal regulations on the treatment of human subjects.

Note:  Any violation of the Code of Ethics will result in immediate rejection of the manuscript/paper, without further consideration.

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Research Studies in Music Education

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• Description
• Aims and Scope
• Editorial Board
• Abstracting / Indexing
• Submission Guidelines

This internationally peer-reviewed journal promotes the dissemination and discussion of high-quality research in music and music education. The journal encourages the interrogation and development of a range of research methodologies and their application to diverse topics in music education theory and practice

The journal covers a wide range of topics across all areas of music education, and a separate "Perspectives in Music Education Research" section provides a forum for researchers to discuss topics of special interest and to debate key issues in the profession.

Since 2008 Psychology of Music (POM) and Research Studies in Music Education ( RSME)  have been sold together as a joint institutional subscription. Both journals are owned by the Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research (SEMPRE). Both are relevant to music psychologists and music educators alike. Music and psychology departments can benefit from having the additional content provided by both journals.

View the institutional subscription rates : The subscription to the journals is available in the usual 3 SAGE subscription models: print and online combined, print only, and e-access only. The SAGE institutional e-access only subscriptions are discounted further. Individual subscribers can purchase the journals separately in print only. If you are interested in becoming a member of SEMPRE and receiving a subscription to Psychology of Music as part of your membership dues please contact the SEMPRE membership secretary at: [email protected] This journal accepts supplementary materials, e.g. audio/video files, datasets, additional images etc. For more information please see our guidelines

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Research Studies in Music Education is an internationally peer-reviewed journal that promotes the dissemination and discussion of high quality research in music and music education. The journal encourages the interrogation and development of a range of research methodologies and their application to diverse topics in music education theory and practice.

This journal accepts supplementary materials, e.g. audio/video files, datasets, additional images etc. For more information please see our guidelines .

• Australian Education Index
• Clarivate Analytics: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)
• ERIC - Educational Management
• Educational Research Abstracts Online - e-Psyche
• IBZ: International Bibliography of Periodical Literature
• IBZ: International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature on the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Music Index
• The Music Index: A Subject-Author Guide to Music Periodical Literature

Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Research Studies in Music Education

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics

Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rsme to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Research Studies in Music Education will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that  Research Studies in Music Education may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy. If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

• What do we publish? 1.1 Aims & Scope 1.2 Article types 1.3 Writing your paper
• Editorial policies 2.1 Peer review policy 2.2 Authorship 2.3 Acknowledgements 2.4 Funding 2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests 2.6 Research ethics and participant consent 2.7 Redundant publication 2.8 Research Data
• Publishing policies 3.1 Publication ethics 3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement 3.3 Open access and author archiving
• Preparing your manuscript 4.1 Formatting 4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics 4.3 Supplemental material 4.4 Reference style 4.5 English language editing services
• Submitting your manuscript 5.1 ORCID 5.2 Information required for completing your submission 5.3 Permissions
• On acceptance and publication 6.1 Sage Production 6.2 Online First publication 6.3 Access to your published article 6.4 Promoting your article
• Further information
• Feedback, Complaints & Appeals

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to Research Studies in Music Education , please ensure you have read the  Aims & Scope .

1.2 Article Types

Manuscripts should be up to 6000 words in length, excluding Abstract and reference list.

RSME  publishes  two types of articles:  original research articles , and perspectives articles. All articles are double blind peer refereed, and expected to contribute something significant and novel to the field.

Research papers published by RSME follow the format of a standard journal article, and must be based on empirical research (all research methodologies are welcome).

The Perspectives Series is a scholarly forum for authors to present ideas and perspectives in music education. Perspectives may seek to engender debate from a personal values position or stake a claim on a new methodological, philosophical or pragmatic ‘space’.

1.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on  how to get published , plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

1.3.1 Make your article discoverable

When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online .

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2. Editorial policies

2.1 Peer review policy

RSME  operates a strictly anonymous peer review process in which the reviewer’s name is withheld from the author and, the author’s name from the reviewer. The reviewer may at their own discretion opt to reveal their name to the author in their review but our standard policy practice is for both identities to remain concealed. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees. 

Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees, who will recommend to the Editor whether a manuscript should be accepted, revised (major or minor revisions), or rejected. The Editor will make a decision on the manuscript based on the recommendations from the expert referees. Please note that the Editor’s decision on a manuscript will be final.    Authors of manuscripts given a minor or major revision decision are invited to submit their revised manuscript via the journal’s submission site. The responsibility for submitting the revised manuscript lies with the corresponding author.” 

2.2 Authorship

All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools . 

Research Studies in Music Education is trialing the publication of CRediT author contribution statements. At submission stage, there will be the ability to list the roles that each author was responsible for. Please refer to the CRediT Gateway page for more information. You should not include an author contribution statement in your manuscript as this will be added at Production stage. This does not replace the Acknowledgements section.

2.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

2.3.1 Third party submissions

Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves .

2.3.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance”).

It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

2.4 Funding

Research Studies in Music Education requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading.  Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. 

2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

Research Studies in Music Education encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway .

2.6 'Research ethics and participant consent'

Ethical approval statement

Upon submission, authors will be asked to state the relevant ethics committee or institutional review board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number. Where exemption from ethics approval has been granted by an appropriate body, this should be specified and the reason for exemption should be provided. Manuscripts should include statements that provide a clear explanation as to why ethics approval and/or informed consent was not sought for a given study in a specific country or region.

Informed consent

Authors are required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent (for inclusion, collection/use of data or samples, and/or publication, as applicable) and whether the consent was written or verbal.

2.7 Redundant publication

The Editors of Research Studies in Music Education ask authors to declare if any data reported in their submission have been published previously wholly or in part. For example: the reanalysis of a previously published dataset by a different set of authors would need to be declared. The publication of multiple articles using the same dataset with somewhat related outcomes could be considered inappropriate. Within the cover letter and methods section, authors should declare if datasets or participants reported in their submission overlap with any prior published work to help a thorough Editorial assessment of the study.

2.8 Research Data

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages .

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

• share your research data in a relevant public data repository
• include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
• cite this data in your research

3. Publishing Policies

3.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway .

3.1.1 Plagiarism

Research Studies in Music Education and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

3.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway .

3.3 Open access and author archiving

Research Studies in Music Education offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage . For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access . For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies .

4. Preparing your manuscript for submission

4.1 Formatting

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines .

Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.

4.3 Supplemental material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files

4.4 Reference style

Research Studies in Music Education adheres to the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

4.5 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

5. Submitting your manuscript

Research Studies in Music Education is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rsme to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.  For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID . ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized. 

The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.     

5.2 Information required for completing your submission

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

5.3 Permissions

Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway .

6. On acceptance and publication

6.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly.  Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

6.2 Online First publication

Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

6.3 Access to your published article

Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.4 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

7. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Research Studies in Music Education editorial office as follows:

Julie Ballantyne, Editor Email:  [email protected]  

Dr Nicole Canham, Assistant Editor Email:  [email protected]  

8.  Research Studies in Music Education Complaints and Appeals

For information on the journal's appeals procedure please click here .

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• Front Neurosci

How musical training affects cognitive development: rhythm, reward and other modulating variables

Ewa a. miendlarzewska.

1 Department of Fundamental Neurosciences, (CMU), University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

2 Swiss Centre of Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Wiebke J. Trost

Musical training has recently gained additional interest in education as increasing neuroscientific research demonstrates its positive effects on brain development. Neuroimaging revealed plastic changes in the brains of adult musicians but it is still unclear to what extent they are the product of intensive music training rather than of other factors, such as preexisting biological markers of musicality. In this review, we synthesize a large body of studies demonstrating that benefits of musical training extend beyond the skills it directly aims to train and last well into adulthood. For example, children who undergo musical training have better verbal memory, second language pronunciation accuracy, reading ability and executive functions. Learning to play an instrument as a child may even predict academic performance and IQ in young adulthood. The degree of observed structural and functional adaptation in the brain correlates with intensity and duration of practice. Importantly, the effects on cognitive development depend on the timing of musical initiation due to sensitive periods during development, as well as on several other modulating variables. Notably, we point to motivation, reward and social context of musical education, which are important yet neglected factors affecting the long-term benefits of musical training. Further, we introduce the notion of rhythmic entrainment and suggest that it may represent a mechanism supporting learning and development of executive functions. It also hones temporal processing and orienting of attention in time that may underlie enhancements observed in reading and verbal memory. We conclude that musical training uniquely engenders near and far transfer effects, preparing a foundation for a range of skills, and thus fostering cognitive development.

Introduction

Psychological and neuroscientific research demonstrates that musical training in children is associated with heightening of sound sensitivity as well as enhancement in verbal abilities and general reasoning skills. Studies in the domain of auditory cognitive neuroscience have begun revealing the functional and structural brain plasticity underlying these effects. However, the extent to which the intensity and duration of instrumental training or other factors such as family background, extracurricular activities, attention, motivation, or instructional methods contribute to the benefits for brain development is still not clear. Music training correlates with plastic changes in auditory, motor, and sensorimotor integration areas. However, the current state of the literature does not lend itself to the conclusion that the observed changes are caused by music training alone (Merrett et al., 2013 ).

In this article we briefly review the recent literature on how musical training changes brain structure and function in adult musicians and during development. We next report evidence for near and far transfer effects in various cognitive functions that are unprecedented in comparison to other long-term practice activities in childhood. Finally, we point out the important and overlooked role of other factors that could contribute to the observed cognitive enhancement as well as structural and functional brain differences between musicians and non-musicians. We propose the mechanism of rhythmic entrainment and social synchrony as factors contributing to the plasticity-promoting role of musical training that is unique to music education. The proposed mechanism of rhythmic synchronization by which musical training yields a unique advantage of transferrable skills may provide a promising avenue of research explaining the beneficial effects on a developing brain. In addition, we pinpoint the potentially important role of genetic predispositions and motivation that is rarely controlled for in the existing literature.

The review focuses on studies investigating healthy children's and adults' response to formal musical education (primarily instrumental training) in terms of neuroplasticity observed with neuroimaging techniques, as well as in behavioral effects on cognitive performance in various domains. Although we mention and acknowledge the enormous value of music therapy with the aim of restoring lost function in diseased or disabled individuals, this topic is outside the main focus of this review. Reviewing the progress in musical training research embraced in this article leads us to the promising supposition that the induced changes in brain development and plasticity are not only relevant in music-specific domains but also enhance other cognitive skills.

Cognitive, emotional and social functions in music perception and production

Listening to music requires certain perceptual abilities, including pitch discrimination, auditory memory, and selective attention in order to perceive the temporal and harmonic structure of the music as well as its affective components, and engages a distributed network of brain structures (Peretz and Zatorre, 2005 ). Music performance, unlike most other motor activities, in addition requires precise timing of several hierarchically organized actions and control over pitch interval production (Zatorre et al., 2007 ). Music, like all sounds, unfolds over time. Thus, the auditory cognitive system must depend on working memory mechanisms that allow a stimulus to be maintained on-line to be able to relate one element in a sequence to another that occurs later. The process of music recognition requires access and selection of potential predictions in a perceptual memory system (Dalla Bella et al., 2003 ; Peretz and Zatorre, 2005 ). Unlike speech, music is not associated with a fixed semantic system, although it may convey meaning through systems such as emotional appraisal (Koelsch, 2010 ; Trost et al., 2012 ) and associative memories.

