Music Quotes

Music is about communication, creativity, and cooperation, and by studying music in school, students have the opportunity to build on these skills, enrich their lives, and experience the world from a new perspective.
—Bill Clinton, Former President of the United States of America

Perhaps we've all misunderstood the reason we learn we learn music, and all the arts in the first place. It is not only so students can learn the clarinet, or another student can take an acting lesson. It is that for hundreds of years it has been known that teaching the arts, along with history and math and biology, helps create the well-rounded mind that western civilization, and America, have been grounded on.
—Richard Dreyfuss, actor

Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.
—Plato

Our society is committing cultural genocide. When the economy tightens and school budgets shrink, programs in music and the other arts are most often the first to be cut back or even totally eliminated from the curriculum. This deprives children of a unique opportunity to develop their creativity, learn self-discipline and teamwork, and increase their sense of self-worth. It strikes me as being supremely ironic that today, we still have to try to make the case that music is indispensable if the term educated is to mean anything.
—Michael Greene, President of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences

I believe arts education in music, theater, dance and the visual arts is one of the most creative ways we have to find the gold that is buried just beneath the surface. They [children] have an enthusiasm for life, a spark of creativity, and vivid imaginations that need training training that prepares them to become confident young men and women.
—Richard W. Riley, U.S. Secretary of Education

While most of us will never sing like Aretha Franklin or Celine Dion, an education in the arts can help all of us reach our individual dreams. Research now shows that music education not only lifts our children's hearts, but also dramatically increases their abstract reasoning, spatial skills, and their scores on math and verbal exams. At a time when too many arts education programs are the first to be cut and the last to be added, all of us must send a clear message. When it comes to igniting our children's ability to learn and imagine, the arts must be just as central to our children's education as the three R's.
—Hillary Rodham Clinton, former First Lady and Senator of the United States

The arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic music, dance, painting, and theater are all keys that unlock profound human understanding and accomplishment.
—William Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education

I have a premonition that one day we will soon wake up to the realization that stripping instrumental music from our elementary schools was a true blunder of twentieth century American education.
—James S. Catterall, professor of education, UCLA

Whoever has skill in music is of good temperament and fitted for all things. We must teach music in schools.
—Martin Luther

Music education opens doors that help children pass from school into the world around them— a world of work, culture, intellectual activity, and human involvement. The future of our nation depends on providing our children with a complete education that includes music.
—Gerald Ford, former President of the United States

Surveys show that a majority of parents believes the arts are as important as reading, writing, math, science, history, or geography. Most parents want their children to have more experience with the arts than they had when they were young.
—Louis Harris, Americans and the Arts VI, 1992.

Students in two Rhode Island elementary schools who were given an enriched, sequential, skill-building music program showed marked improvement in reading and math skills. Students in the music program who had started out behind the control group achieved statistical equality in reading and pulled ahead in math.
—Gardiner, Fox, Jeffrey, and Knowles, Nature, May 23, 1996.

Over nine in ten adults (93%) surveyed agree that music is part of a well-rounded education.
—Americans' Attitudes Toward Music, The Gallup Organization, 1997.

The Kettle Moraine school district in Wales, Wisconsin is requiring piano lessons for all K-5 pupils after seeing encouraging results from a district pilot program. District officials based their pilot program on research findings that show music training —specifically piano instruction— is far superior to computer instruction in enhancing children's abstract reasoning skills.
—Karen Abercrombie, Education Week, October 14, 1998.

The arts are recognized as a core subject in the Goals 2000: Educate America Act approved by both houses of Congress in 1994.
—National Education Goals Panel.

A two-year Swiss study involving 1,200 children in 50 school showed that students involved in the music program were better at languages, learned to read more easily, showed an improved social climate, demonstrated more enjoyment in school, and had a lower stress level than non-music students.
—E.W. Weber, M. Spychiger, and J.L. Patry, 1993.

Research shows when the arts are included in a student's curriculum, reading, writing, and math scores improve.
—J. Buchen Milley, A. Oderlund, and J. Mortarotti, The Arts: An Essential Ingredient in Education, The California Council of the Fine Arts Deans.

The College Board identifies the arts as one of the six basic academic subject areas students should study in order to succeed in college.
—Academic Preparation for College: What Students Should Know and Be Able to Do, The College Board.

When researchers analyzed the NELS:88 database of the U.S. Department of Education, which tracked 25,000 students over a ten-year period, they discovered that students who were involved in music scored higher on standardized tests and reading tests than students not taking music courses. This finding was consistent for students of all socioeconomic backgrounds.
—Dr. James Catterall, UCLA

School districts with strong arts education programs report that superintendents and school principals who collectively support and regularly articulate a vision for arts education are critically important to the successful implementation and stability of district arts education policies.
—Gaining the Arts Advantage, The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, 1999.