Music classes are great places for students to develop higher order thinking skills that can be applied in all kinds of situations throughout their lives. This is one reason that it’s a good idea to sign your children up for music lessons, band classes, orchestra classes, or even choir classes. Whether the emphasis is instrumental or vocal, participation in musical activities is a fantastic way to get the mind stimulated, and making connections all over the place. Of course in the beginning phases of learning music there is some strictly knowledge based learning going on. Learning note names and music vocabulary involves a lot of straight recall, which is considered a higher order thinking skill. On the other hand, once those notes and vocabulary terms are learned, students are participating in constant application, with analysis, synthesis, and even evaluation coming into play all over the place. Every note that is played is an application of note reading skills. As students advance in their theory knowledge and begin taking a deeper look at chord progressions and patterns in music, they are participating in analysis. Synthesis is achieved not only as students perform and create music, but also as they learn to compose and come up with original pieces of their own. What point would there be in learning about music if you were never able to be an active part in creating it? Most music class curriculums involve some aspect of evaluating performances as well. Students analyze specific parts of the performance to make an overall evaluation. Higher order thinking is a crucial aspect of survival in our world. Music classes are a great place for students to practice applying knowledge and using other higher order skills to produce a high quality product.
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