Furthermore, music is also known to have a powerful emotional impact. Neuroimaging studies have shown that musically induced emotions involve very similar brain regions that are also implicated in non-musical basic emotions, such as the reward system, insula, and orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala and hippocampus (Blood and Zatorre, 2001 ; Koelsch et al., 2006 ; Salimpoor et al., 2011 ; Trost et al., 2012 ). However, music can have a strong influence on the emotion of the listener as well as the performer: musical engagement can be experienced as highly emotional not only as in the case of stage fright (Studer et al., 2011 ) but also as highly rewarding (de Manzano et al., 2010 ; Nakahara et al., 2011 ). Furthermore, in a social context, making music in a group has been suggested to increase communication, coordination, cooperation and even empathy between in-group members (Koelsch, 2010 ). Therefore, it could easily be conceived how musical training could have a positive impact on the well-being and social development of children and adults.

Instrumental training is a multisensory motor experience, typically initiated at an early age. Playing an instrument requires a host of skills, including reading a complex symbolic system (musical notation) and translating it into sequential, bimanual motor activity dependent on multisensory feedback; developing fine motor skills coupled with metric precision; memorizing long musical passages; and improvising within given musical parameters. Music performance, unlike most other motor activities, requires precise timing of several hierarchically organized actions and control over pitch interval production (Zatorre et al., 2007 ). Music sight-reading calls for the simultaneous and sequential processing of a vast amount of information in a very brief time for immediate use. This task requires, at the very least, interpretation of the pitch and duration of the notes (written on the two staves of a piano score) in the context of the prespecified key signature and meter, detection of familiar patterns, anticipation of what the music should sound like, and generation of a performance plan suited for motor translation. Formal musical instruction, therefore, trains a set of attentional and executive functions, which have both domain-specific and general consequences.

The musician's brain: plasticity and functional changes due to musical training

Given the engagement of multiple cognitive functions in musical activities, it seems natural that in highly trained musicians brain networks underlying these functions would show increased plasticity. Several recent review papers have critically assessed the effects of musical training on brain plasticity based on neuroimaging literature accumulated to this date (Herholz and Zatorre, 2012 ; Barrett et al., 2013 ; Moreno and Bidelman, 2013 ). Among others, it has been reported that apart from anatomical differences in auditory and motor cortices, there are structural differences (usually in the form of increased gray matter volume) also in somatosensory areas, premotor cortex, inferior temporal and frontal regions, as well as the cerebellum in the brains of musicians compared to non-musicians' (see Barrett et al., 2013 ). Several longitudinal studies have found a correlation between duration of musical training and the degree of structural change in white matter tracts (Bengtsson et al., 2005 ), including in the corpus callosum (Schlaug et al., 2005 ).

While it may not be surprising that structural and functional differences are found in those brain regions that are closely linked to skills learned during instrumental music training (such as independent fine motor movements in both hands and auditory discrimination), differences outside of these primary regions are particularly interesting (for instance, in the inferior frontal gyrus in Sluming et al., 2002 ). Such findings indicate that plasticity can occur in brain regions that either have control over primary musical functions or serve as multimodal integration regions for musical skills, possibly mediating the transfer of musical training onto other skills. For example, a recent study investigating resting-state activity measured with fMRI in musicians compared to non-musicians found that musicians have increased functional connectivity in motor and multi-sensory areas (Luo et al., 2012 ). This result shows that long-term musical training influences functional brain connectivity even in research designs where no task is given, and points out that for musicians' motor and multi-sensory networks may be better trained to act jointly.

In the next section, we review the effects of musical training on cognitive functions and brain plasticity and discuss the role of the age at commencement. However, we note that the evidence for musical training-induced brain plasticity is largely correlational due to the number of additional variables that have not been controlled for in most of the (cross-sectional) studies (Merrett et al., 2013 ), and that there are unanswered questions surrounding the attribution of causal influence to musical training alone. The few random group assignment studies that have been conducted to this date, typically include a control group of participants that attend theater play, dance (Young et al., 2013 ), or visual arts classes (Moreno et al., 2009 ; Moreno and Bidelman, 2013 ). And while the methodological and subject-specific considerations of this matter have been discussed elsewhere (Barrett et al., 2013 ; Merrett et al., 2013 ), in section Variables Modulating Brain Plasticity via Musical Trainin we propose possible unacknowledged mechanisms that enable musicians to excel in many areas unrelated to musical skill (near- and far-transfer skills described in section Effects on Cognitive Functions). Namely, we identify the higher efficiency of attentional and memory processes engendered by rhythmic entrainment, as well as an extension of this phenomenon to social synchrony that is evoked when people sing, play music or dance together in synchrony. To summarize, in Figure ​ Figure1 1 we propose a schema depicting the transfer skills that are enhanced by musical instrumental training, including the modulating factors discussed in sections Effects of Musical Training in Childhood and Variables Modulating Brain Plasticity via Musical Training.

Schematic representation of near and far transfer skills that benefit from musical instrumental training . In the inner rectangle variables modulating the influence of musical training on cognitive development are listed (see main text, in particular section Variables Modulating Brain Plasticity via Musical Training). Near transfer skills are marked in solid rectangles and far transfer skills are marked in dashed rectangles (described in detail in section Effects on Cognitive Functions). Terms in italic indicate results inconclusive in the present state of the literature.

Effects of musical training in childhood

Correlational and interventional studies of children undergoing music training consistently show that they perform better in the areas closely associated with music: fine motor skill, rhythm perception and auditory discrimination. There is also strong evidence for near-transfer effects of these abilities to phoneme discrimination, as well as far-transfer effects to vocabulary, and non-verbal reasoning subsets of general intelligence tests. While near-transfer effects (transfer to tasks within the same domain) are often observed with various training programs, such as computerized executive function training (attention, working memory and task-switching) (Diamond and Lee, 2011 ; Jolles and Crone, 2012 ), far-transfer is notoriously difficult to induce and has been observed only after demanding multi-skills training such as action video games (Bavelier et al., 2010 ; Green and Bavelier, 2012 ). The reports we review in this section show that musical training also brings about promising far-transfer effects in domains such as verbal intelligence and executive functions, and may even lead to better general academic performance.

Neural development is complex and various neural processes affect plasticity. Such processes include synaptic proliferation, pruning, myelination at neurofilament and neurotransmitter levels, each of which has its own developmental trajectory (e.g., Lenroot and Giedd, 2006 ; Perani et al., 2010 ). Observing brain plasticity as years of musical training go by elucidates the way practice becomes engraved in the brain and how memory finds its reflection in brain structure. In general, studies of music learning are consistent with the animal literature indicating greater plastic changes in the brain for behaviorally relevant (e.g., associated with reward or emotional arousal) than for passive exposure to auditory stimuli (Weinberger, 2004 ). However, the picture is not complete until we take into account the maturational dynamics that shape the brain simultaneously with musical training. The next section introduces the concept of critical and sensitive periods in brain development which, although not exhaustively, adds to the understanding of musical training-induced neuroplasticity. The notion of “windows of opportunity” is important in that it places limits on training-related brain plasticity and hence allows to explain why certain abilities can only be developed in early childhood, which is crucial for the design of educational programs and child rearing.

Critical and sensitive periods

It is known that plasticity is affected by how much a person actively engages in music training relatively early in their life (Knudsen, 2004 ). “Sensitive period” is a term applied to a limited period in development when the effects of experience on the brain are unusually strong, derived from the property of particular malleability of the neural circuits (Knudsen, 2004 ). During this time, the basic architecture of the neural circuits is laid out and all learning (and plasticity) that occurs after the sensitive period will cause alterations only within the connectivity patterns constraint by this framework (Knudsen, 2004 ). The regulation of sensitive period onset and duration is not simply by age, but by experience, and thus the presence of enriched environments may prolong sensitive periods (Hensch, 2004 ). For example, second language proficiency is better in individuals who have been exposed to it by the age of 11–13, marking puberty as the end of a sensitive period for language learning (Weber-Fox and Neville, 2001 ). In other words, the sensitive period is to some extent use-dependent (Hensch, 2004 ). In contrast, critical periods, are strict time windows during which experience provides information that is essential for normal development and permanently alters performance. For instance, critical period for auditory cortex plasticity ends by the age of 3–4 years in humans, as demonstrated in studies of cochlear implantation in congenitally deaf children: sensory deprivation in that time period prevents normal sensory discrimination and oral language learning (Kral and Sharma, 2012 ).

Not all brain regions develop with the same time course and there are unique timing and duration of critical periods across various neural systems. Sensory and motor regions enter the sensitive period earlier than temporal-parietal and frontal areas (Sowell et al., 2004 ), the visual cortex reaches adult levels of myelination by few months of life (Kinney et al., 1988 ), while in the auditory cortex myelination does not finish until 4–5 years of age (Moore and Linthicum, 2007 ) and white matter connectivity continues to develop until late childhood (Moore and Guan, 2001 ). Kral and Eggermont ( 2007 ) proposed that this extended period of developmental plasticity in the auditory cortex serves for language acquisition, wherein sensory bottom-up processing is trained by feedback from top-down cognitive processes. During this time, between ages 1 and 5, experience-dependent plasticity of the consistency of the auditory brainstem response is maximized (Skoe and Kraus, 2013 ).

Maturation of fiber tracts in the left frontal, temporo-occipital and anterior corpus callosum connecting the frontal lobes coincides with the development of working memory capacity, while reading ability is related to fractional anisotropy values in the left temporal lobe, as observed in children between ages of 8 and 18 (Nagy et al., 2004 ). Similarly, the maturation of corticospinal fibers parallels the development of fine finger movements (Paus et al., 1999 ). The cross-sectional area of the corpus callosum grows at least until early adulthood (Keshavan et al., 2002 ), while projection fibers of the posterior limb of the internal capsule (carrying sensory fibers to their processing areas in respective cortices) only approach an asymptotic point in maturation between the ages of 21 and 24 (Bava et al., 2010 ).

This sub-section emphasized that any intense training, including musical instrumental training in childhood, may have a different impact on brain plasticity and cognitive development depending on the age of commencement. However, many scholars of sensitive periods in brain development note that the role of motivation and attention is profound in all learning and should not be underestimated, especially during sensitive periods (Hensch, 2004 ). And as the example of language learning in infants shows (Kuhl et al., 2003 ; Kuhl, 2007 ), social environment and teachers may be of equally high importance.

Effects on brain plasticity

Plastic changes in the cortical and subcortical structures of the auditory system (Gregersen et al., 2000 ; Wong et al., 2007 ; Penhune, 2011 ), as well as in the sensory-motor cortex (larger representation of fingers) and their functional expression depend on early age of commencement (Herholz and Zatorre, 2012 ), which emphasizes the role of sensitive periods in shaping training-induced plasticity (Merrett et al., 2013 ). Instrumental training may accelerate the gradual development of neurofilament in upper cortical layers that occurs between ages 6 and 12, underlying fast, synchronized firing of neurons (Moore and Guan, 2001 ; Hannon and Trainor, 2007 ).

