Madeline Frank, Ph.D., Teacher, Researcher, Author & Musician: Brighter Children through Studying A Musical Instrument: Madeline’s Monthly Musical Tips/Article for February 2022
Our blog and Radio Show features Dr. Madeline Frank, award winning teacher, researcher, best-selling amazon author, speaker, business owner, parent, and concert artist.
Our article of the month is “Interesting Hotel Adventures” by Madeline Frank, Ph.D.
Radio Show Feature Question for February 2022: How does Classical music play a part of Dr. Madeline Frank’s life as an award-winning teacher, researcher, orchestra conductor, and musician and which musical instruments does she play?
https://www.madelinefrankviola.com/one-minute-radio-show-2022
Madeline Frank, Ph.D.:
For over 40 years, she has had the pleasure of teaching students to play the violin, viola, and cello in concerts, as soloists, chamber musicians, and in orchestras. These students ranged in age from kindergarten through 12th grade and college/university students through graduation.
She has watched these students who studied with her from first grade through 12th, become wonderful math and science students.
Many of her former students have become Medical Doctors, scientists, engineers, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, biologists, teachers, accountants, computer scientists, researchers, marketing experts, and other amazing occupations.
For over thirty years ago, she asked herself, “Is there a connection between studying a musical instrument and academic success?”
Dr. Frank is a product of this correlation! At the age of 8, she was failing out of school and unable to read.
She says, “I was a Tom boy who loved climbing trees and was often being rushed to the emergency room! After my last emergency visit, my Momma made me promise to never climb another tree in exchange for a violin and violin lessons.”
“I promised. I was so excited! I had wanted to play the violin for several years. Momma bought me a violin and arranged for violin lessons. My teacher, Mr. William Whitson, a military officers and violinist, taught me
how to hold the violin, how to hold the bow, how to read the notes on the musical page which is parallel to reading a book. He then showed me where to put my fingers on the violin to play the theme from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. He also taught me how to take care of my violin and bow and to clean them.”
“You see Mr. Whitson did the impossible. By teaching me to play the violin, he taught me to read the musical notes on the page, which is parallel to reading a book. That summer the light went on and I began my journey of playing the violin and learned to read.”
“Thanks to Mr. Whitson I became a good student in school and continued playing and studying the violin. Mr. William Whitson made all of this possible because of his belief in my ability even when I had no belief in myself and could not read.
At 17, I played for the first time at Carnegie Hall and went on to earn two degrees from the Juilliard School, where Mr. Whitson had also studied. I performed with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, played concerts with Frank Sinatra, Lou Rawls, Natalie Cole, and performed concerts and recitals around the world also teaching classes as a visiting professor. Later I went on to earn a Ph.D. in Administration/Management with an emphasis on Total Quality Management.”
Background:
Many of the world’s scientists, medical doctors, mathematicians, engineers, teachers, and others have studied and played musical instruments since they were children. These eminent individuals have integrated music into their thinking process. Studying a musical instrument develops millions of new connections, synapses, between nerve cells in the brain.
It has been found that children who study a musical instrument learn discipline, cooperation, teamwork, motivation, concentration, and self-esteem. Recent medical research has determined that when you play a musical instrument, all four lobes of the brain and the cerebellum are being stimulated. By playing a musical instrument, brain cells are strengthened and form new connections. The brain is a Darwinian organ that changes with the stimulation it receives.
Regenerating Brain Function Through Studying a Musical Instrument:
An example of how musical study creates and improves neurological connections may be the example of the regeneration of brain function in those individuals who have had portions of their brain removed (hemispherectomy) as a procedure to alleviate seizures caused by Rasmussen’s Encephalitis and Epilepsy. A child of eight continued to do well after this operation. He took piano lessons and continued to do well in mathematics.
In two months, he was able to make progress in language use which would normally have taken nine months. The study of music was restoring necessary brain function.
“Music Stimulates the Brain”:
A New York City public school district in a low-income housing project, decided to undertake a three-year music program to find out if third graders could learn to read and write while studying a musical instrument. The program hired a music teacher, bought instruments and music. Each week the students had two, forty-five-minute instrumental classes on woodwind, brass, or percussion. At the end of the year all the children were reading at grade level and attending school every day. The program flourished.
