MRI STUDIES DEMONSTRATE THAT
THE BRAIN OF MUSICIANS HAS MORE COMPLEX STRUCTURE, WHEN COMPARED TO NON-MUSICIANS
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INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
ON ADVOCACY FOR MUSIC/ARTS EDUCATION
THROUGH BRAIN/MUSIC RESEARCH
part of 29th WORLD CONFERENCE OF INTL SOCIETY FOR MUSIC EDUCATION (ISME), BEIJING,
under auspices of UNESCO,
organized and led by our founder Rozalina Gutman with enthusiastic support of dedicated volunteers
MRI studies demonstrate that instinctive release of healing neurotransmitters (dopamine, oxytocin etc.) upon proactive interaction with music, allows informed by the brain research curriculum for music education to serve as the HIGH EFFICACY transformative tool to counter some limiting instinctive evolutionary relics, by using authentic re-patterning modalities that allow for their reflection and recognotion, helping blind spots ceize, as well as building emotional resilience & achieving more EMOTIONALLY/INTELLECTUALLY BALANCED COGNITION, CRITICAL FOR OPTIMAL FUNCTION, propelling advancement towards Higher Human Potential. (See more details on using complex music for achieving emotional/intellectual balance, critical for optimal cognition, by going to pages related to our FEATURED HILIGHT subject - the SENSATIONAL DISCOVERY of previously unrecognized Bach's FUGUE-PARODY by Rozalina Gutman )
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Symposium's Abstracts | <<< Click to view SYMPOSIUM ABSTRACTS and the list of the panel of distinguished internationally esteemed experts and veterans of advocacy for music education, who had gathered from various countries to provide their perspectives on the subject of "Rethinking the Future of Music Literacy: Extinction or Rebirth in a Form of "Cognitive Technology"?", mapping the future strategy to bring the field INTO COMPLIANCE WITH THE FINDINGS OF BRAIN/MUSIC RESEARCH, and to contribute their cultural perspective to the comparative analysis of both failures and successful outcomes of the policy on utilizing music, as the transformative tool of brain development (see more coverage of the 29th World Conference of ISME, Beijing, China).
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At the Closing Ceremony for the 28th World Conference of ISME, 2008, in Bologna, Italy, Ms. Rozalina Gutman was personally invited to attend the 29th World Conference of ISME in Beijing, China, in Aug. 2010 by Ms. Yang Ruimin, President of Chinese Society for Music Education, VP of Committee of Art Education (Ministry of Ed.), R&D Center for Social Studies, & Co-chair of the Conference. This was inspiring, since Ms. Yang Ruimin enthusiastically supported the ideas of our Int'l Campaign since its very inception.
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While finding much of the support from all the new friends-colleagues from all over the world at the pre-Conference CEPROM commission, Ms. Gutman was inspired to create an event that targets comparative overviews of the music education systems that she was personally aware of, due to her unique int'l background of living in different countries. This time the choice was made to showcase some of the world's most remarkable accomplishments in the music education in Estonia & in Russia, in contrast with the pitiful picture of music education in California (part of the collapse of the entire CA public education). PHOTO: ISME int'l Board member Marvelina Moore in Bologna.
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The hosts did a great job producing this grand scale event with over 6 thousand music educators in attendance. Coordinating and organizing so many people, most of whom don't communicate in Chinese, while making them fed, happy with their stay, while providing clear conference logistics during the day and entertaining the delegates with marvelous music & theatrical shows was most certainly done very well. The engagement of many enthusiastic volunteers, the students of music colleges in various capacities, incl. translation and assistance with the technical issues of presentations was the key to the success of the event. It presented a great chance to meet young, bright and promissing music educators of tomorrow's China.
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| Ms. R. Gutman began her presentation by stating several paradoxes about the overwhelming need for the creativity skills in our societyy and the greately insignificant attention to state of music education in the current society, emphasizing the general lack of understanding that music literacy is actually essential in order to comprehend the depths of complex musical artistic creations - the process that presents both immense mental challenge and esthetic satisfaction, thus serving as a powerful cognitive tool for the developing advanced cognitive skills, even during the young age. <<< Prof. Daniel Levitin, author of best-selling books "Your Brain on Music", "The World in 6 Songs", co-producer of educational video "Music Instinct"
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Dr. Gottfried Schlaug, the founder of Music and Neuroimaging Lab >>>>
Ms. R. Gutman quoted powerful neuroscience studies [including "The evidence from MRI studies shows that the fibers in the corpus callosum, that connects the left- and the right- hemispheres of the brain, are as much as 15% larger in those who began playing music before the age 8. (Schlaug et. al. 1995b)" ], while expressing the understanding that the possession of such awareness on impirical level is not simply given and may be lacking in the minds of those individuals, who were not fortunate to have such priviledge in their own childhood (at times sadly incl. those who have the duty to create educational policies for large amount of population), making public awareness campaigns essential for the tangible positive changes to begin occuring.