Two longitudinal studies tracked the influence of musical training on behavioral and brain activity in children between the ages of five and nine. Schlaug et al. ( 2005 ) recruited 50 children who were about to begin their musical education and compared them with a group of 25 age-, socioeconomic status and verbal IQ-matched controls. At baseline, there were no pre-existing cognitive, music, motor, or structural brain differences between the instrumental and control groups as tested by functional MR scans (Norton et al., 2005 ). Tests performed after 14 months of musical training revealed significantly greater change scores in the instrumental group compared to the control group in fine motor skills and auditory discrimination. However, no significant changes in gray or white matter volume nor transfer effects in domains such as verbal, visual–spatial, and math were found, but the instrumental group showed a trend in the anticipated direction.

A study by Hyde et al. ( 2009 ) compared two groups of 6 years old children, one of which took private keyboard lessons for 15 months and the other spent a similar amount of time per week in a group music lesson that included singing and playing with drums and bells. Applying deformation-based morphometry to assess the differences between groups throughout the whole brain before and after the musical training revealed that children with piano lessons showed areas of greater relative voxel size in motor brain areas, such as the right precentral gyrus (motor hand area), and the midbody of the corpus callosum, as well as in the right primary auditory region, consistent with the plastic changes observed in professional musicians. Furthermore, structural brain differences in various frontal areas were observed which, however, did not correlate with improvement in behavioral performance.

This evidence demonstrates that regular musical training during the sensitive period can induce structural changes in the brain and they are unlikely only due to pre-existing morphological differences. Yet, 14 months may not be long enough to engrave statistically significant growth in white and gray matter volume (Schlaug et al., 2005 ), and the differences observed may potentially be confounded by parents' higher level of education (Hyde et al., 2009 ).

Effects on cognitive functions

A further interesting question we explore in this section is the generalization of musical training-induced learning to other functional domains. According to the “temporal opportunity” conception of environmental stimulation during brain development, experiences in childhood and adolescence are vital to many abilities in adult life, which makes the decision of what education to provide to a child a serious matter. Is musical training a good choice? Although many longitudinal developmental studies of music education include a well-matched control group, such as another arts program, there is only limited research contrasting instrumental training in childhood with dance or sports, which could offer interesting avenues in plasticity research and aid the parents in making an informed decision. Thus, although all arts and sports programs do have beneficial effects on cognitive development (Green and Bavelier, 2008 ), instrumental musical training appears unique in the wide array of observed long-term effects, although there may be other factors mediating this effect (Young et al., 2013 ).

Listening skills

When comparing musically trained with untrained children, it is not surprising that differences in the performance of listening tasks and auditory processing are found. For example, it has been shown that children who benefit from musical lessons are more sensitive to the key and harmonics of Western music than untrained children (Corrigall and Trainor, 2009 ). More specifically, concerning pitch processing, children as young as 8, who have undergone a 6-month long music training, demonstrated increased accuracy in minor pitch differences discrimination and its electroencephalographic signature—increased amplitude of the N300 (Besson et al., 2007 ). No such differences were observed in the control group who has undergone an equal period of painting classes. Another recent well-controlled longitudinal study showed that children aged between 8 and 10 who benefitted from a 12-month music lesson program were better in discriminating syllabic duration and voice onset time in comparison to children who followed painting classes during the same period (Chobert et al., 2012 ). These results suggest thus that musical training can improve the temporal fine-tuning of auditory perception. Moreover, musicians are better at recognizing speech in noise, an ability developed through consistent practice and enhanced if music training began early in life (Parbery-Clark et al., 2009 , 2011 ; Strait et al., 2012 ).

Taken together, these results suggest that musical training increases listening skills, including sound discrimination, an ability also involved in speech segmentation (Francois et al., 2013 ), allowing a more accurate processing of speech and voices. In line with our proposed role of rhythmic entrainment (see section Rhythm and Entrainment below), Besson et al. ( 2011 ) suggested that these differences in language processing distinguishing musicians from non-musicians may reflect a learned ability to precisely orient attention in time in order to discriminate sounds more accurately.

Linguistic skills

Musical sounds and all other sounds share most of the processing stages throughout the auditory system and although speech is different from music production in several dimensions (Hannon and Trainor, 2007 ), musical training has been shown to transfer to language related skills. For example, auditory brainstem responses to stop consonants in musically trained children as young as 3 years is more distinct, indicating enhanced neural differentiation of similar sounds that characterizes adult musicians and later translates into better ability to distinguish sounds in speech (Strait et al., 2013 ). While the cross-links between language and musical training have been reviewed elsewhere (e.g., Chandrasekaran and Kraus, 2010 ; Besson et al., 2011 ; Strait and Kraus, 2011 , 2013 ), two examples include neurophysiological mechanisms underlying syntax processing in both music and language that develop earlier in children with musical training (Jentschke and Koelsch, 2009 ), and the transfer of musical training to pitch discrimination in speech as well as reading aloud in 8-year old children (Moreno et al., 2009 ).

The fact that music and language share common auditory substrates may indicate that exercising the responsible brain mechanisms with sounds from one domain could enhance the ability of these mechanisms to acquire sound categories in the other domain (Patel and Iversen, 2007 ; Patel, 2008 ). Patel argues in his OPERA hypothesis that the benefits of musicians in speech encoding are due to five mechanisms (Patel, 2011 , 2013 ). He suggests that there is an overlap of common brain networks between speech and music, which are especially trained because music production demands high precision. Furthermore, musical activities have high emotional reinforcement potential, which stimulates these brain networks repeatedly and requires a certain attentional focus. Patel claims that these processes are responsible for the good performance of musicians in speech processing.

This benefit of musical training can not only be found in tasks of auditory perception (for example tested with the Gordon's Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation, Schlaug et al., 2005 ), but also in verbal abilities such as verbal fluency and memory, second language acquisition and reading abilities, demonstrating far transfer effects of musical training (for a review see Besson et al., 2011 ). For example, it has been shown that children with musical training performed better at the vocabulary subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) than a matched control group (Schlaug et al., 2005 ; Forgeard et al., 2008 ). Moreover, musical training has also been associated with enhanced verbal memory (Chan et al., 1998 ; Ho et al., 2003 ; Jakobson et al., 2003 ).

Research in adults clearly showed that musical ability could predict linguistic skills in the second language learning. Slevc and Miyake ( 2006 ) tested 50 Japanese adult learners of English, and found a relationship between musical ability and second language skills in receptive and productive phonology, showing that musical expertise can be a benefit for learning a second language. And in young children, a study by Milovanov et al. ( 2008 ) showed that second language pronunciation accuracy correlates with musical skills.

Empirical research on children and adults suggests that musical abilities predict phonological skills in language, such as reading. For example, Butzlaff ( 2000 ) found a significant association between music training and reading skills. In another study Anvari et al. ( 2002 ) studied the relation between early reading skills and musical development in a large sample of English-speaking 4- and 5-year-olds. Learning to read English requires mapping visual symbols onto phonemic contrasts, and thus taps into linguistic sound categorization skills. In this study, both musical pitch and rhythm discrimination were tested. For the group of 5-year-olds, performance on musical pitch, but not rhythm tasks predicted reading abilities. Such a finding is consistent with the idea of shared learning processes for linguistic and musical sound categories. However, despite this negative finding in 5-year old participants, there seems to be a link between abilities of rhythm production and reading, as we elaborate in section Rhythm and Entrainment below. For example, a recent study Tierney and Kraus showed that in adolescents the ability to tap to the beat is related to better reading abilities, as well as with performance in temporal attention demanding tasks, such as backward masking (Tierney and Kraus, 2013 ). This difference in rhythm processing might be due to the way how rhythm perception and production was studied by Anvari and colleagues, which required short term memory abilities, whereas the task of tapping to the beat solicits rather sensorimotor synchronization, and more importantly temporal orienting of attention—an ability required also in reading.

Spatial and mathematical skills

A meta-analysis of 15 experimental studies by Hetland ( 2000 ) showed that music instruction enhances performance on certain spatial tasks (such as the Object Assembly subtest of the WISC) but not on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices, which is a test of non-verbal reasoning with some visual-spatial elements. The results of correlational studies testing the association between music training and spatial outcomes show no clear-cut association, with five out of 13 studies reporting a positive correlation between music training and spatial outcomes and eight a negative, null, or mixed results. Forgeard et al. ( 2008 ), however, did not find any differences in spatial skills between children who received at least 3 years of musical training and controls. Another study (Costa-Giomi, 1999 ) found that children receiving piano lessons improved more than controls in visual-spatial skills but only during the first 2 years of instruction, with no differences between the groups by the end of the third year. A study with adults showed that musicians did not perform better than non-musicians in a spatial working memory task (Hansen et al., 2012 ). It appears, therefore, that instrumental music training may aid the acquisition of spatial abilities in children rather than bring about a permanent advantage in musicians. Finally, Schlaug et al. ( 2005 ) found no transfer effects of musical training to math skills or general intelligence in 9–11-year-olds with an average of 4 years of musical training, although the children scored higher on the vocabulary subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III), suggesting that far transfer to linguistic abilities may be the most robust one, observable already after a relatively short period of practice.

A meta-analysis of the studies investigating the influence of musical training on math performance did not show convincing evidence in favor of a transfer effect (Vaughn, 2000 ). Also in more recent studies no positive relation between musical training and performance in a mathematical skills tests (Forgeard et al., 2008 ), nor increased musicality among mathematicians has been reported (Haimson et al., 2011 ).

Executive function

The notion of executive function refers to the cognitive processes orchestrated by the prefrontal cortex that allow us to stay focused on means and goals, and to willfully (with conscious control) alter our behaviors in response to changes in the environment (Banich, 2009 ). They include cognitive control (attention and inhibition), working memory and cognitive flexibility (task switching).

Hannon and Trainor ( 2007 ) proposed that musical training invokes domain-specific processes that affect salience of musical input and the amount of cortical tissue devoted to its processing, as well as processes of attention and executive functioning. In fact, the attentional and memory demands, as well as the coordination and ability to switch between different tasks, which are involved in learning to play an instrument, are very large. This learning depends on the integration of top-down and bottom up processes and it may well be that it is the training of this integration that underlies the enhanced attentional and memory processes observed in the musically trained (Trainor et al., 2009 ). Executive functions seem thus highly solicited when learning to play an instrument (Bialystok and Depape, 2009 ). In fact, Moreno et al. ( 2011 ) found that even after a short-term musical training (20 days) with a computerized program children improved their executive functions tested in a go-/no-go task. Similarly, in terms of working memory capacity, a recent longitudinal study showed that children that had been included in 18-months long instrumental music program outperformed the children in the control group that followed a natural science program during the same period (Roden et al., 2013 ).

General IQ and academic achievement

Extensive amount of research on how music can increase intelligence and make the listener smarter has been carried out (Rauscher et al., 1993 ; Degé et al., 2011 ; Moreno et al., 2011 ). The outcome of this research shows that not music listening but active engagement with music in the form of music lessons sometimes confers a positive impact on intelligence and cognitive functions although such results are not always replicated. A major discussion in this area is whether musical training increases specific skills or leads to a global un-specific increase in cognitive abilities, measured by a general IQ score.

