Hello from BBB and welcome to our fourth Fireworks magazine! In this edition we are excited to share updates on our upcoming Live Courses, we check in with BBB community members who are making waves in the music education and advocation realms, and Anita ponders the concept of a musical lens.

It's 2023 and this year is all about breaking the barriers between music and classroom teachers. We also want school leaders to truly understand the powerful impact music learning has on student development.

Issue 002 of Fireworks, the BBB magazine is now available to all BBB+ members. Packed with BBB success stories and updates, a community interview, pieces written by Dr Anita Collins, and so much more. Fireworks will inspire and motivate you to advocate for music education.

Introducing Fireworks, our brand-new quarterly magazine for BBB+ members. Packed with BBB success stories and updates, a community interview, pieces written by Dr Anita Collins, and so much more. Fireworks will inspire and motivate you to advocate for music education.

“It’s about how we spend the money”. That was the catch cry of a number of politicians this week when the preliminary results from NAPLAN were released. Senator Birmingham was referring to the disappointing return on their investment in education. So Senator, what are we spending the money on?

A great article from Dr Nina Kraus, one of the leading researchers in the neural encoding of speech and music.

Music and language: two sides of the human communication coin.

This study has compared musical training with the visual aspect of reading languages. The most interesting thing about the study design is that they have compared Chinese language reading and English language reading.

This study is important because it is trying to get to the bottom of the neural development of the auditory and motor networks. It is, however, building on the research from musically trained children and reading.

This study explored if humans and monkeys process music, specifically pitch processing, the same way. Why would they want to research this? The reason is music, as we know it, is a unique creation by humans.

10 minutes of music learning a week for 10 weeks can improve reading skills for poor readers.

This brand new study with beginner readers (aged 5-7) found a whole swag of connections, concluding that “rhythm skills and literacy call on overlapping neural mechanisms, supporting the idea that rhythm training may boost literacy in part by engaging sensory‐motor systems”.