Schools Archives

Great Ted-Ed Video: How Playing Music Benefits Your Brain

Here’s an excellent (and cute!) Ted-Ed animated video on the benefits of playing musical instruments. Well-worth five minutes . . .

When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What’s going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians’ brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout.

View at Ted-Ed.

Del Mar Heights Builds Awareness and Ability with World Music

in CWM News/by Lance Nelson

Del Mar Times, February 8, 2015

A report on a thriving World Music in the Schools sponsored, artists-in-residence program at Del Mar Heights School, north of San Diego, which seeks to help children “become creative, expressive members of their communities.”

Each grade level at Del Mar Heights has multiple instructional sessions with visiting musicians and dancers from various cultures. Students participate in creating and understanding music using a wide range of instruments. These instructional sessions often culminate with student concerts or presentations of learning.

The program features several Center for World Music teaching artists (Koresh Taghvi is pictured above, with students). The Center’s World Music in the Schools program is funded, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council.

Read the full story at DelMarTimes.net.

The Agogô: Yoruban “Double Bell”

in World Music Instruments/by Stefanie Schmitz

This article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.

MORE INSTRUMENTS

The agogô is an instrument used widely in West Africa, Brazil, and throughout the world. The name comes from ágogo (AH-go-go) meaning “double bell” in the tonal Yoruba language and is onomatopoeia for the two sounds it makes. In my classes for the Center for World Music we use the Afro-Brazilian agogô (ah-go-GO). The agogô is a type of handbell similar to our cowbell. It has two or more bells attached to a handle and is played with a wooden stick. The bells can be made of metal, castanhas-do-Pará (Brazil nut shells), coconuts, gourds, wood, or large seeds. The agogô is found in a variety of Afro-Brazilian musical styles including maracatu, maculelê, batucada of the samba schools, afoxé, songs of capoeira, and more. It is used in ceremonies and rituals of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé.

—Stefanie Schmitz, World Music in the Schools Teaching Artist

Agogôs in action on YouTube: Demo with Stefanie | A Four-Toner in Brazil | Brazil Nut Shell Agogô

What Childhood Piano Lessons Did to You

in CWM News/by Lance Nelson

More news about the developmental benefits of music education for children . . .

The study by the University of Vermont College of Medicine found that even those who never made it past nursery rhyme songs and do-re-mi’s likely received some major developmental benefits just from playing. The study provides even more evidence as to why providing children with high-quality music education may be one of the most effective ways to ensure their success in life.

Read at Mic.com.

California Public Schools Get Creative to Save Arts Programs

in CWM News/by Lance Nelson

The plight of arts programs in California public schools, and its impact on children, was featured in the NBC Nightly News for December 17. The segment shows how Takio drumming–supported by community-based funding–helps to fill the gap in a San Francisco-area school.

Creative young minds, talented kids, who deserve help, but for them the school money just isn’t there anymore, the way it was for so many of us in things like the arts . . .

View at NBC Nightly News.

Worth a look, and some thought: would you consider taking a minute to support this kind of creative effort in San Diego?

Active Participation in Music Education Improves Academic Performance

in CWM News/by Lance Nelson

Another good read on the value of music education, noting that the benefits are dependent on learning to play music, not just appreciate it . . .

In the study, which appears online in the open-access journal Frontiers in Psychology, the team showed that exposure to music lessons physically stimulated the brain and changed it for the better. However, simply being exposed to music education doesn’t seem to be sufficient, you have to also be actively involved.

How Hema Ramaswamy Found Healing Through Traditional Indian Dance

in CWM News/by Lance Nelson

In a report that may be of special interest to parents of children in our World Music in the Schools program, National Public Radio recently featured a story of healing through practice of Bharata Natyam, the traditional dance of South India . . .

Ramaswamy, who has Down syndrome, originally began dancing for health reasons. “But then it became part of her, and she really loves and enjoys it, and it took her 13 years with a lot of challenges, midway, to complete this,” explained her father, Ram. “And now today is a perfect day for her — her graduating in this art.”

Listen to, and read, the story on NPR

Engaging Your City’s Youth Through the Arts

in CWM News/by Lance Nelson

Here’s a report on an extraordinarily valuable program that supporters of traditional music–or any music–might want to be aware of. Three cheers for the City of San Fernando, with a shout out for the CAC!

The City of San Fernando invests directly in an award-winning Mariachi Master Apprentice Program. Launched in 2001 as an experiment, the program has garnered international recognition. . . . Over the past decade 100 percent of the students enrolled in the program have graduated. Typically comparable rates are less than 60 percent.

Read the full article at WesternCity.com.

CWM Receives Second Highest NEA Award in San Diego

in CWM News/by Lance Nelson

San Diego Union Tribune, April 16, 2014

The quality of the Center for World Music’s World Music in the Schools program has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts with the second highest award in the San Diego area.

$55,000 to support teaching artists from around the globe who will provide weekly instruction in traditional music and dance of Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Europe for elementary and secondary-school students in San Diego.

Significantly, of over 100 NEA education grants funded, the CWM ranked within the top 15, with the likes of Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Opera

Read the full story on the UT website.

CAC’s “Art Works!” Reports on the Center’s World Music in the Schools Program

in CWM News, World Music in the Schools/by Lance Nelson

Art Works!, October 2011

The California Arts Council asks a question very important to the Center for World Music: “How can the traditional performing arts of cultures East and West help to promote a healthy and enriched world?”

The California Arts Council (CAC) has supported Center for World Music teaching artist residencies in K-12 schools for over 10 years. The residencies have provided thousands of San Diego students with weekly, year-round, hands-on workshops in the performing arts from six broad cultural areas of the world: South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Europe.

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