For children, music lessons act as additional schooling—requiring focused attention, memorization, and the progressive mastery of a technical skill. It is therefore likely that transfer skills of executive function, self-control and sustained focused attention translate into better results in other subjects, and eventually in higher scores of general IQ. General IQ is typically tested with Raven's Progressive Matrices (Raven, 1976 ), although various types of intelligence can also be tested on specific tests. These tests require different kinds of cognitive performance, such as providing definitions of words or visualizing three-dimensional objects from two-dimensional diagrams, and are regarded as a good indicator of mental arithmetic skills and non-verbal reasoning. For example, Forgeard et al. ( 2008 ) found that practicing a musical instrument increases the performance in the Raven's Matrices test, which could suggest that non-verbal reasoning skills are better developed in children with musical training.

Measuring intelligence implies the sensitive discussion on genetic predisposition and environmental influence, and experience-acquired abilities. Schellenberg points out that children with higher cognitive abilities are more likely to take music lessons and that this fact can bias studies in which participants are not randomly assigned to music or control conditions (Schellenberg, 2011a ). Similarly, also the socioeconomic context is known to influence the probability that children get access to musical education (Southgate and Roscigno, 2009 ; Young et al., 2013 ). Controlling for this potentially confounding factor, Schellenberg ( 2006 ) reported a positive correlation between music lessons and IQ in 6–11 year olds, and showed that taking music lessons in childhood predicts both academic performance and IQ in young adulthood (holding constant family income and parents' education). In another study, two groups of 6 year-olds were tested, one of which received keyboard or singing lessons in small groups for 36 weeks (Schellenberg, 2004 ), and the other children received drama lessons. The latter did not show related increases in full-scale IQ and standardized educational achievement, but notably, the most pronounced results were in the group of children who received singing rather than piano lessons. Modest but consistent gains were made across all four indexes of the IQ, including verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, and freedom from distractibility and processing speed, suggesting that music training has widespread domain-general effects.

Intelligence measurements are often used to predict academic achievement. One question in this domain of research is therefore how musical activities influence academic achievement in children and adolescents. Despite initial claims that this effect may be primarily due to differences in socioeconomic status and family background, intervention studies as well as tests of general intelligence seem to show a positive association between music education and academic achievement. For example in a study by Southgate and Roscigno ( 2009 ) longitudinal data bases which include information on music participation, academic achievement and family background were analyzed. Their results show that indeed music involvement in- and outside of school can act as a mediator of academic achievement tested as math and reading skills. However, their results show also that there is a systematic relation between music participation and family background. Nonetheless, a recent study found that academic achievement can be predicted independently of socioeconomic status only when the child has access to a musical instrument (Young et al., 2013 ). Interestingly, this finding emphasizes that musical activities with an instrument differ from other arts activities in this respect.

Furthermore, it has been suggested that executive functions act as a mediator in the impact of music lessons on enhanced cognitive functions and intelligence. Schellenberg ( 2011a ) had the goal to investigate in detail this hypothesis of the mediating effect of the executive functions. He designed a study with 9–12-year old musically trained and un-trained children and tested their IQ and executive functions. Schellenberg's results suggest that there is no impact of executive functions on the relation between music training and intelligence. However, other studies have reported such an influence. For example there has been evidence that musical training improves executive function through training bimanual coordination, sustained attention and working memory (Diamond and Lee, 2011 ; Moreno et al., 2011 ). Degé et al. ( 2011 ) even used a design very similar to Schellenberg's with 9–12-year old children in order to test the role of executive functions. These authors did find a positive influence of musical training on executive functions and argued that this difference of results is due to the fact that in Schellenberg's study no direct measure of selective attention was included, which supposedly plays a crucial role in music.

Social skills

Apart from the concept of general IQ, Schellenberg ( 2011b ) studied the influence of musical training in children on emotional intelligence but did not find any relation between them. Moreover, another study with 7–8 year-old children found a positive correlation between musical training and emotion comprehension which disappeared, however, when the individual level of intelligence was controlled (Schellenberg and Mankarious, 2012 ). Also other studies with adults did not find any correlation between musical training and emotional intelligence (Trimmer and Cuddy, 2008 ). One study by Petrides and colleagues with musicians did find a positive correlation between length of musical training and scores of emotional intelligence (Petrides et al., 2006 ). There seems to be thus a still contradictory picture concerning the association between emotional intelligence and musical education. This result is interesting insofar as it could be thought that musical training could also increase social competences, given that active musical activities have shown to enhance communicative and social development in infants (Gerry et al., 2012 ). Moreover, a study by Kirschner and Tomasello ( 2009 ) found that in children at the age of 4 musical activities produced behaviors of spontaneous cooperation.

Another way to test social skills is to investigate the sensitivity to emotional prosody, which is a precious capacity in social communication. Studies have shown that musical training enhances the perception and recognition of emotions expressed by human voices (Strait et al., 2009 ; Lima and Castro, 2011 ), although an earlier study found that not musical training, but rather emotional intelligence predicted the recognition of emotional prosody (Trimmer and Cuddy, 2008 ). Thus, like with regards to emotional competence, the literature linking musical education and the recognition of emotional prosody is equivocal. The impact of musical education on social skills might therefore have to be investigated more in depth, comparing aspects such as music teaching methods in groups vs. single pupil lessons, and the role of musical activities in groups, for example in instrumental ensembles or choirs.

Plasticity over the life-span

Musical activities can have a beneficial impact on brain plasticity and cognitive and physical abilities also later in adult life after the critical and sensitive periods in childhood (Wan and Schlaug, 2010 ). For example, Herdender and colleagues showed that musical ear training in students can evoke functional changes in activation of the hippocampus in response to acoustic novelty detection (Herdener et al., 2010 ). In general, at an advanced age, a decline of cognitive functions and brain plasticity can be observed. However, physical as well as cognitive activities can have a positive impact on the preservation of these abilities in old age (Pitkala et al., 2013 ). In this sense, musical training has been proposed as a viable means to mitigate age-related changes in auditory cognition (for a review see Alain et al., 2013 )

It is often reported that with age fluid intelligence decreases and that this can be related to a diminishment of hippocampal volume (Reuben et al., 2011 ). In turn, a recent study by Oechslin et al. ( 2013 ) found that fluid intelligence is predicted by the volume of the hippocampus in musicians, which suggests that musical training could be used as a strategy to reduce age-related decline of fluid intelligence. In another study by Hanna-Pladdy and Mackay ( 2011 ), significant differences between elderly musicians and non-musicians (60–83 years) were found in non-verbal memory, verbal fluency, and executive functions. This shows as well that musical activity can prevent to some degree the decline of cognitive functions in ageing. However, these differences could be due to predisposition differences. Nonetheless, Bugos et al. ( 2007 ) performed a study in which predisposition influences were ruled out as they assigned participants randomly to two groups that received either piano lessons or no treatment. They found that persons over 60 who only began to learn to play the piano and continued during 6 months showed improved results in working memory tests as well as tests of motor skills and perceptual speed, in comparison to a control group without treatment. Dalcroze Eurhythmics, which is a pedagogic method based on learning music through movements and rhythm as basic elements has also been administered to seniors. One study showed that a treatment with this method during 6 months positively influences the equilibrium and regularity of gait in elderly (Trombetti et al., 2011 ). Given that falls in this population are a major risk, it is especially important to engage in training of these physical abilities at this age, which seems to be more efficient in combination with musical aspects of rhythmical movement synchronization and adaptation within a group.

Although there are promising results suggesting that older musicians compared to matched controls show benefits not only in near-transfer but also some far-transfer tasks such as visuospatial span, control over competing responses and distraction (Amer et al., 2013 ), the nature vs. nurture problem remains. Apart from the study of Bugos et al. ( 2007 ) who used a random-assignment design, research on the influence of musical training on plasticity and cognitive benefits in advanced ages should take into account the influence of other cognitive stimulations and overall physical fitness, which are known to play an important role in the preservation of cognitive functioning and independence in the elderly (Raz and Rodrigue, 2006 ; Erickson et al., 2012 ).

Variables modulating brain plasticity via musical training

One challenge in assessing developmental changes in the brain due to long-term learning such as musical training is that many studies demonstrating structural brain differences are retrospective and look at mature musicians, which does not rule out the possibility that people with certain structural atypicalities are more predisposed to become musicians. If this is the case, then the distinction between innate and developed differences is rather difficult. In fact, the biggest goal for most training studies, notwithstanding musical training, is to disentangle the effects of longitudinal training and pre-existing differences or factors other than the intervention, such as gender, genetic predisposition, general IQ, socio-economic background and parents' influence. Another difficulty of interventions in young populations concerns the fact that children's brains are very inhomogeneous, and therefore comparisons, even within similar age groups, may not be very informative.

Genetic predispositions

The musician's brain is recognized as a good model for studying neural plasticity (Munte et al., 2002 ). The fact that in several studies, a correlation was found between the extent of the anatomical differences and the age at which musical training started strongly argues against the possibility that these differences are preexisting and the cause, rather than the result of practicing music. On the other hand, the contamination of most longitudinal studies with children is that they are correlational, and most do not assign the subjects randomly to either musical education or a control group. As a result, the observed positive effects on cognitive functioning may not solely derive from practicing music but also from differences in motivation for learning or general intelligence, musical predispositions aside. Because general cognitive abilities (Deary et al., 2010 ) and personality (Veselka et al., 2009 ) are to some degree genetically predetermined, individual differences in these areas observed in musicians (vs. non-musicians) are unlikely to be solely a consequence of music training (Barrett et al., 2013 ; Corrigall et al., 2013 ).

The nature vs. nurture debate around musical practice-induced plasticity goes on and has begun to gain momentum as the number of neuroimaging studies continues to grow and recent genome-wide association studies have confirmed that many attributes of musicality are hereditary. Musical pitch perception (Drayna et al., 2001 ), absolute pitch (Theusch et al., 2009 ), as well as creativity in music (Ukkola et al., 2009 ), and perhaps even sensitivity to music (Levitin et al., 2004 ), have all been found to have genetic determinants. Importantly, these predispositions are typically tested for in children in a music school entrance exam. Therefore, it is fair to acknowledge that while learning a complex skill, such as playing an instrument, shapes brain function and structure, there may be additional explanatory variables that contribute to the observed differences between the brains of “musicians” and “non-musicians.”

Motivation and the rewarding power of music

At least some components of cognitive abilities that are found to be better in the musically-trained stem from innate qualities (Irvine, 1998 ), but it is difficult to expect ecologically-valid intervention studies to be able to untangle this factor from the effect of training (Barrett et al., 2013 ). Corrigall et al. ( 2013 ) have pointed out that musically trained children and adolescents are typically good students, with high auditory and visual working memory and high IQ not necessarily due to their music education but due to genetic predispositions, which also make them more likely to take on instrumental classes. They describe how a number of individual traits, such as conscientiousness, persistence, selective attention and self-discipline that are needed in music training, could be the pre-existing qualities that facilitate learning, brain plasticity, as well as far-transfer effects.

