This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Music. : NPR Ed : NPR

This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Music. : NPR Ed : NPR: Musical training doesn't just improve your ear for music, it also helps your ear for speech. That's the takeaway from an unusual new study published in The Journal of Neuroscience. Researchers found that kids who took music lessons for two years didn't just get better at playing the trombone or violin. They found that playing music also helped kids' brains process language.

And here's something else unusual about the study: where it took place. It wasn't a laboratory — but in the offices of Harmony Project in Los Angeles. It's a nonprofit, after-school program that teaches music to children in low-income communities.

Two nights a week, neuroscience and musical learning meet at Harmony's Hollywood headquarters, where some two dozen children gather to learn how to play flutes, oboes, trombones and trumpets. The program also includes on-site instruction at many public schools across Los Angeles County.