Reading a recent article on the vexed question of whether music education has an effect on children’s cognitive and academic development, I was brought back to a central question of my recent book, Musicking in a Relational Key:

What is music good for?

But first of all, is this really a vexed question? After all, mainstream and social media present it as a settled matter. Music appears as a cognitive silver bullet. “Music makes you smarter.” It’s a “total brain workout.”

The scientific studies on which this position rests, however, show a much more complex and disputed picture. As the authors of this new article note:

“Some recent reviews and meta-analyses have identified a small positive effect of music education on cognitive performance (Bigand and Tillmann 2022; Román-Caballero et al. 2020), but others attribute these alleged effects to methodological weaknesses, as well as selection and survivor biases (Cooper 2020; Sala and Gobet 2020; Schellenberg and Lima 2024).”

They continue:

“Although individual studies on the extrinsic effects of music education frequently report positive findings, meta-analytic evidence indicates the indirect effects of music training on non-musical domains are either minimal or non­-existent (Bigand and Tillmann 2022; Cooper 2020; Román-Caballero et al. 2020; Sala and Gobet 2020).”

So in fact, the effects appear to be somewhere between not very much and nothing at all.

If music did have an effect, what would the mechanism be?

“All these studies on the extrinsic effects of music education rely on the cognitive transfer paradigm, which posits that knowledge and skills developed through repeated training in a specific task can later be applied in other contexts (Salomon and Perkins 1989; Thorn­dike and Woodworth 1901). The literature in educational psychology and cognitive scien­ces traditionally distinguishes between near transfer and far transfer (Barnett and Ceci 2002). Near transfer refers to the transposi­tion of learning from one context to another closely related situation. For example, near cognitive transfer occurs when a student understands the algorithm to solve divisions and then successfully applies this knowledge to mathematical word problems. Far transfer entails applying knowledge or skills to con­texts that are more distant or dissimilar from the original learning context.”

The authors note, however:

“a causal effect of music education on academic performance would unquestionably constitute far transfer—an occurrence shown to be exceedingly rare.”

Two of the authors on whom they draw, Sala and Gobet, went as far as to argue in 2020 that research into far transfer via music training should be discontinued, given the weakness of the evidence for cognitive benefits.

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The original article that I’m discussing here is drawn from one of the authors’ PhD thesis, which examined a music education program targeted at disadvantaged children in the northern suburbs of Paris. The author, Julie Pereira, found that the program mainly produced near-transfer effects, such as modest improvements in musical listening skills. There were some temporary academic gains, but they did not last. She found no robust evidence of durable far-transfer effects, whether academic or psychosocial. The principal reason for the lack of lasting academic effects, she proposes, is that music instruction took time away from standard classes and thus impacted on general learning.

This was true even though the teachers often believed the program improved children’s confidence, behaviour or engagement. This gap between musicians’ beliefs and the findings of academic studies is something that I have written about before (Rethinking Social Action Through Music, Chapter 4).

In the article, the authors highlight that their conclusions “do not apply to other intensive music initiatives, including El Sistema-inspired models, that operate as extracurricular activities.” However, they have not studied such initiatives. When researching the Red de Escuelas de Música (Network of Music Schools) in Medellín, Colombia, and asking why students often dropped out in their teenage years, I was regularly told that it was due to a clash between musical activities and out-of-school study (i.e. homework). Students and/or their parents felt that music education was impacting on their preparation for exams. In other words, there was a similar dynamic to that found by Pereira: music took time away from academic study. It would thus be reasonable to hypothesize that Pereira’s findings would be replicated in time-intensive SATM programs like El Sistema and the Red.

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I’m left with contradictory feelings. I find Pereira’s article interesting given the critical light it sheds on dominant beliefs about music education. If heeded, it could make a valuable contribution to the practice field. So I like this article. At the same time, thinking about the broader research area of which it forms part, I can’t help feeling that Sala and Gobet are on to something: that academic researchers have devoted a lot of energy to a topic of questionable value, and that there could be better things to focus on.

An awful lot of time and resources go into trying to demonstrate that music education has a positive effect on children’s cognitive and academic development, and yet:

– the evidence is decidedly mixed, some reputable voices would say weak, and even in the best-case scenario, effects are small. That’s a lot of effort to show something between not very much and nothing at all.

– if the best-case scenario turned out to be accurate and music education were proven to have positive cognitive and academic effects, the result might be to increase educational and social inequalities when music education is delivered by intensive voluntary programs like El Sistema, as I argue in Rethinking Social Action Through Music. In other words, the consequences of positive cognitive effects could paradoxically be negative at a societal level where music education provision is uneven and focused on excellence.

– thinking about the state of the world in 2026 and the metacrisis that humanity faces, the whole question of cognitive and academic benefits for a few individuals or even communities just looks rather trivial. This is not going to change society in any meaningful way. In Vanessa Machado de Oliveira’s terms, it is soft reform: “difference that makes no difference.”

As I argue in my new book, we ought to focus on a more important question:

“how can music make us smarter? Us being humanity. How can we become smarter and avert the looming catastrophes, rather than continuing to run headlong towards them? This has little to do with individual intelligence or music operating invisibly on brains or a few talented musicians securing orchestral employment.”

Facing the metacrisis, we don’t need more individual intelligence. There are plenty of intelligent people, and a lot of them are working for AI firms, hedge funds, fossil fuel companies, and arms corporations. We need more collective intelligence.

In short, far transfer is a weak argument for music education with social goals. The evidence for it is shaky. If cognitive and academic benefits are genuinely important, there are better ways to achieve them (near transfer via direct instruction in academic subjects). And small, individual cognitive benefits aren’t enough in a time of metacrisis: we need much more – we need a relational transition.

Which brings me back to the question: what is music good for?

In my new book, I argue that the answer is, above all: relating. Connecting.

In other words, music’s superpower is aligned with what the world most needs today.

So why not focus our energies on what music is good for, and what the world most needs at a time of metacrisis (which is at root a crisis of separation), rather than pursuing extrinsic effects for which the evidence is weak and the value of which at a societal level is moot?

There is also evidence that the prosocial benefits of music learning are much more pronounced in programs that have been specifically designed for that end than in conventional music education.

So why not focus our energies on designing or redesigning music education to maximize its relational potential, rather than trying over and over again to prove that the old model has cognitive and academic impacts for which it was never intended?

I believe that we should spend much less time and effort trying to prove that conventional music education is transformative, and much more time and effort transforming music education.

Much research seems geared towards justifying conventional music education, which isn’t very effective in prosocial or relational terms in comparison with more specialized programs. Everything points towards rethinking and redesigning if social benefits are considered important. Relationality is something that music can do very well, if planned with care, and it’s very important for humanity today. Relational design is the way forward.

Finally, a relational approach resolves the tension between focusing on intrinsic or extrinsic benefits, which comes up in this article and many other studies. According to the perspective of Christopher Small and many since, such as Dave Camlin and Nicholas Cook, musicking is primarily about relationships. So relationality is both intrinsic and extrinsic. To attend to the quality of relating in a musical context is to attend to musicking; yet this is also what the wider world urgently needs in a time of metacrisis. What better focus could there be for the energies of musicians, educators, and researchers than relationality?

[photo: bullerengue in San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia – by Bullerengue Circle]