In fact, personality trait “openness to experience,” which Corrigall et al. ( 2013 ) found to be considerably more prominent in those who took music lessons than in those who did not, is correlated with curiosity and tendency to explore, and may affect the way children learn and approach new skills such as music. This particular personality trait is genetically determined to some extent and may be also responsible for motivation to learn. Specifically, the expression of dopamine D4 receptors in the prefrontal cortex has been associated with the trait Openness/Intellect (DeYoung et al., 2011 ) and it is considered that prefrontal dopaminergic transmission is responsible for attentional control and working memory (Robbins, 2005 ). Dopamine receptors also play a major role in shaping motivation: genetic variants of the proportion of the dopamine receptors type 1 to type 2 in the striatum (Frank and Fossella, 2010 ), determine the tendency to learn from positive feedback as opposed to negative feedback and may thus affect intrinsic motivation—a major factor in training any complex skill in the long term.

Rewarding value of a musical activity could be one of the driving forces for brain plasticity induced by musical training. Due to dopamine's important role in long-term memory formation (e.g., Lisman and Grace, 2005 ; Schott et al., 2006 ; Rossato et al., 2009 ; Wimber et al., 2011 ), both the genetic polymorphisms suggested above and activity-induced dopaminergic transmission will have an influence on learning outcome as well as on future learning and the reinforcing quality of music learning. A positive affective experience, such as pleasure and pride derived from first music lessons will likely promote future practice and total duration of training. In practice, it is difficult to control for levels of intrinsic motivation in empirical studies of musical training, such as those conducted by Moreno and colleagues (Besson et al., 2007 ; Moreno et al., 2009 ; Moreno and Bidelman, 2013 ), but its role may considerably affect the long-term outcome.

Other factors that affect music performance ability are emotional support from parents and a nurturing relationship with the teacher characterized by mutual liking (Sloboda, 1993 ). Although these are not the focus of this article, they greatly affect a child's motivation to practice and the learning outcome, and should be taken into consideration in future studies investigating effects of musical training compared to other forms of long-term training intervention.

Variance within musicians may also be a variable contributing to the musical training effect. The level of musical training is linked to pleasurable experience when listening to music (Gold et al., 2013 ), due to the adopted listening style in musicians and an involvement of the musically activated reward system that is also implicated in reinforcement learning (Salimpoor et al., 2013 ; Zatorre and Salimpoor, 2013 ). However, little is known about individual variability in music-induced positive emotional responses. It is possible, for instance, that individuals who experience deeply rewarding musical emotions are drawn to taking on musical training (again, with potential genetic influences such as in individuals with William's syndrome, Levitin, 2012 ). Later on, pleasure from the performance of music may add to the intrinsic motivation to continue training, thus forming a self-reinforcing cycle in which a student with innate predispositions to rewarding musical emotions experiences satisfaction with his own performance which encourages the student to practice. In addition, as with any skill learning that takes years to master, a high tolerance to frustration and perseverance are personality traits that would render a student more likely to continue the training (Barrett et al., 2013 ).

Interestingly, musicians may differ in the level of enjoyment they derive from their artistic activity, with a particular difference between popular, jazz- and folk- vs. classical musicians. Although studies mostly concentrate on musicians trained in playing a particular instrument, the type of education they received may affect the outcome not only due to instructional differences but also through differences in motivation. One large survey conducted in the UK between 2006 and 2008 reported that folk, jazz and popular music students/artists derive more pleasure from their work than classical musicians (de Bezenac and Swindells, 2009 ). The non-classical musicians reported more frequent “playing for fun” and generally more enjoyment derived from group performances. One of the study's conclusions was that popular music artists tend to have higher levels of intrinsic motivation (and reportedly learning to play an instrument out of own desire) and later age at training commencement than classical musicians. The latter, who may have been confronted with higher demands for discipline and compliance in the formal educational system, tended to value technical skills higher than pleasure, and presumably had higher levels of extrinsic motivation for awards in adult career, and for teacher's praise during training. Although brain plasticity studies have so far mainly concentrated on classical music education, it may be important to note that students with classical and non-classical music education may actually differ in personality traits (such as conscientiousness, Corrigall et al., 2013 ), motivational goals, and these could in turn contribute to observed transfer of cognitive advantage and their functional and structural brain correlates.

The aforementioned consideration of motivation as a learning-modulating variable leads us to the question of what happens to the learning outcomes and skill transfer in children who are forced to learn to play an instrument. In this case, music training may be an unpleasant and stressful experience. Stress experienced around the learning episode may actually promote the formation of memory related to the stressor via the cortisol and noradrenergic receptor activation in the amygdala which projects to the hippocampus and prioritizes consolidation of the emotional arousal-laden stimuli (Joëls et al., 2006 ). However, evidence form more ecological designs shows that stress impairs word learning and recall performance in comparison to no stress (Schwabe and Wolf, 2010 ). This has to do with the role of the amygdala in memory formation under stress: it not only enhances the consolidation of the stress-related stimuli but also facilitates a switch toward more habitual responding (mediated by the dorsal striatum) and away from goal-directed behavior that is mediated by the medial temporal lobe and the prefrontal cortex (Schwabe et al., 2010 ). The equivalent of such a switch in a typical learning situation would be moving away from deep, reflective processing under supportive, non-demanding circumstances to superficial processing under test-anxiety, which profoundly affects factual memory (Fransson, 1977 ).

Stress derived from fear of punishment therefore affects the way we learn and often leads to worse performance than reward motivation. The effect depends on the task at hand but a negative impact has been found in the formation of spatial (Murty et al., 2011 ), procedural (Wächter et al., 2009 ) and declarative memory formation that requires cognitive processing (Schwabe et al., 2010 ). Although we cannot exhaustively elaborate on the literature treating motivation, learning and transfer in education research, suffice it to say that some forms of punishment motivation resulting in stress have a negative impact on learning (Lepine et al., 2004 ).

In the context of musical education, we suggest thus that the aforementioned influence of personality and intrinsic motivation should be taken into account in future studies. For example, in random assignment studies on the impact of musical training, participants should also be asked to declare their personal motivation to adhere to the training at least before and after the intervention. Furthermore, personality questionnaires could be incorporated to test for traits that affect the learning style (e.g., reward sensitivity, openness, perseverance). These factors could then be used as covariates in the analysis of the effect of musical training in both behavioral and neuroimaging studies. Such information would help determine the extent of the influence of personality and motivational disposition on the long-term adherence to the program as well as its outcome in terms of transfer skills. This could be particularly pertinent given the fact, that these factors could not only limit the positive effects of musical activities but even be detrimental to cognitive and emotional development if the activity represents mainly a source of stress and negative affect. In addition, this information might also help to disentangle the real impact of the training from the influence of personality and motivation.

Rhythm and entrainment

Here we want to point at one specific aspect, which could represent an underlying mechanism of the beneficial transferrable effects of musical training. This specific feature is related to the fact that musical activities are usually based on rhythm. Most musical styles have an underlying temporal pattern that is called meter, which defines a hierarchical structure between time points (London, 2004 ). Ontogenetically, rhythm discrimination is observed in infants as young as 2 months of age (Trehub and Hannon, 2006 ). Like adults, 7-months old infants can infer an underlying beat, categorizing rhythms on the basis of meter (Hannon and Johnson, 2005 ), and 9-month old infants can more readily notice small timing discrepancies in strongly metrical than in non-metrical rhythms (Bergeson and Trehub, 2006 ).

The theory of dynamic attending suggests that rhythmical patterns in music can only be perceived because of a synchronization of attentional processes which entrain to the periodicities contained in the auditory rhythm (Jones and Boltz, 1989 ). In fact, neuronal populations in the visual cortex entrain to the regular rhythm of stimulus presentation which constitutes a mechanism of attentional selection (Lakatos et al., 2008 ). It has therefore been suggested that musical activities that imply perception and production of rhythms train attentional processes which benefits also other cognitive functions. Indeed, a recent study with children showed that musical activities increase the accuracy of produced rhythms (Slater et al., 2013 ), while adult musicians are significantly more accurate in reproducing rhythmic intervals (Chen et al., 2008 ), detecting metrical irregularities (James et al., 2012 ) and maintaining the rhythm when none is externally provided (Baer et al., 2013 ).

Entrainment is in fact a physical principle which describes the adaptation of at least two oscillating agents toward a common phase and period, which could eventually lead to perfect synchronicity between the oscillators (Rosenblum and Pikovsky, 2003 ). In this sense also the adjustment of behavior (own musical output, in ensemble playing, or movements, as in dance) to the perceived regular rhythm or extracted pulse can be regarded as entrainment (Fitch, 2013 ). Humans can also entrain multiple motor modalities, including for example body or limb motions, vocalization and even breathing and heart rate (Müller and Lindenberger, 2011 ; Trost and Vuilleumier, 2013 ). Neural populations can also be entrained by sensory stimulation (Gander et al., 2010 ) or motion, such as being rocked (Bayer et al., 2011 ).

Research on subcortical brain plasticity has used the frequency following response (FFR) as an indicator of perceptual acuity (Moreno and Bidelman, 2013 ). The FFR is a component of the auditory brainstem response (Tzounopoulos and Kraus, 2009 ) that is phase- and frequency-locked to the acoustic parameters of an auditory stimulus. In this sense the FFR represents evidence of direct neural entrainment to the sound, be it music or speech. Several studies have used this method to test training-derived plasticity in the perceptual processing of musical and vocal parameters or speech, demonstrating faster response in musical experts (Tzounopoulos and Kraus, 2009 ; Chandrasekaran and Kraus, 2010 ).

Furthermore, there is a close link between language and reading skills and the ability to perceive and produce rhythm, as widely documented by studies in children with dyslexia (Huss et al., 2011 ; Goswami, 2012 ), or with attention deficits as for example attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (Ben-Pazi et al., 2003 ), who show difficulties in rhythmic tasks. In fact, priming with a rhythmic sequence facilitates speech processing (Cason and Schon, 2012 ), and performance on perceptual discrimination in all sensory domains as well as motor response tasks is better when stimuli are presented isochronously (Nobre et al., 2007 ).

It appears thus that in musical education, daily training of the temporal processing mechanisms has a beneficial effect on other cognitive functions, such as reading, in which attention has to be guided in a specific manner. Moreover, a study by Tierney and Kraus ( 2013 ) showed that the ability to tap to a beat was associated with better performance not only in reading but also in other attention-demanding tasks which are purportedly at the basis of executive functions. Tapping to, producing or merely perceiving a rhythm in any sensory domain leads to formation of expectations that facilitates orienting of attentional resources (Bolger et al., 2013 ) and entrainment of various bodily and neural functions. There is also evidence that timing or temporal processing is a skill partially explaining individual variability in cognitive-speed and non-verbal ability measures—findings based on the isochronous serial interval production task (Sheppard and Vernon, 2008 ; Holm et al., 2011 ; Loras et al., 2013 ). And it may even support superior auditory verbal memory in musicians (Jakobson et al., 2003 ).

