Musical intelligence is a sensitive territory in which the creative and artistic essence of the human being is represented, an area that, in turn, has its own universal language that we must all appreciate, that every child must have the opportunity to know. others, few skills require so much sensitivity and such subtle mastery of rhythm, tempo, timbres and sounds?
So far no one has managed to place in history what was the precise moment when the first musical expression appeared, in fact anthropology holds that music has always been present, part of our evolutionary history, printed in a very special part of our history. brain In fact, we know that 40,000 years ago, there were flutes with several holes, like those found in excavations in Germany.
- “Musical training is a more powerful instrument than any other.
- Because rhythm and harmony find their way to the depths of the soul.
- -Plato-.
More than that, and out of curiosity, there are works that have already ventured to talk about this symbolic skill of neanderthals, when they came to pierce animal phalanxes for an unusual purpose: to use them as flutes to make music. So the power of sound, music and songs – whether for ceremonial, magical or playful purposes – was always something of our kind and our cousins, something that essentially seemed to have an exclusive purpose: to unite in social groups.
We cannot forget that, as neurologists tell us, music is one of the areas that provides the most pleasure, as well as food or sex; every musical expression is a channel for our emotional language, moreover, as a study by Gottfried Schlaug, a German neurologist, reveals, music brings structural changes in our brains that promote the development of gray matter.
Working our musical intelligence is an exceptional way to value many other areas of our lives.
More than thirty years have passed since Howard Gardner published his historical book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Today, we have all heard of the theory of multiple intelligences and these 9 human abilities, among which Musical Intelligence has always had a place of choice because it is a language of its own and a means of expression of sensitivity. .
? Without music life would be a mistake. ? -Friedrich Nietzsche-
We will not enter here in discussing the validity or not of this classification. What we all already know is that Gardner’s multi-intelligence issue is an aspect that is praised and criticized by those defending a single intelligence factor (Spearman’s G-factor). Anyway, one thing this approach allows us to see is the intellect in a much broader way, to the point of revolutionizing. really, the world of pedagogy and education.
As for musical intelligence, Howard Gardner states in his books that we are actually faced with a different intellectual skill, whose function can be placed in a specific area of the brain, so when language skills are latered exclusively in the left hemisphere, most musical skills are concentrated, in most people , in the right hemisphere.
On the other hand, what Noam Chomsky has always suggested to us is that people are genetically predisposed to communication and learning of articulated language, Howard Gardner is also not far away and points to something that many experts agree on: newborns naturally also have a predisposition for music and for the elements that define it, such as tone , the melody, the rhythm?
However, Gardner cites in his work Jeanne Bamberger, a musician and psychologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an expert who insists that “musical thought has its own rules and limits and cannot be equated to mere linguistic or logical-mathematical thinking”. Therefore, we would face a type of skill, intelligence that should be stimulated from an early age in humans.
We know that there are people who were born with a natural skill for music, in fact, we have fantastic examples, like Anthony Thomas?Tony? DeBlois, a blind young man with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who masters more than 20 musical instruments and plays more than 8,000 compositions by heart.
“If he wasn’t a physicist, he would probably be a musician. I often think of music. I live my dreams in music. I see my life in musical terms. -Albert Einstein-
However, reaching the world without such an early and wonderful interest in the world of music does not mean that we cannot acquire good musical intelligence, what is needed is a family and educational environment that facilitates a natural approach to this discipline, where it is possible to develop the creative aspects of music, where to work this type of language in which the emotional world is combined , curiosity, rhythmic patterns, letters?
The Liverpool Performing Arts Institute, created by Paul McCartney, for example, supports this same philosophy.
There are many musicians, psychologists and educators who say something really positive and that need to be taken into account: music is a welfare factor and a channel to improve children’s self-esteem, not only stimulates creativity, improves attention, reduces anxiety, promotes reflection and improves social relationships.
Therefore, it is never too early to include children in this musical universe, where you can work the following skills:
In conclusion, musical expression is a natural form of human communication, it is a rhythmic flow that has captivated us since the dawn of time and which, in turn, has the ability to improve ourselves as people, to promote the development of our brains. Therefore, we must provide the right means for children to have access to this power, the means of expression by which it is possible to further enrich their own lives.
References
Pirfano, Isigo (2009) “Musical Intelligence”. Platform: Madrid
Gardner, Howard (2011)? Multiple intelligences: theory in practice ?, Iberian Paidas