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Zachary Tirrell
English 2010.17
Prof Erick Faatz
April 16, 2015
Background Music in Classrooms
We listen to music to relax, to help us think, to celebrate, and to grieve. Our
emotional responses to music have been noted in literature, poetry, and drama. The
power of music to evoke an emotional response is used by advertising companies,
directors, and mothers singing their babies to sleep (qtd. In Foran 51). Could it
therefore be possible to use music to help students?
It has been found that music increases the productivity of students while playing
in the background of classrooms. Not only is it great for the students but for the
teachers as well. It helps teachers to manage and control behavior in the classrooms.
This in turn relieves a lot of stress for teachers allowing them to relax and teach more
effectively in their classrooms. Teachers and students everywhere should know of the
benefits that come from using background music.
What is it exactly that music does to the students? Music plays with their mind
as the electrical energy generated by firing neurons creates brain waves. The music a
person chooses to listen to influences the wave’s frequency, and their overall state of
mind. Not only is the mind influenced by music, but the whole entire body as a whole is
in turn affected by music. The messages received travel down the spinal cord,
impacting the autonomous nervous system that regulates the heart rate, blood
pressure, muscular activity, metabolism, and other vital functions.

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Music being played in the background of a classroom will improve the teachers’
moral and create a much more effective learning environment by helping increase
memory, accelerate learning, improve reading, decrease stress and tension, cover up
distractions, and improve test scores.
One researcher named Nick Perham, a lecturer in School of Heath Sciences at
the University of Wales Institute, argues that music being played during a classroom
session can interfere with short-term memory performance. Perham concluded with his
studies that “. . . listening to liked or disliked music was exactly the same, and both were
worse than the quiet control condition,” He says. “Both impaired performance on serial-
recall tasks” (qtd. In Cutler NP).
When Perham performed his test he asked every student to say how they felt
they performed when exposed to multiple types of music. The students reported that
they performed worse when they were listening to music that was disliked, but the
results show that there was little to no difference. With that being said Perham believes
that no matter what music is being listened to it will affect the student’s short term
memory negatively.
In another study the opposite was found. In a study performed by Sheila
Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder using tests from Iowa State University it was discovered
that listening to slow Baroque music alone during class sped up learning by 24 percent
and increased memory retention by 26 percent (qtd. in White 15). A teacher who wrote
an article about her study of Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, a neuroscientist author, stated that,
Levitin’s studies proved that a majority of non-musicians were able to sing songs within
4% of its original tempo. This is because the rhythm of a song engages the cerebellum

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and the left hemisphere of the brain, and the melody engages the right hemisphere.
Since there are multiple memory centers in the brain, this process increases memory
(Fletcher 9).
One researcher by the name Sacks quoted in Lucille Foran’s book, believes that
music has a special relationship to memory. He claims that music stores and activates
sequences of knowledge and actions when other forms of information fail to recall that
stored information. Foran argues that music affects the brain more than any other
single activity, especially for little children with learning problems. Music, in turn, helps
students to access parts of their brains that function poorly or not at all (Foran 56).
Perham, in one of his more recent studies expresses that reading while listening
to music, especially music with lyrics, impairs comprehension (qtd. In Cutler NP). In
other studies it has been found that using music to teach reading motivates and
increases the reading ability of students. Furthermore, research demonstrates that
being exposed to music helps develop auditory and visual skills needed for reading.
One teacher stated “not only do I rely on music to enhance children’s reading and math
skills, but I also depend on it to enrich all learning that takes place in my classroom”
(White 6).
One common complaint that many teachers have against background music in
the classroom is that music being played in the classroom would distract them and their
students from getting their work done. That’s a very fair statement in and of itself.
Teachers worry for their students and only want the best for them. However, they may
not know that it has been proven that background music being played in a classroom
will actually do quite the opposite. As Kevin White Master of Education in Divergent

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Learning Columbia College states, It helps cover up distractions that students may have
in a classroom setting, like clocks, pencils tapping, and chairs/desks moving (White 7).
White also comments on a study made by Ghassemi where he states that, “music
functions like white noise, drowning our distractions” (qtd. In White 7). Therefore it can
be concluded that music could be very beneficial to all students in helping them to stay
on task and get all their homework done.
In an article published by Jane Collingwood a Psychologist, she quotes a study
that shows how listening to music can help the brain by improving learning and memory
skills. This has come to be known as “The Mozart Effect.” Experiments carried out by
scientists at the University of California at Irvine found that students’ test scores
improved after listening to a recording of Mozart. This may be because the processing
of music shares some of the same pathways in the brain as memory (Collingwood NP).
This goes to show that overall music will help students to think more clearly which in
turn will help them to remember all that they’ve studied which will greatly improve their
grades.
Students are often stressed especially students in High Schools and Colleges
around the world. Stress will deter any good student from getting his or her work done.
Listening to music during times of great stress will largely decrease their stress levels
and will make them more productive. Music has a tremendous relaxing effect on the
mind and the body. As Collingwood states, the type of music that is listened to can
have many beneficial effects on peoples’ physiological functions by slowing the pulse
and heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and decreasing the level of stress hormones
(Collingwood NP). Simply playing music in the classroom during times of study could

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be very beneficial for all students in helping them to relax and concentrate on what is at
hand.
As retired teacher Elona Hartjes expresses, energizing music helps the brain
exercise longer and harder, increasing the speed and workload capacity of the
individuals, while listening to music with strong and steady beats can increase
endurance, boost effort level, increase motivation and distract from discomfort and
agitation (Hartjes NP). Music will help students to concentrate in their studies. Imagine
being able to continuously study and not being completely exhausted by doing so. Is
this not what schools need for their students? Music will greatly effect students and will
help them to become better. Teachers will not have to worry because their students will
be able to concentrate and retain what is being taught in their classrooms. Music excites
the students and overall helps them to be much more productive in the classroom. As
one teacher stated,
More important to me than any of the research that I have done Is
the simple quote from one of my students: “I was having a bad
morning. I went to my locker and got my stuff, and then I could
hear the music playing down the hall. I couldn’t wait to get here
and find out what we were doing [that day].” (Fletcher 9)
Background music could do wonders for students by helping improve their
learning environment, increase their memory, accelerate learning, improve reading
comprehension, help decrease stress and tension, cover up distractions, and overall will
improve test scores. Music is the key to a better education in the United States and
should be incorporated into its classrooms everywhere.

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Works Cited
Fletcher, Judy. "The Educational Benefits of Using Music in the Classroom."
Techniques: Connecting Education & Careers 89.7 (2014): 8-9. Education Full
Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Hartjes, Elona. “Research about the Benefits of Listening to Music in the Classroom
Leads to Optimism.” Teachers at Risk. April 2, 2008. Web. April 15, 2015.
Foran, Lucille. “Listening to Music: Helping Children Regulate Their Emotions and
Improve Learning in the Classroom. Educational Horizons, v88 n1 p51-58. Fall
2009. Print.
White, Kevin. “The Effects of Background Music in the Classroom on the Productivity,
Motivation, and Behavior of Fourth Grade Students.” Master of Education Thesis,
Columbia College. 57 pp. (2007):1-57. Print.
Cutler, David. “Don’t Listen to Music While Studying.” George Lucas Educational
Foundation, December 4, 2013. Web. April 15, 2015.
Collingwood, Jane. “The Power of Music to Reduce Stress.” Psych Center, January 30,
2013. Web. April 15, 2015.

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