Being able to tap to an acoustic beat may be important for executive function (Tierney and Kraus, 2013 ) and implies coordination of movements, anticipation and sensorimotor integration. Being able to synchronize to an external rhythm while playing an instrument requires not only fine motor skills but also good auditory-motor coordination and sensorimotor integration—capacities that are also vital in planning and executing movements in general. Indeed, the functional neuroimaging signature of sensorimotor integration is increased in musicians performing a temporal synchronization task and involves increases in brain network interaction including premotor cortex, posterior parietal cortex and thalamus (Krause et al., 2010 ), which are also involved in attentional processes and motor planning (Coull, 2004 ). Furthermore, this ability of locking into temporal patterns is a skill that is useful in social communication, in which reciprocity and turn taking is essential.

The mentioned aspects of attentional guiding, forming temporal expectations, auditory-motor integration, coordination of movements and social interaction have all in common that they are based on a synchronization and adaptation of internal processes to the external rhythm of the music, or the actions of other musicians (Trost and Vuilleumier, 2013 ). We therefore suggest that rhythmic entrainment and ensuing honing of temporal processing play a key role in the beneficial influence of music education on the development of executive functions and far transfer effects.

Rhythmic entrainment has also been suggested as an emotion induction mechanism (Juslin et al., 2010 ). According to Juslin and colleagues the process where internal bodily rhythms such as respiration adapt to the external rhythm of the music contributes to the induction of an emotional reaction. Being in synchrony with the music or with the other musicians would therefore represent an emotional and often rewarding experience. As pointed out in the previous section on the influence of motivation, positive emotional experiences that activate the reward system modulate memory formation and favor brain plasticity.

Furthermore, musical activities are often social. Indeed, it has been proposed that the evolutionary function of music has always been to increase cooperation, coordination, communication, co-pathy, contact, social cognition and cohesion between the members of a group (Koelsch, 2010 ). It seems that one of these effects is the fact that a certain form of social synchronization is instilled, implying the respect of and adaptation to each other. In fact, in empirical studies it has often been described that acting in synchrony with a partner may increase prosocial commitment (Kokal et al., 2011 ), social affiliation (Hove and Risen, 2009 ), trust (Launay et al., 2013 ), cooperation (Wiltermuth and Heath, 2009 ) and feelings of compassion (Valdesolo et al., 2010 ; Valdesolo and Desteno, 2011 ). When playing music in a group one has to automatically synchronize to the other musicians. The state of synchrony is therefore generated naturally and is possible already in pre-school children who synchronize their drumming more easily in a social context (Kirschner and Tomasello, 2009 ). Learning to perform an activity in synchrony together with others is supported by the activation of the mirror neuron system (Tognoli et al., 2007 ; Overy and Molnar-Szakacs, 2009 ). We therefore suggest that this social aspect of musical training may add to the role of reward and motivation in shaping a developing brain. Moreover, learning of some skills (singing in a choir, playing in an ensemble) sets musical training apart from other social activities that do not require synchronization of actions with other group members specifically thanks to the engagement of the mirror neuron system.

Another piece of evidence for brain plasticity induced directly via rhythmic entrainment comes from the rehabilitation literature. Rhythmic auditory stimulation (RAS) is an important method in brain stimulation, which may induce short but also long term plasticity in a damaged brain (Thaut and Abiru, 2010 ). For example, in Parkinson patients stimulating the dopaminergic circuits in the basal ganglia leads to a reduction of movement disorder symptoms (Thaut et al., 1996 ; Pacchetti et al., 2000 ). In other neurologic diseases or acquired brain injury RAS also has beneficial effects, as the synchronization to an external beat helps to recover the coordination of movements via the stimulation of auditory-motor and sensorimotor integration (Bradt et al., 2010 ; Rodriguez-Fornells et al., 2012 ).

Neuronal populations in various areas of the brain can be entrained by external stimulation (Gomez-Ramirez et al., 2011 ; Nozaradan et al., 2011 ; Thut et al., 2011 ), and temporal prediction underlying the capacity for rhythmic sensorimotor synchronization (Repp, 2005 ; Repp and Su, 2013 ) has been suggested to play a general role in efficient behavior (Schwartze and Kotz, 2013 ). Specifically, maintenance of rhythmic regularity of neural oscillations within particular frequency bands has been suggested as a mechanism of communication across distant neural areas (Canolty and Knight, 2010 ; Grahn, 2012 ), as well as of sensory perception (Thut and Miniussi, 2009 ), and memory consolidation, particularly during sleep (Fell and Axmacher, 2011 ). Rhythmic entrainment can be conditioned using e.g., sensorimotor stimulation (Schabus et al., 2013 ), or induced in a sleeping brain using electric (Marshall et al., 2006 ) or auditory (Ngo et al., 2013 ) stimulation, which results in increased amount of slow waves, improved quality of sleep and better declarative memory.

Even in the animal literature interesting effect of rhythmic entrainment can be found (Rickard et al., 2005 ). For example, based on a series of experiments on neonate chicks, Rickard and colleagues observed that complex rhythmic auditory stimuli enhance memory by promoting moderate levels of physiological arousal through noradrenergic modulation of the memory systems (Toukhsati and Rickard, 2001 ; Rickard et al., 2005 ; Rickard, 2009 ). The authors concluded that it is important that the auditory stimulus contains a certain rhythmical complexity as simple metronomic beats of non-metrical rhythms do not have any memory enhancing effect (Toukhsati and Rickard, 2001 ). Furthermore, non-metrical (that is, consisting of tones that are not aligned with the dominant beat) music produced learning and memory deficits on a maze task in mice, while rats exposed to non-rhythmic music performed poorly in a spatial learning task (Schreckenberg and Bird, 1987 ; Rauscher et al., 1998 ). This suggests that auditory stimulations with a non-metrical rhythmical structure could compromise memory processes. Furthermore, these studies show that even in a passive listening condition performance could be improved in animals. However, we would like to emphasize that an active involvement in a rhythmic activity could amplify the effects even more, as it is known that active participation in a musical activity compared to passive listening only has a stronger effect on, e.g., executive function in the elderly (Bugos, 2010 ).

We propose that active engagement involving a synchronized production of motor responses is necessary for the facilitatory effect on attentional resources, movement control, auditory working memory and other functions that rely on temporal processing, as well as social synchrony. These particular aspects of musical training, absent in visual arts or theater training, contribute to the wide development of cognitive abilities and render it very different from other forms of artistic expression. We therefore suggest that a proper control group comparing music as a form of childhood intervention would be to use a group activity characterized by both rhythmic entrainment and social synchrony, such as for example team sport lessons (e.g., rowing, badminton or volleyball).

In this review of the literature we show that musical training in childhood not only enhances many cognitive functions but is accompanied by neuroplastic changes in brain structure and function. Although this influence appears to be strongly potentiated when musical training takes place during sensitive periods, we have given some examples that music-induced brain plasticity does occur also later in life. In this article we wanted to point to specific factors affecting the relative value of musical education in comparison to other types of longitudinal training in childhood that require similar engagement of cognitive resources and demand a significant overall time investment. These factors include the importance of motivation, affect and social communication in music learning, as well as the potential role of rhythmic entrainment. Consequently, several issues, which have been treated in other recent review papers, remained beyond the scope of this review. Musical training results in better achievement in domains other than mere music performance, such as verbal abilities, second language learning, non-verbal reasoning and general intelligence. The advice for parents and educators is therefore clear: promote instrumental training in early childhood, as it may result in life-long advantages. However, the precise timing of the “windows of opportunity” within which particular environmental stimulation should be provided to a child to have the strongest impact, is probably before the age of seven, although the auditory system could benefit from earlier commencement, by the age of five (or even 2, Skoe and Kraus, 2013 ), while other structures, such as for example the white matter tracts, remain plastic well into the adulthood.

Notably, the aspect of motivation is underrepresented in the existing literature on musical training. The link between reward system activity and various forms of learning is well known: for instance, hippocampal learning (spatial, semantic, and episodic memory) is enhanced with the simultaneous activity of the reward system (involving the dopaminergic neural pathway from the ventral tegmental area and the ventral striatum Lisman and Grace, 2005 ), not to mention the simple reward conditioning mechanism underlying many well-documented tasks where learning and memory enhancements have been observed (e.g., Delgado and Dickerson, 2012 ).

Furthermore, in this review we have proposed rhythmic entrainment as a major underlying mechanism that is responsible for the beneficial effect of musical training on cognitive functions, especially with regard to the executive functions. Musical rhythms help to orient attentional processes in time, which implies a benefit for preparation and control of motor actions, and honing of temporal processing of information. We have reported several studies suggesting that these processes are also linked to cognitive functions such as reading ability and attentional focus. Furthermore, rhythmic entrainment is also regarded as an emotion induction mechanism, which again hints at the pleasurable aspect of musical activities.

On the other hand, music performance is frequently associated with a neglected and less glamorous aspect of a musician's life—performance anxiety (Kenny and Osborne, 2006 ). Stress also plays a role in learning, with moderate levels enhancing learning and high levels inhibiting it (Joëls et al., 2006 ; Howland and Wang, 2008 ). Unlike in a typical primary school curriculum, formal music education exposes a child to many opportunities for live solo performances, which may be stressful at times, not to mention the felt intrinsic pressure to perform well while the whole audience is listening for a possible error (Stoeber and Eismann, 2007 ). Naturally, exposure to such stress enables the individual to learn to overcome its disempowering impact with time, but it may be a source of childhood stress, which should be taken into consideration especially in case of highly sensitive individuals. Therefore, future studies of any long-term training intervention should ideally take into account individual differences in motivation to learn to play an instrument, as well as of subjective stress levels associated with the learning activity, as factors potentially modulating the investigated effects.

In Figure ​ Figure1 1 we provide a summary of the near- and far-transfer skills promoted by musical training, according to the literature reviewed in section Effects on Cognitive Functions. We designate skills that are closely linked to the musical training domain, such as fine motor skills and listening as near-transfer skills. In particular, we identify temporal processing and orienting of attention in time as an ability that is perfected in musicians but that has not been explicitly described as a transfer skill. Instead, we point that this particular skill—processing of temporal information—likely underlies farther transfer skills such as reading and verbal memory. Far-transfer skills include abilities unrelated to the context of playing an instrument but that generalize to other domains, such as executive functions and linguistic skills. In the center, we listed the variables modulating the effects of musical training. These include, firstly, genetically determined predispositions (musicality, personality and motivational disposition; section Genetic Predispositions), and age at commencement (section Critical and Sensitive Periods). Secondly, we list the degree of intrinsic motivation and its affective quality (associated with punishment or reward), and the role of parents and teachers (section Motivation and the Rewarding Power of Music). And thirdly, two factors that modulate brain development through musical training itself: rhythmic entrainment and music-induced rewarding emotions (sections Rhythm and Entrainment & Motivation and the Rewarding Power of Music).

