Boosting Brain Power with Pianos in Music class

Emerson, Garfield and Washington Schools are proud to be piloting the addition of piano keyboards to their intermediate Music classes. Students in grades 3-5 will be learning basic piano skills as well as improvising and composing their own songs using the arranging tools available on the new keyboards. K-5 Music teacher Elizabeth Hedberg is piloting the project at each of the three schools. She explains, “The most recent research on the benefits of Music education point to the numerous brain-based benefits of learning to play a musical instrument. We introduced ukuleles to the general music curriculum a few years ago and now with the addition of keyboards our students will be able to perform, compose, arrange, and improvise musical ideas while also experiencing the social/emotional benefits of making music in a group.”
The District 89 Music Department is hopeful that results of the pilot program will lead to the addition of piano keyboards to the general music classrooms in D89’s remaining four elementary schools in the near future.