A Well-Tempered Mind: Using Music to Help Kids Listen and Learn

Peter Perret, conductor of the Winston-Salem Symphony, chronicles in A Well-Tempered Mind how a brief NPR feature about music and the brain inspired him to create an innovative music education program for first- through third-graders at two elementary schools in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The musicians from his woodwind quintet taught the children to listen to music, detect the roles of the instruments, discern how music is constructed, and even compose their own music.

The e…