Learning to play an instrument offers a child the opportunity for creative self-expression and the development of an identity. Furthermore, musical training can be a leisure activity and a possibility to learn a form of discipline outside of the frame of the school curriculum, which gives the opportunity for rewarding experiences of self-achievement and positive reinforcement. Moreover, music education in preschool children, or first years of instrumental classes, as well as singing in a choir, has an important social component. Learning to make music together requires the respect of others and teaches implicit communicative rules and skills. In fact, it has been suggested that making music in a group might have served an evolutionary purpose of increasing communication, coordination, cooperation and even empathy within a group (Koelsch, 2010 ). This notion emphasizes the fact that making music in a group can be a very rewarding activity. Furthermore, social context and well-being also have a decisive influence on brain plasticity (Davidson and McEwen, 2012 ), which suggests that well-being induced by musical activities would in turn help shape brain functions via the mediating influence of the reward system. Therefore, we conclude that musical education starting already early in childhood offers the opportunity to tune and train the brain for important cognitive and possibly also social functions. Furthermore, it provides the child with techniques and foundations, which will probably serve as a benefit for the entire lifetime; not to mention that having learned to play an instrument in childhood may be a great source of pleasure later on in life.

Author contributions

Ewa A. Miendlarzewska and Wiebke J. Trost have both contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) in Affective Sciences (No. 51NF40-104897) at the University of Geneva for supporting this publication. Ewa A. Miendlarzewska would like to thank Carlo V. Cannistraci for inspiring this review.

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1 The Role of Research in Music Education

• Published: February 2023
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This chapter examines the role that research plays in the music education profession and introduces several ways to categorize different types of research. Research in music education includes quantitative, qualitative, historical, philosophical, and action approaches to systematic inquiry. Each of these types of research has a unique contribution to make concerning music teaching and learning. Quantitative researchers gather numerical information to answer descriptive questions (e.g., What is . . . ?), questions of associations (e.g., How is variable x related to variable y?), and questions pertaining to cause and effect (e.g., What causes variable y to be the way that it is?). Qualitative researchers explore complex phenomena within naturalistic settings, foregrounding participants’ perspectives. The researcher generates text-based data sources such as interview transcripts, field notes, and artifacts and analyzes them to illuminate themes that emerge from the data. The resulting research report provides a detailed description of and supports theorization about the phenomenon of interest. Historical researchers examine original documents, artifacts, and testimony to answer questions, uncover facts, and draw meaningful conclusions related to the past and its effect on present conditions. Philosophical researchers use logical arguments and examples to investigate the assumptions underlying current music education practices and to imagine how attitudes and actions within the profession might be. Action researchers typically study their local contexts in order to take action within and as a result of their inquiries.

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How Music Education Sharpens the Brain, Tunes Us Up for Life

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When Amy Richter was a little girl, her father often traveled for work. He often came home bearing gifts of music and record albums. They bonded while poring over all that vinyl, she recalls, exploring the world of music from classical and rock to bluegrass.

Richter’s love of music only grew as she got older and studied voice and piano. Diagnosed with dyslexia, she also found that music helped her cope with her learning disability. It helped her gain focus and confidence. That’s why she studied music therapy in college. She knows the power of music to supercharge our brains.

“Music really became the guiding force in my education and helped me to connect with other people, helping build confidence through performance, also helping with my mental health,” said Richter, who founded  Music Workshop , a free music curriculum designed to cultivate a love of music from a young age, that can help schools beef up their arts offerings on the cheap. Schools across the country, including hundreds in California, from Yuba City to San Diego, now use her program. “It really became a tool in my life to better myself.”

To be sure, aficionados of the arts have long argued that art transforms us, but in recent years, neuroscience has shown just how music can shape the architecture of the brain. This cognitive research illuminates the connection between music and learning and gives heft to longstanding arguments for the power of music education that are newly relevant in the wake of California’s Proposition 28, which sets aside money for arts education in schools.

“The K-12 grades are the years in which brain function is most rapidly evolving and information from all different types of learning and subjects is being processed and absorbed, including connections across what we might think of as different school subjects, but they are all connected in our developing brains,” said Giuliana Conti, director of education and equity for  Music Workshop , which is particularly popular at schools that often tap substitute teachers in an era of high teacher absences.

“Music education provides physical and auditory experiences that work like bridges for brain structures. As the brain processes musical sounds and body movements, neural pathways across different regions of the brain grow and strengthen. The more those pathways are activated, the more usable they become across time and other skill sets or learning experiences.”

Amid the ongoing crises in literacy and numeracy plaguing our schools and the enduring sting of pandemic learning loss, many arts advocates are pointing to music education as a way to boost executive functioning in the brain. This enhanced cognitive function, often coupled with a surge in well-being, may be the secret sauce that makes music education such an academic powerhouse, research suggests.  Music may prime the brain to learn.

“Music is this wonderful, holistic way of engaging almost everything that is important for education,” said Nina Kraus, a noted neuroscientist at Northwestern University who studies the biology of auditory learning, in a  webinar. “First of all, we know that the ingredients that are important in making music and the ones that are important for reading and literacy are the same ingredients. So when you’re strengthening your brain by making music, you’re strengthening your brain for language.”

Kraus, who grew up listening to her mother play the piano, is passionate about the impact of sound, ranging from the distracting to the sublime, from noise pollution to Puccini, on the brain. The gist of much of her research is how thoroughly sound shapes cognition. Music training, for example, sets up children’s brains to become better learners by enhancing the sound processing that underpins language, she said.

While we live in a visually oriented world, our brains are fundamentally wired for sound, she argues. Reading, for example, is a relatively new phenomenon in human history, while listening keenly for a sound, say a predator, is a primal impulse deeply embedded in the brain. Put simply, what we hear shapes who we are.

“Music really is the jackpot,” as Kraus, author of “ Of Sound Mind ,” puts it. She has conducted extensive research showing that music education helps boost test scores for low-income children.

Music also helps us manage  stress.   Perhaps that’s one reason that offering more music and arts classes is also associated with lower chronic absenteeism rates and higher attendance, research  suggests . Think of music education as lifting weights with your brain. It makes the whole apparatus stronger and healthier.

“Music is therapeutic because it helps us to regulate our emotions,” said Richter, who adds that a culturally relevant music curriculum can help engage a diverse student body. “It helps us to lower our cortisol levels. It helps promote relaxation. It helps us with focus and concentration. It also helps us with connection. Now more than ever, we know how important connection is, especially among our youth.”

In the post-pandemic era, these insights may well fuel the uptake of music classes in a state struggling with low test scores, but the implications for brain health actually go far beyond academic prowess and social-emotional well-being in childhood.

Indeed, early musical experiences may impart a lifelong neuroplasticity, Kraus has documented. Studies suggest that a 65-year-old musician has the neural activity of a 25-year-old non-musician. A 65-year-old who played music as a child but hasn’t touched an instrument in ages still has neural responses faster than a peer who never played music, although slower than those of a die-hard musician.

“What I would say to everyone who thinks about picking up an instrument: It’s never too late,” Richter said. “Even just practicing scales can help with cell regeneration. So I encourage adults to continue to learn music along the way, whether that’s picking up an instrument or listening to music, it’s always really important for brain development.”

Music pricks up our hearts and minds, as well as our ears. Children must persevere to master a piece of music and collaborate to perform it in the spotlight. They must learn focus, patience and grace under pressure. That kind of electrifying shared experience, working as a community, is something new to many of them, experts say.

“When music is more regularly incorporated as part of children’s everyday lives,” Conti said, “it can move the needle in their learning and development more effectively across many different parts of their lives: socially, emotionally, musically and academically.”

It’s the intangible effects of music education, the elements that can’t be reduced to data points and parameters, that strike Kraus as the most profound. Music builds a feeling of joy and a sense of belonging between musicians and their listeners, which is something that little else in our age of digital background noise can do.

“Music connects us, and it connects us in a way that hardly anything I know does, so it’s very, very important,” Kraus said. “We live in a very disconnected world. Depression, anxiety, alienation, the inability to focus, all of that is on the rise. Intolerance is on the rise. Music is a way to bring us together.”

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Understanding the synchronization of physiological states during a live music performance

Research finds that the heart rate synchronization of listeners in response to music is dependent on the consistency in physiological responses and not their mood or preferences.

Common input synchronization is a process where systems or organisms exposed to an identical input respond similarly. People listening to a concert, for example, could experience a synchronization of their emotions. "Music-induced synchronization of heart rate may be the mechanism underlying the coherent behavior of a large audience in a theater," suggests Ryota Nomura, an Associate Professor affiliated with Waseda University, Japan, while describing the mechanism. Previous studies have shown that inter-subject correlations calculated using physiological signals, including heart rate, are usually low. Studies investigating the common-input induced synchronization in different individuals suggest that the low correlation is due to weak intra-person correlation between the conscious processing and heart rate. This intra-person correlation is challenging to control directly. Hence, the current study by Dr. Nomura eliminated the individual differences in the processing by applying common input to the same individuals repeatedly.

Dr. Nomura has recently published this insightful study in Scientific Reports on 28 May 2024. In the study, Dr. Nomura showed that the synchronization of physical and cognitive processes is better within an individual compared to that between different individuals. The study revealed that the heart rate synchronization in response to music depends on the reliable physiological responses of the listener, not on their mood or music preferences. "This study allows us to explain the reproducibility of the aesthetic experience of the theater in terms of reliability," notes Dr. Nomura.

The study investigated the inter- and intra-subject correlations calculated using instantaneous heart rate data measured while listening to music. To estimate the effect of mood on music-induced heart rate synchronization, Dr. Nomura had participants in the study listen to the same piece of music on different days. Likewise, to quantify the influence of music preference on heart rate synchronization, he investigated whether a person listening to a piece of music selected by the researcher differed in synchronization response to a piece of music that deeply moves them when played in a randomized order.

Dr. Nomura discovered that the reliability with which a subject's heart rate responded to the music is significantly more correlated across time for a given individual, compared to the inter-subjective correlation in responses between individuals.

"The results demonstrated that inter-subject correlations were consistently lower compared to intra-subject correlations, regardless of participants' music preferences and daily moods. Further, music-induced heart rate synchronization depends on the reliability of physiological responses to musical pieces rather than mood or motivation," Dr. Nomura observes.

Overall, the study will lead to a greater understanding of collective human emotion as a way to improve the theater-going experience. By discovering what factors contribute to heart-rate synchronization and consequent emotional response, this study offers valuable clues for the success of performing arts. "From data on small audiences, for example, the degree of proficiency of performers, commercial success can be predicted in terms of reliability. This could contribute to better performances in theaters. Moreover, engineered devices that enhance reliability may facilitate synchronization of the physiological states of multiple audience members," concludes Dr. Nomura, while highlighting the implications of the study.

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• Ryota Nomura. Reliability for music-induced heart rate synchronization . Scientific Reports , 2024; 14 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-62994-0

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Research Studies in Music Education

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This internationally peer-reviewed journal promotes the dissemination and discussion of high-quality research in music and music education. The journal encourages the interrogation and development of a range of research methodologies and their application to diverse topics in music education theory and practice

The journal covers a wide range of topics across all areas of music education, and a separate "Perspectives in Music Education Research" section provides a forum for researchers to discuss topics of special interest and to debate key issues in the profession.

Since 2008 Psychology of Music (POM) and Research Studies in Music Education ( RSME)  have been sold together as a joint institutional subscription. Both journals are owned by the Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research (SEMPRE). Both are relevant to music psychologists and music educators alike. Music and psychology departments can benefit from having the additional content provided by both journals.

