Music grows our brains and develops our capacities to live and love. This is one lesson among many in this interesting book by an educator and researcher into music education and brain development.

The cognitive research in music education is fascinating, and Dr. Collins — a trained classical musician, television presenter, and professor — communicates it very well. For instance, babies hear all sound as music, because they don’t yet understand the meanings of words. Song, singing, and playing music helps infants build trust as they sort out sound meanings in the process of developing talking skills and working with language.

Learning to keep a beat, through clapping or drumming, has been shown to aid children who are struggling with reading.

“The main thing to remember,” Collins writes in chapter 3, “is that your voice is a song inside your toddler’s ears. It is a song filled with information and your toddler is trying to separate out the elements, digest, and process them. Let them sing the same song for days and parrot language sounds until their brain recordings are made. And recognize that you are their rock star and their role model for language.”

In older children and adults, the research shows that music aids productivity. This throws the old parental complaint of “Turn that music off! You’re supposed to be studying!” into fresh perspective. However, the author clarifies: “We know that music and language processing have an overlapping neural network so it seems that listening to music with lyrics while writing words is a confusing activity for the brain.”

Here’s one that may surprise some readers: Playing an instrument teaches adolescents persistence and resilience as well, or better than, participation in sports does.

If you love music, are a parent or a teacher, or simply are interested in cognitive development, we think you will find this book helpful. It is written for the ordinary adult reader, but at the end of each chapter are “Further reading” suggestions that point to university studies and academic articles, for those wishing to delve deeper.