A similar study was done in a Virginia Public School working with at risk children, produced positive results with sixth graders studying string and band instruments. The students came to school to participate in the musical instrument classes and improved on Literacy Passport Test.
In Albuquerque, New Mexico public schools, two groups of 5th graders, one group studying instrumental music and the other group not, performed on the standardized reading, language, and math tests; Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS). The students who studied in the band scored 10-12% higher and in orchestra scored 16 to 20 % higher than the students not taking instrumental classes. These results were based on two or more years in band and orchestra. The longer the students took instrumental music the higher their academic scores.
Articles & “The Secret of Teaching Science and Math Through Music”:
Dr. Frank continued researching this correlation and published her research in several articles in the early 1990’s. Her first book, “The Secret of Teaching Science and Math Through Music” (published in 1997) shared the research she had done during that time.
Blog & Radio Shows:
She continued her research writing a monthly blog beginning in 2006 and in 2007 began a Radio Show. Each month she interviewed scientists, mathematician, chemists, engineers, medical doctors, physicists, teachers, computer scientists and others who had studied musical instruments since childhood and continued to play their musical instruments integrating music into their thinking process.
Below are a few of the scientists, medical doctors, mathematicians, engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists, researcher, inventors, and teachers she researched and interviewed:
Hedy Lamarr, actress, mathematician, inventor; Judith A. Resnik, Astronaut , electrical engineer; Dr. Edward Jenner, Physician, created small pox vaccine; Dr. William Withering, Medical doctor, discovered digitalis; Dr. May Edward Chinn, Medical Doctor, cancer researcher; Dr. Margaret Fountain Pinkston, Chemist ,Biochemist, Professor; Dr. Theodor Billroth, Physician, father of gastrointestinal surgery, professor; Dr. Lisa M. Wong, Medical Doctor, professor; Dr. Mark Almond, Medical Doctor, pulmonologist and general internal medicine physician,; Dr. Burton Fine, Chemist; Dr. Ilya Prigogine, Noble Prize winner, Chemist, Professor; Dr. Marguerite Vogt, Medical Doctor, Polio Virus Researcher, Virologist, Molecular Biologist; Dr. Emmy Noether, Mathematician, Professor,; Dr. Edward B. Lewis, American Noble Prize winner, Geneticist; Dr. Eric Wieschaus, American Noble Prize winner, Biologist, Professor; Dr. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard’s , biologist, geneticist, Nobel Prize winner, professor; Norman Pickering, engineer, inventor, researcher, and musician; Dr. Gerald Edelman, Noble Prize winner, Physician, Neuroscientist, Professor; Dr. William Andberg, Veterinarian, Athlete; Dr. Oliver Sacks, Physician, Neurologist, Professor; Dr. Albert Einstein, Physicist, Noble Prize winner, Professor; Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Medical Doctor, theologian. And others.
They have helped the world cure diseases, invent new products to protect others, and have provided a better life for mankind.
Radio Show Awards:
Madeline’s Radio Show has also awarded Top Teachers, Lifetime Achievement Awards for teachers, Top Graduating High School Seniors, and Top University Graduates.
The Secret to Teaching Science and Math Through Music by Madeline Frank, Ph.D. (1997, 1st Edition)
The Secret to Teaching Science and Math Through Music by Madeline Frank, Ph.D. (2nd edition, updated with blogs and Radio Shows (2014) Kindle
Musical Notes On Math by Madeline Frank, Ph.D.; teaching students in grades K-5 fractions and decimals through the rhythm of music. (1996, paper back, updated 2014 Kindle)
The first thing to go from the public schools’ budgets are the music instruction programs. Dr. Frank interviewed many superintendents and top officials in the public schools in several states. They said, “If it was made mandatory to take the instrumental music classes through high school many more students would graduate.”
Dr. Frank says, “Studying a musical instrument is vital to success for many students. Pick out a musical instrument you like, find a good teacher, and enjoy playing it the rest of your life!”
Interesting Hotel Adventures
By Madeline Frank, Ph.D.
