A Well-Tempered Mind: Using Music to Help Children Listen and Learn » (1st Edition)

Peter Perret been music director and conductor of the Winston-Salem Symphony from 1978 to 2004 and teaches a graduate-level neuroscience and music course at Wake Forest University. Janet Fox is a freelance arts and education writer based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

A Well-Tempered Mind investigates the intriguing connection between music education and brain development in children. Peter Perret and Janet Fox use the details of an innovative music education program for elementary school students to explore this fascinating relationship. A Well-Tempered Mind describes how the students of Bolton Elementary in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a local quintet worked together and then explains the ongoing research that focuses on how music engages the brain’s cognitive capabilities, from memory and language to emotional processing. Music, A Well-Tempered Mind reveals, is a universal language that expands young minds in essential ways. 

“The authors put flesh on the feeling shared by all music teachers that the experience of music enhances thought and learning in unexpected directions, well beyond the simple act of enjoying the sound. … It’s exciting and necessary reading for all who are battling to ensure the place of music in the school curriculum."—Times Educational Supplement