Music Programs : Sing For Success!

The program does not require an audition or placement interview and is only available in Hagerstown at Rockland Woods Elementary School.

Does music really make you smarter? Well, yes and no. Current research shows that if you play an instrument, you tend to get better grades in school, but if you sing in a choir you may not.

But before you go rushing out to take your child out of choir as a waste of time, stop to consider the big difference between singing in a choir and playing a musical instrument. Traditionally, you have to read music to play an instrument. You don’t have to read music to sing in a choir. And that may be the big difference.

The fact is, if you treat the voice as a musical instrument and teach the singers to read music, the members of the choir start improving their grades, too.

The thing that makes us smarter may not be so much in music itself, but in learning to read music or becoming musically literate. Being musically literate means using the brain to process musical sounds in complex ways. It’s like doing mental push-ups. Brain scans show that the whole brain is active when reading music or when listening as a musically literate person. Reading music exercises the brain and keeps it strong and active. It even seems to condition the brain to learn better, especially in the areas of reading, math, and analytical thinking.

The Sing for Success! program is proving that daily music literacy training for young children helps them get better scores on their standardized tests and better grades on their report cards. What is the musical instrument? The least expensive of all: the voice.

It will be rewarding to follow these kindergarten children through the fifth grade and get the whole picture. Once the results are in, the next step will be to show every school in the nation why they would want to build daily music lessons in vocal music literacy into their curriculum.

All children, regardless of music talent or I.Q., can achieve more academically when they “sing for success!”

Dr. Dana Rothlisberger, Professor - University of Maryland’s Towson University
Ph.D. University of Maryland; M.M. East Texas State University (now Texas A&M-Commerce)
B.M. East Texas State University (now Texas A&M-Commerce); Member: MBDA, MMEA, CBDNA, NBA

Rob Hovermale, Supervisor of Fine Arts - Washington County Board of Education

Kathy Stiles, Principal - Rockland Woods Elementary School; Hagerstown, MD

We enthusiastically support Sing for Success! and the goal of ensuring music “literacy” (the ability to read and write music) and academic achievement for children through vocal music education.

We congratulate the Washington County Board of Education’s visionary efforts to guarantee an academically strong and holistic education for the county’s children. As parents and as donors to Children’s Chorus of Maryland & School of Music (CCM) and to Sing for Success!, we recognize the fundamental value of this research project. We passionately support CCM’s efforts of as they seek to establish a strong and viable public/private initiative in Washington County, Maryland.

Our family participates with CCM on many levels – all three of our children are choral students, we volunteer our time, we love to attend recitals and — indicative of our love — we donate substantially. CCM and Sing for Success! are the largest donations from our family foundation. In fact, we are so excited that Sing for Success! is our first multiyear pledge. We have defined our foundation’s mission as protecting the health and welfare of women and children. We felt that the importance of this research for the betterment of education of all children was too important for us to pass up.

Research shows a strong association between formal music training and cognitive development. We are excited to broaden that association to include formal vocal training, to provide the framework for our children to tackle complexity in their studies and in their lives. Sing for Success! is an opportunity to research this theory guided by some of the most committed and skilled educators. We hope that the documentation of this project will become a powerful foundation for combining music literacy with vocal education in our schools. It is as exciting as it is important for us to help meet their goals and to be a part of this educational shift.

Please accept our challenge to you to join us in supporting the landmark Sing for Success! project.

Scott Plank and Dana DiCarlo
J.S. Plank and D.M. DiCarlo Family Foundation