Have you stayed at a hotel recently?
Did anything interesting happen?
Today, all of you will be coming with my husband and I to stay at hotels during this pandemic time.
You are parents/grandparents with kids and pets.
We have just arrived in Melbourne, Florida to stay at our hotel
You have your kids and pets, we have our cat Lilly with us.
Before we move in –
“You know the drill”- Spray all areas with Lysol Disinfectant Spray!
-One parent will stay outside the room with the kids, pets, and luggage while the other parent is armed with “Lysol Disinfectant Spray!”
You and I spray our hotel rooms with our Lysol spray:
All door knobs, all the bath room areas, all the kitchen areas, counters, beds, closet, hall ways, chairs, sofa, remote control for the TV, in room phone, and carefully with soft cloth with disinfectant on it wipe light switches, gently.
You and I notice under the bed…
Stray pills, —–which we remove and put in a plastic bag then spray the area!
By the mini refrigerator we notice –
Gummy bears —–which we also removed and put in our plastic bag. Then we spray the area with more Lysol.
Then after waiting a few minutes for the Lysol Disinfectant Spray to dry, we bring in our spouses, kids, pets and luggage.
When we brought Lilly into our room she looked around and sniffed and stood by the connecting door—
letting us know there was a neighbor pet next door.
When she’s happy she purrs and when she’s frightened her ears go back and she squeaks.
She stood by the door patiently and a dog barked!
She squeaked!
Who are your neighbors at the hotel?
Do they have pets and children?
“This reminds me of when my husband and I were on our honeymoon and we stayed in a hotel that changed the sheets everyday”…
FROM ROOM TO ROOM!
In every hotel you travel to with your family, kids and pets you will have a new adventure of what you will find in your hotel room!
Earlier this year you and I, our spouses, children, and pets were visiting Kansas City, Missouri and arrived at our hotel.
As usual our spouses, kids, pets and luggage waited outside the hotel for you and I to –
You Know the Drill!
Spray Lysol Disinfectant Spray, on all door knobs, all the bath room areas, all the kitchen areas, counters, beds, closet, hall ways, chairs,sofa, remote control for the TV, in room phone, and carefully with soft cloth with disinfectant on it wipe light switches, gently.
When we went to spray the sofa,
You and I noticed behind it…
“a stray pair of red high heels”.
After we removed the high heels, – we sprayed the area with Lysol.
After a few minutes- We were ready to move in to our hotel rooms with our spouses, kids, pets, and luggage.
When you first move into a hotel with your family, children, and pets, what 3 things should you remember to do?
1) You know the drill: Spray Lysol disinfectant spray – on all door knobs, all the bath room areas, all the kitchen areas, counters, beds, closet, hall ways, chairs, sofa, remote control for the TV, in room phone, and carefully with soft cloth with disinfectant on it wipe light switches gently.
2) Remove any stray dangerous toxic substances like pills and gummy bears to protect your family, children and pets from ingesting them. Then spray Lysol around and under the bed, fridge, and microwave.
3) Remove any stray items like previous guest’s red high heels, then spray the area with Lysol and return the red high heels to the hotel front desk.
After waiting a few minutes for the Lysol disinfectant to dry-
have your spouses, kids, pets, and luggage enter your hotel rooms.
It is always an adventure visiting a hotel even more so during this pandemic. Stay calm as you spray your Lysol to protect your family!
Remember the drill!
Spray the hotel room with Lysol – Let it dry-
before your family and pets enter to protect them! © 2022 Madeline Frank
If you need a virtual speaker contact Madeline at: [email protected]
The Secret of Teaching Science & Math Through Music” by Madeline Frank, Ph.D. is available in book form, and newly updated as an e-book on Kindle, Nook, or iBook:
com(Kindle)
“Musical Notes On Math” by Dr. Madeline Frank teaches your child fractions and decimals, the fun easy way, through the rhythm of music, Winner of the Parent To Parent Adding Wisdom Award is available in book form, newly updated as an e-book on Kindle, Nook, or iBook.:
com(Kindle)
Wishing you and your family a happy Valentine’s Day from Your Non-Invasive Medicine Music Expert, Madeline