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THE CRITICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE STRONG SYNC
BETWEEN LEFT/RIGHT HEMISPHERES OF THE BRAIN, THE FOUNDATION OF INTER-HEMISPHERIC BALANCE, THAT PLAYS PIVOTAL ROLE IN FUNCTIONAL DISCONNECTION SYNRDOM AND VARIETY OF ITS SPECTRUM THAT OFTEN REMAIN UNDETECTED AND UNRECOGNIZED
The below chart helps understand the complementing features of the balanced brain function are critical for for he optimal function of the brain. The features of the function of right/left hemispheres determin both perception of the world and the response by the individual. Corpus Callosum is the tissue of the brain that links hemisphers and assures balanced function in multitude of ways, as demonstred in the below chart. Development of the brain during early childhood is the most influential for forming balanced function of hemispheres, but brain plasticity allows for the brain to change throughout lifetime from he involvementinto various activities, especially noticeable through repeated actions, coordinated by the leaning curriculum.
Unpacked and left with no repatterning traumatic experiences can cause the dysfunction of DETACHMENT FROM EMOTIONAL REALITY, disengaging from involving into emotional expression, causing imbalance of optimal hemispheric function. And therapeutic approaches that don't involve arts/music-based expressions during counseling (Expressive Arts Therapy), but erroneously focus on VERBAL-ONLY modalities (currently, majority of training for counselors), are unable to both diagnose and repattern compound trauma, but only scratch at the tip of the iceberg, and at times may cause even more suffering in clients, as well as result in cognitive dissonance for counselors, leadi ng to burn out and psychological disorders, instead of desired satisfaction from their intended professional accomplishments. The absence of the balanced-brain development during childhood that can be caused by the lacking balance curricula results in imbalanced brain development of the variety degrees - from severe dysfunction that causes mental disability to the more subtle dysfunction of brain-balanced function and is called FUNCTIONAL DISCONNECTION SYNDROME (FDS).
Most sadly, due to the overwhelming multigenerational neglect of balanced brain education, FDS has become the norm in our society and often can not be detected since majority of population no longer possess this capacity. This makes people, whose perception of the world more advanced, to appear either abnormal or threatening, due to their capacity to see committed errors and blind spots among the conventions that has become norms and common attitudes . (One of the most terrifying exampls of such outcomes of this type of catastrophic societal blind spot is the looming H U M A N EXTINCTION. See COUNTDOWN'2045)
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Mutually complimenting functions of the left/right hemispheres of the brain critical for optimal function |
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All the presenters and participants felt quite honored by having co-Chair of the Conference Ms. Yang Ruimin in attendance. Among other distinguished guests were Prof. Claudia Glushankoff, the Chair of the Commission on Early Childhood Education (on the PHOTO) and Prof. Scott Goble, the Chair of the Commission on Policy. Among the guest-speakers were also such distinguished music scholars like Prof. Edward Abdullin (Moscow, Russia), the scholar of renown cognitive psychologist Lev Vygotsky, Prof. Patricia Pederiva, who contributed a very good English translation of the commonly used term of significance "Zone of Immanent Development" (vs. common "Zone of Approximate Development") among many other contributing educators from around the World.
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Ms. Rozalina Gutman was fortunate to have in attendance her most enthusiastic and never giving up CA colleague, based in Sacramento, the CA capitol, SCUS Prof. Crystal Olson, the veteran of the movement for Music Education for All in CA, the founder of the Master Degree program at CSUS that was just recently closed, "due to the lack of State funds". Prof. Olson presented the extremelly telling slide show, shared with her by the premier CA "watch-dog" agency for the legislative subjects, related to the Arts Education - "CA Alliance for the Arts".
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Report re. Music Education in CA | Please, read the Report on the state of music education in the State of California, presented by prof. Crystal Olson at the Int'l Symposium.