View the institutional subscription rates : The subscription to the journals is available in the usual 3 SAGE subscription models: print and online combined, print only, and e-access only. The SAGE institutional e-access only subscriptions are discounted further. Individual subscribers can purchase the journals separately in print only. If you are interested in becoming a member of SEMPRE and receiving a subscription to Psychology of Music as part of your membership dues please contact the SEMPRE membership secretary at: [email protected] This journal accepts supplementary materials, e.g. audio/video files, datasets, additional images etc. For more information please see our guidelines

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Research Studies in Music Education is an internationally peer-reviewed journal that promotes the dissemination and discussion of high quality research in music and music education. The journal encourages the interrogation and development of a range of research methodologies and their application to diverse topics in music education theory and practice.

This journal accepts supplementary materials, e.g. audio/video files, datasets, additional images etc. For more information please see our guidelines .

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• The Music Index: A Subject-Author Guide to Music Periodical Literature

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This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics

Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rsme to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Research Studies in Music Education will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that  Research Studies in Music Education may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy. If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

• What do we publish? 1.1 Aims & Scope 1.2 Article types 1.3 Writing your paper
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Before submitting your manuscript to Research Studies in Music Education , please ensure you have read the  Aims & Scope .

1.2 Article Types

Manuscripts should be up to 6000 words in length, excluding Abstract and reference list.

RSME  publishes  two types of articles:  original research articles , and perspectives articles. All articles are double blind peer refereed, and expected to contribute something significant and novel to the field.

Research papers published by RSME follow the format of a standard journal article, and must be based on empirical research (all research methodologies are welcome).

The Perspectives Series is a scholarly forum for authors to present ideas and perspectives in music education. Perspectives may seek to engender debate from a personal values position or stake a claim on a new methodological, philosophical or pragmatic ‘space’.

1.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on  how to get published , plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

1.3.1 Make your article discoverable

When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online .

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2.1 Peer review policy

RSME  operates a strictly anonymous peer review process in which the reviewer’s name is withheld from the author and, the author’s name from the reviewer. The reviewer may at their own discretion opt to reveal their name to the author in their review but our standard policy practice is for both identities to remain concealed. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees. 

Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees, who will recommend to the Editor whether a manuscript should be accepted, revised (major or minor revisions), or rejected. The Editor will make a decision on the manuscript based on the recommendations from the expert referees. Please note that the Editor’s decision on a manuscript will be final.    Authors of manuscripts given a minor or major revision decision are invited to submit their revised manuscript via the journal’s submission site. The responsibility for submitting the revised manuscript lies with the corresponding author.” 

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All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools . 

Research Studies in Music Education is trialing the publication of CRediT author contribution statements. At submission stage, there will be the ability to list the roles that each author was responsible for. Please refer to the CRediT Gateway page for more information. You should not include an author contribution statement in your manuscript as this will be added at Production stage. This does not replace the Acknowledgements section.

2.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

2.3.1 Third party submissions

Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves .

2.3.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance”).

It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

2.4 Funding

Research Studies in Music Education requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading.  Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. 

2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

Research Studies in Music Education encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway .

2.6 'Research ethics and participant consent'

Ethical approval statement

Upon submission, authors will be asked to state the relevant ethics committee or institutional review board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number. Where exemption from ethics approval has been granted by an appropriate body, this should be specified and the reason for exemption should be provided. Manuscripts should include statements that provide a clear explanation as to why ethics approval and/or informed consent was not sought for a given study in a specific country or region.

Informed consent

Authors are required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent (for inclusion, collection/use of data or samples, and/or publication, as applicable) and whether the consent was written or verbal.

2.7 Redundant publication

The Editors of Research Studies in Music Education ask authors to declare if any data reported in their submission have been published previously wholly or in part. For example: the reanalysis of a previously published dataset by a different set of authors would need to be declared. The publication of multiple articles using the same dataset with somewhat related outcomes could be considered inappropriate. Within the cover letter and methods section, authors should declare if datasets or participants reported in their submission overlap with any prior published work to help a thorough Editorial assessment of the study.

2.8 Research Data

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages .

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

• share your research data in a relevant public data repository
• include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
• cite this data in your research

3. Publishing Policies

3.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway .

3.1.1 Plagiarism

Research Studies in Music Education and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

3.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway .

3.3 Open access and author archiving

Research Studies in Music Education offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage . For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access . For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies .

4. Preparing your manuscript for submission

4.1 Formatting

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines .

Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.

4.3 Supplemental material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files

4.4 Reference style

Research Studies in Music Education adheres to the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

4.5 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

5. Submitting your manuscript

Research Studies in Music Education is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rsme to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.  For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID . ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized. 

The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.     

5.2 Information required for completing your submission

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

5.3 Permissions

Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway .

6. On acceptance and publication

6.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly.  Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

6.2 Online First publication

Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

6.3 Access to your published article

Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.4 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

7. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Research Studies in Music Education editorial office as follows:

Julie Ballantyne, Editor Email:  [email protected]  

Dr Nicole Canham, Assistant Editor Email:  [email protected]  

8.  Research Studies in Music Education Complaints and Appeals

For information on the journal's appeals procedure please click here .

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'No Frills' 2024: VET partnerships powering a dynamic workforce

Media release

The National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) has today released the official discussion paper for the 33 rd National Vocational Education and Training (VET) Research Conference ‘No Frills’ .

The paper explores this year’s conference theme, VET partnerships powering a dynamic workforce, with a focus on addressing workforce demands and equipping the workforce with necessary skills through targeted education, training and partnerships.

New NCVER Managing Director John King said he is excited to attend the 2024 conference in Perth, Western Australia.

‘No Frills has a reputation for being one of the most valuable VET conferences in Australia. It’s a forum for VET practitioners, industry experts and leading researchers to explore the key issues affecting the VET sector and the Australian workforce.

‘Strong VET partnerships are becoming increasingly important for skilling a dynamic workforce. These partnerships may involve delivering high-quality VET training, responding positively to industry skill needs, and supporting workers – including those from traditionally disadvantaged cohorts - on their career journeys,’ said Mr King.

The exciting three-day conference program will feature 29 concurrent sessions, four pre-conference professional development workshops, two discussion panels and a ministerial address. It will also feature two prominent keynote speakers, Professor Barney Glover AO, Commissioner of Jobs and Skills Australia; and Gihan Perera, Futurist, Fit for the Future.

This year, NCVER is co-hosting the conference with North Metropolitan TAFE. North Metropolitan TAFE Managing Director Michelle Hoad said North Metropolitan TAFE are pleased to be hosting the 2024 conference at their Perth campus.

‘NCVER’s research underscores the importance of industry collaboration and workforce development in vocational education. We recognise the pivotal role of partnerships in addressing workforce demands and preparing students for their future careers. The conference offers a valuable platform to strengthen connections, share insights, and enhance the impact of vocational education across Australia,’ said Ms Hoad.

‘No Frills’ 2024 will be held at North Metropolitan TAFE’s city campus from Wednesday 10 to Friday 12 July.

For more information, visit https://www.ncver.edu.au/nofrills2024 .

Download the discussion paper: VET partnerships powering a dynamic workforce

Enquiries: Chantal Deutrom P: +61 8 8230 8418 E: [email protected]

About NCVER: we are the main provider of research , statistics and data on Australia’s VET sector. Our services help promote better understanding of VET and assist policy makers, practitioners, industry, training providers, and students to make informed decisions.

This work has been produced by NCVER on behalf of the Australian Government and state and territory governments, with funding provided through the Australian Government Department of Employment and Workplace Relations .

Productivity and long-term growth

Our focus is to design policies to deliver a dynamic business sector, well allocated resources, and productivity growth.

• Global Forum on Productivity
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Key messages, potential growth is weak and requires supply-side reforms.

There are some signs that the global outlook has started to brighten, even though growth remains modest. The outlook for medium-term growth remains weak. Reviving potential growth and improving the quality of economic growth will require governments to undertake ambitious supply-boosting structural reforms.

Digitalisation and productivity: A story of complementarities

Policy makers across OECD countries have been facing the challenge of slowing productivity growth for decades, despite the rapid emergence of digital technologies.

Some of these technologies, though promising for enhancing productivity and living standards, have not yet been adopted widely or effectively enough to deliver strong economic gains. Insufficient investment in intangible assets and communication networks has further hindered their potential. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced new challenges and opportunities in this landscape. AI shows significant potential to boost productivity and improve public services, but its widespread adoption also poses risks to competition and inclusion. A comprehensive policy approach is needed to accelerate digital uptake and share its benefits more equitably.

Latest report:  The impact of Artificial Intelligence on productivity, distribution and growth

Tackling gender inequality can help remedy current labour market tightness

While progress has been made, the employment rate for women still lags that of men, and gender pay gaps remain prominent across many OECD countries. Gender gaps in labour market participation can often be traced back to barriers or incentives related to the provision of childcare and parental leave, as well as the design of tax and benefit systems. Addressing such barriers can not only boost gender equality, but also alleviate labour shortages.

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• Confronting the zombies: Policies for productivity revival
• The long game: Fiscal outlooks to 2060 underline need for structural reform

Productivity blogs on ECOSCOPE - An Economic Lens on Policies for Growth and Well-being

Structural policy indicators database for economic research (SPIDER)

The OECD’s Structural Policy Indicators Database for Economic Research (SPIDER) provides a broad range of data to researchers in ready-to-use formats to facilitate empirical/econometric research investigating the nature and the impact of structural policies.

Programmes and initiatives

The Global Forum on Productivity (GFP) fosters international collaboration among public institutions to advocate and implement policies that boost productivity.

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Dr wong lung hsiang participates in the 28th global chinese conference on computers in education.

Dr Wong Lung Hsiang , Senior Education Research Scientist and the co-Programme Director of the Learning Sciences and Innovation Research Programme at the Centre of Research in Pedagogy and Practice (CRPP), participated in the 28 th Global Chinese Conference on Computers in Education (GCCCE) 2024 held from 1 to 5 June 2024, at Southwest University, Chongqing, China.

He co-wrote an English paper titled “ Using Whole-Class Discussion to Promote Student Idea Evolution in a Blended Primary Science Classroom ” alongside NIE researchers, Ms Thi Thu Ha Nguyen (Research Fellow, CRPP), Dr Peter Seow (Education Research Scientist, CRPP), and Dr Teo Chew Lee (Deputy Centre Director, CRPP). The paper investigates the use of whole-class discussion to foster Student-Generated Ideas (SGIs) in a blended primary science lesson in Singapore, emphasising the role of technology and teacher scaffolding. The findings highlighted the evolution of students' ideas and the cognitive processes involved, offering key insights for lesson design and implementation. The paper was also awarded the Best English Paper Award.

Dr Wong also co-wrote a Chinese paper titled 《 “学生生成构想”教学理念应用于混合学习的历程分析 》（Analysis of a Blended Learning Lesson Underpinned by the Pedagogical Approach of SGI), for GCCCE 2024.

He was invited to speak at a panel discussion titled “Research and Practice of Large Educational Models: Innovative Applications of Generative Artificial Intelligence”, and delivered a speech titled “Pedagogical Design Powered by Generative AI and Informed by Educational Theories: A Case Study in Language Learning”. 

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