• Music is an element of all cultures.
• Babies are born with extensive musical skills and are able to respond to basic musical elements, from rhythmic skills to pitch awareness.
• Singing can meet all of the five Every Child Matters (ECM) outcomes and can significantly contribute to all 5 Extended schools Core Offer areas.
• Data has frequently shown that high earnings are associated with people who developed music and arts skills as children. This was confirmed in a recent report by Harris Interactive showing that 88 percent of people with a post-graduate education were involved in some form of music-making activity at school. Of those earning $150,000 or more, 83 percent of those had a music education.
• Research on choral singing by Robert Beck and Thomas Cesario at the University of California found that Immunoglobulin A, a protein used by the immune system to fight disease, increased by 150% during rehearsals and 240% during performance.
  
• Studies have shown that school music lessons can benefit reading and language skills.
• Children receiving additional classroom music lessons showed increased social cohesion within class, greater self-reliance, better social adjustment, and more positive attitudes in general. These effects were particularly marked in low-ability, disaffected pupils.
• Very young children have been shown to increase the amount, quality and understanding of speech developed through singing activities.
• Music can be used to reinforce mathematical development through the use of finger and counting games and exploration of musical instruments and sound-makers through sequencing and patterning.
• Music can be used to improve memory as we are genetically programmed to remember longer sequences of music than text.
• Some recent research suggests that singing is how we initially learn to speak and communicate, but vocalizing from birth.
• Most adults naturally walk at a rate of around 117 steps per minute – even if the length of the stride is different. In classical music, andante translates as walking pace, which is a speed of between 110 and 120 beats per minute.
• Congenital amusia (the inability to distinguish between differences in note pitches) is a very rare condition. Despite this, up to 1 in 10 of the population claim to be ‘tone deaf’. In reality, only 4% of people are likely to be affected and sense of rhythm and dance ability remains unimpaired. Much research has been done on this in recent years and studies and tests such as this www.delosis.com/listening can be found online.