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| After arriving to CA as a refugee, Ms. R. Gutman had a chance to fully appreciate her being a "product" of one of the World's most sophisticated music education systems that was created in Russia/former Soviet Union, that is well known through out the World for its unsurpassable depth of the approach in training of music educators. She studied at the top pedagogical school (after 7 year specialized school for children and 4 years of music college), that prepared music educators for the higher education system, founded by revered Dm. Kabalevsky. This bi-cultural experience enabled her comparative perspective on the issue of music education in various countrie.
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| At the time, when CA legislators suddenly mindlessly approved earlier defeated Bill AB 2446 (Furutani), threatening whatever little was left of music education for over 6 million of CA children, it becace particularly significant to have this comparative case studies presented, while also engaging such top authorities in the field like Ms. Maria Kabalevsky (the daughter of revered composer, world-renown educator and ISME Honorary President Dmitry Kabalevsky and CEO of Kabalevsky Center in Moscow, Russia) and Prof. Ene Kangron, one of the veterans of Estonia's music education top team (kindly referred by choral conductor Prof. Laul, the co-owner of the Estonia Piano Co.). (Finally, due to being highly misleading, Bill AB 2446 was passed in the State House & Senate & had to be vetoed by the wise decision of Governor Schwarzenegger on Sept 30, 2010 - read more about the power of the SONG and C.H.A.R.I.S.M.A.tic actions )
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Ms. Ene Kangron demonstrated videos from the Nation-wide annual Song Festival that engages virtually everyone in active and sophisticated music making event of the breathtaking size and complexity, where several thousand of people sing along with performers (incl. teens), easily singing complex harmonies (certainly the great inspiration for every music educator). Ms. Kangron provided variety of details about the current picture of Estonian music education, casually mentioning what does not appear that special, but rather routine to her: every child ages K-12 that goes to the public school in Estonia has a chance to have regular music lessons. How more telling this "simple" fact could be?
Click for the panoramic view & sound to explore the BELOW images of the legendary Song Festival that gathers tens of thousands of Estonian singers, who demonstrate very high proficiency in music literacy through using multi-parts harmomies.
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| Maria Dmitrievna Kabalevskaya with her grand-daughter at the Kabalevsky's flat-museum in Moscow, Russia. To find out about the current events, organized in connection with Kabalevsky Center, and the magazine "Music Educator", please, go to: www.Kabalevsky.ru (Please, use GoogleTranslate to interpret the contents in Russian. Additional ?? can be also directed through our site via e-mail message.)
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| The comparative overview proved that the often used excuse of "lacking funds" (in CA, one of the World's largest and most prosperous economies) is actually not the real reason for having incredible achievements in music education (such as in Estonia, a tiny country that struggles to overcome economic problems, due to its transition from the Soviet system). But, rather the answer for the larger community for having access to the fundamental cultural values and to the cognitive advancement through music education depends on the tradition and widely spread public awareness on impirical level about its benefits, that Estonia obviously possesses in abundance.
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Ms. R. Gutman is by the entrance of the Olympic Village Conference Center, in Beijing |
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Happy exchange between Ms. R Gutman and Ms. Yang Ruimin, the Conference's co-Chair |
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Celebrating the successful presentation of the Symposium with Prof. Kangron, Prof. Pederiva, Prof. Abdullin |
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Award Ceremony at the Closing of 29th World ISME Conference |
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Ms. R. Gutman showing Advocacy Message to ISME President-Elect Graham Welch & Chair of 30th ISME Conference Dr. Polyvios Androutsous |
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Ms. Judy Thonell, ISME Secretary General, supporting our Campaign |
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The closing of every exciting and inspiring large scale forum is always a bit sad... But, the closing of every ISME Conference is a musical introduction to the country, hosting the next Conference. Greek delegation, led by Dr. Polyvios Androutsos, presented a beautiful musical invitation to the country, that is a birthplace of Western civilization, where music was known to be an effective educational tool for many centuries. At the end, those never predictable and fiery rhythms of the street band, that symbolically entered from the audience, stirred up everyone into improvised folk dance lesson, promising many more of such intriguing discoveries in 2012 in Thessaloniki. We are truly looking forward to attending the jubilee 30th World Conference of ISME in Greece and are hard at work, already preparing for it in advance. (Ms. R.Gutman grew up by the Black Sea in a former Greek colony, at that time called "Kerkenitida".)
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