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Daniel Salgado

Cunningham

British Literature (4)

7 February 2019

Annotated Bibliography

Cowing, Emma. "Key of Life: Music Gives Children Academic Edge and Social Skills."

Scotland on Sunday, Sep 09, 2012, pp. 4. ProQuest,

https://search.proquest.com/docview/1038528513?accountid=172748​.

In this article, Cowing studies the importance of musical instruments and the benefits of it. After

examining multiple studies by different sources across the world, she discusses the benefits of

learning a musical instrument and at what age it benefits a child most. Cowing describes how

after a nine month study where one group of six-year-old children were taught to play the

keyboard and another group of six-year-olds were given drama lessons, the IQs of the group that

was taught to play the keyboard had risen by seven points while the other group’s IQs had risen

between zero to four points. Cowan also adds a comment by Susan Hallam, of the Institute of

Education in London, in which she states that learning an instrument “improves listening, it

impacts on how they learn language, literacy, mathematics, it can boost self-esteem, and social

skills.” This article provides a great insight to why more people should learn an instrument no

matter your age as it can seriously benefit you.

Balistreri, Marisa. “5 Key Skills to Be Musical.”

Musical U, Musical U, 14 Feb. 2017,

www.musical-u.com/learn/5-key-skills-musical/#​.
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In this article, Balistreri describes the prior skills that are necessary to learning an

instrument. She uses an article written by Dr. Chad West, an Associate Professor and Chair of

Music at Ithaca College to further describe skills that you must have prior to learning an

instrument. Dr. West states that the five core skills are executive, notation, rhythmic, tonal, and

creativity. Dr. West believe that the prior skills needed are simple skills that everyone could’ve

learned as early as elementary where kids are taught with songs by dancing and singing along.

Things like singing along and moving to the beat of a song can easily help and are the most

important part when learning a musical instrument. This article describes how you don’t have to

be a musical genius or need some sort of rare skill when learning an instrument. As long as you

are able to simply move to a beat, you can learn to play an instrument.

Grinnell, Dustin. “How We Learn a Skill: The Journey from Novice to Master.”

Eureka, 7 Oct. 2016,

eureka.criver.com/how-we-learn-a-skill-the-journey-from-novice-to-master/.

In this article, Grinnell explains how long it takes to master any skill. Grinnell references

to a book written by Malcolm Gladwell titled “​Outliers: The Story of Success​” which states that

in order to become a master or a genius at something, you must spend approximately 10,000

hours of practice, or around 10 years. Gladwell also references the musical composer Mozart,

stating that while Mozart started making music at 11-years-old, he didn’t make anything that

truly stood out until the age of 23-years-old. Grinnell also describes how there are different

stages when mastering a skill; the novice, the apprentice, the journeyman, and the master.

Ultimately, the master would refer to the 10,000 hours spent practicing a skill. Along with this,

Grinnell states that once you become the master, you are not going to always stay that way no
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matter what. He states that you must keep learning and practicing in order to stay a master. This

article is important because it reminds me that I should not aim to become the greatest within 5

weeks, as it is virtually impossible to become a master in only 5 weeks.