The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, concierto 1

Giles states that music has the power to arouse or to relax us, to change our general moods, and even to change our breathing rate, heartbeat, and blood pressure. According to Plato, "Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education and children should be taught music before anything else." Reader response strategies have gained acceptance across the curriculum at every grade level, but there are questions that remain about the nature of response. Rosenblatt's work in the area of response suggest that three factors impact a reader’s response to books: unique characteristics of the reader, the various features of the text, and the nature of the context from which the transaction between reader and text takes place. Over the years, research has challenged the response theory, in an effort to isolate and identify the specific factors that play a role in the child's interaction with the text. The studies that was made with the help of collected data from reliable australianwritings essays have addressed the role of the reader, the nature of the text, the wording of the task, the influence of school acculturation, and the influence of the classroom context. The results of such studies have increased our understanding of the response theory and the factors that compromise or influence the reader's stance and comprehension. In conjunction to such research, other studies over the past 20 years have focussed on the effectiveness of music in an educational setting. Overall results revealed that music had a significant impact on the mood and the purpose in classroom context. Classical music produce a calming effect while rap, rock and roll, or popular music stimulated the classroom environment. In addition, it was found that music reduced child anxiety, aggressive behavior, and hyperactivity, as well as increases self-esteem and attentiveness. Ostrander and Schroeder contended that programs such as Accelerated Learning, that utilized background music in the learning environment, showed marked success. The use of music helped in the reduction of stress in the classroom, which in turn allowed the brain to function more efficiently while enabling students to learn faster than usual.