MINDFULLY MUSICAL: HOW MUSIC LESSONS CAN HELP CURE OUR MODERN-DAY ANXIETIES, DISTRACTIONS, AND OTHER FIRST-WORLD MALADIES.
In today’s age of social media and cell phone addiction, when community is shaped by your Facebook feed, and a time when kids and adults alike are experiencing an inability to be alone brought about by technology, how could you expect someone to tolerate sitting down at an instrument every day? To tolerate spending time alone every day? To feel proud having devoted an entire hour to a passage of music when there are texts to answer, instagrams to post, and your teachers and bosses expect to be able to reach you at all times?
To have your students participate in the research, please have them fill out the following survey. Survey: The Perks of Studying Music.
To participate in an online and ongoing happiness survey yourself, go to https://www.trackyourhappiness.org/
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Davis, et al. An Introduction to Music Therapy. McGraw Hill, 1999.
Davis, Tchiki. Outsmart Your Smartphone. New Harbinger Publications, 2019.
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Miles, Elizabeth. Tune Your Brain: Using Music to Manage Your Mind, Body and Mind. Berkley Books: NY, 1997.
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The Child as Musician; A Handbook of Musical Development. Gary McPherson. Oxford U. Press, NY, 2003.
ARTICLES, WEBSITES, AND LINKS:
Benefits of Music Education https://www.slps.org/site/default.aspx?DomainID=2046
Benefits of Playing the Piano: https://ogdenpianogallery.com/the-benefits-of-learning-to-play-the-piano/
Could Playing Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker improve kids’ brains? https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141223132546.htm
Creativity, happiness, and your own two hands https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-creativity-cure/201205/creativity-happiness-and-your-own-two-hands
Decline of Play and the Rise of Children’s Mental Disorders https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201001/the-decline-play-and-rise-in-childrens-mental-disorders
"Develop Grit" Esther Fellows. American Music Teacher. Feb/Mar 2019.
Handiwork: How busy hands can alter our brain chemistry https://www.cbsnews.com/news/handiwork-how-busy-hands-can-alter-our-brain-chemistry/
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/03/14/703170892/a-rise-in-depression-among-teens-and-young-adults-could-be-linked-to-social-medi?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20190314
Happiness Games: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/click-here-happiness/201711/ten-plus-happiness-games-and-activities
Happiness Skills Workbook: https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/store/p13/Happiness-Skills-eWorkbook.html
How Music Could Improve Language Skills https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141223132546.htm
How negative is your mental chatter? https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sapient-nature/201310/how-negative-is-your-mental-chatter
Music Lessons Improve Children’s Cognitive Skills and Academic Performance https://neurosciencenews.com/music-cognition-academics-8689/
Smartphones causing kids to experience altered childhood https://www.healthline.com/health-news/smart-phones-causing-kids-to-experience-altered-childhoods#2
Teaching Lessons for Children with Special Needs: https://nafme.org/teaching-lessons-children-special-needs/
Working with your hands—the secret to happiness? https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/may/08/working-hands-happiness-burkeman
Aubrey Faith-Slaker maintains a home studio in Chicago and also teaches at the Music Institute of Chicago and Sherwood, the Community Music School at Columbia College. She recently had her application to become a Suzuki Piano Teacher Trainer accepted and plans on finishing that process by the end of this summer. Aubrey has been active in teaching and studying in Central and South America for the past several years and will be giving a presentation on Music Lessons and Mental Health for Today's Distracted Children in Mexico in May at the first Suzuki Conference of the Americas. For some time now, Aubrey has been traveling to Lima, Peru to study and teach at the largest consistently-run Suzuki Festival in Latin America. Her award money from the MTNA-PTG scholarship, which is offered to MTNA certified teachers who use technicians in the technicians guild, will go toward teaching at the next Festival Suzuki de Peru. She has been MTNA certified since 2006. Aubrey received her BM in performance and pedagogy at the University of Illinois and her MM at Southern Methodist University.
