SEIZE THE ADVANTAGE - don’t ever stop that music! Anita Collins is Australia’s leading music researcher, TedEd presenter and consultant to ABC documentary Don’t Stop the Music. Pat Devery talks with Collins and writes about her research and her work. As a young teacher Anita Collins found herself responsible for the high pressure musical formalities which accompanied the end of year graduation ceremonies at her school. Once the tension of the opening procession and national anthem had been concluded, however, she would find herself, in her words, “a bit bored, to be honest – so I started a little game”. That game would not be unfamiliar to many music teachers across the nation, namely, keeping a record of how many students from the band or orchestra were called up on stage to receive an academic award. Invariably Collins would find that seven or eight of the top prize winners in each year group either had a previous or continuing and significant involvement in music.
delivering a TedEd presentation which to date has close to nine million views, being the consulting academic on the hit ABC documentary, Don’t Stop the Music, and now publishing her most recent book, The Music Advantage. The book is a compilation of Collins’s work over the last two decades, drawing on the latest international neurological research to reveal the extraordinary and surprising benefits to children of learning music. The music advantage, it seems, kicks in right from the time we are born. Current research indicates that babies actually begin decoding language via the same neurological processes they use for music. Where once it was presumed that musical ability had a strong connection with mathematical proficiency, it now appears that music activity is more closely related to, and may in fact assist in, the acquisition of language. Intuitively this makes sense. A baby is clearly unable to discern what a word actually means, but they can understand meaning through the musical elements of rhythm, pitch, contour, and timbre of the way in which that word is spoken to them. “They use sound to identify the important things, like who
Invariably Collins would find that seven or eight of the top prize winners in each year group either had a previous or continuing and significant involvement in music.
Australia’s top music researcher Little did Collins know these musings would take her down a path to becoming Australia’s leading music researcher, 32 | independent education | issue 3 | Vol 50 | 2020
